By: Lily Steinbock
On August 11th 2013, Anthony Weiner attended the Dominican Day Parade in Manhattan in hopes of gaining a sufficient amount of supporters. Stuck in a distant fourth place of the New York City mayoral race, Weiner’s success began slipping through his fingers after there was talk about his continuation of online affairs. Struggling to enliven his campaign, Weiner decided to confront the situation with a rather unusual approach.
Out of pure desperation, Weiner’s public relations team turned to what they thought would help, hiring actors to play supporters. The company, Crowds on Demand, provided actors to show support at upcoming campaign events.
News stories were published immediately, scrutinizing Weiner for false advertising.
A source told The Post,
“The Weiner campaign reportedly asked the company to have actors seem, ‘like either supporters or people who met him and became supporters as a result of that encounter.’”
With the campaign in denial of employing Crowds on Demand, another breaking story reached the tabloids. After releasing the new campaign commercial, there was mention of interns posing as regular New Yorkers. Spokeswoman, Barbara Morgan, stated, “Unlike our opponents, we don’t rely on open casting calls for folks in our ads.” But, the decision to choose interns and paid actors over the hard-core supporters, is an example of social exchange theory.
The social exchange theory acknowledges that not every individual chooses the same strategies based on the rewards and costs. People strive to minimize costs and base the likeliness of developing a relationship with someone on the perceived outcomes. There is an opportunity cost when deciding to pay actors to stand in at important events. In order to achieve the benefits, the cost they are faced with is more than just financial. His campaign team was not communicating with the correct audience in regards to what had been happening. Social behavior is the result of an exchange process. The campaign had to estimate the consequences they would confront when associating themselves with a frowned upon alternative, hiring people to support a candidate.
It is important to focus on how it will affect the sponsors and supporters when dealing with a crisis management. It was the responsibility of the campaign public relations team to control and persuade the way an audience perceives Weiner. However, companies want to keep costs low and rewards high.
In this example, I determined that Weiner’s team came to a rash conclusion without anticipating the backlash they would encounter if people discovered their motives. Renting Crowds on Demand, brought unnecessary attention to Weiner’s campaign. It brought into question whether he had the right intentions or not. Because of the poor image Weiner drew to himself with the multiple sex scandals, the public relation team should have taken an approach to ensure he would be remembered for something more positive. Instead the public was left with yet another Weiner scandal.
In regards to his campaign, the company should have realized that his rewards were not going to be as high as they were intended to be. The tactics chosen by the public relations members coincided with his deceiving behavior. Instead they should have taken an alternative approach by starting a new foundation.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/28/anthony-weiner-campaign-paying-actors-15hour-suppo/
http://nypost.com/2013/08/28/weiner-paid-for-phony-supporters-at-campaign-events-source-says/