SCENE: The executive conference room of the public relations firm, Smelt-DeFunk, in Los Angeles. The two founding partners are having a meeting with their star salesperson, Henry Rainmaker.
RAINMAKER: Gentlemen, I have a dramatic proposal to offer today, one that will make the name Smelt-DeFunk a legend in the PR business. We won't just be on the map, we'll be the flagpole everyone wants to run up, the gravy on the cake, the . . .
DeFUNK: Hey, it's us you're talking to, not one of the corporate pocket-people. So what's the thought?
RAINMAKER: We take on . . hold your breath . . . Michael Vick.
SMELT: Hold my nose, more like.
RAINMAKER: I know, I know. But if we turn his image around, we can turn anyone's around. The rest of our careers, whenever someone asks about us, "Are they any good?" the response will be, "They handled Michael Vick," and that's all anyone will have to say.
SMELT: I like it.
DeFUNK: Not me. We're setting ourselves up for failure. Come on, he's a dog killer. And he confessed. Too bad we weren't there from the beginning - we could have blurred the case till no one was sure what was true.
SMELT: Good point. Nobody blurs like we do.
RAINMAKER: But that's just why we want this assignment - it looks impossible. We'll get an image pop just from the degree-of-difficulty score. Can I tell you what I'm thinking?
(THE TWO PARTNERS SHRUG)
RAINMAKER: We start with jailhouse interviews. Let him get hammered by Mike Wallace or some other hard guy. He takes it. He admits he was horrible. Then he talks about how hard his life was growing up, and how the dogs are, in a sense, him. We teach him to cry on cue. And he cries twice during the interview.
SMELT: Twice? That seems wimpy. He'll lose his macho football supporters.
DeFUNK: No, twice is good here. I can see where you're going - once during the bad childhood story and once during the learned-my-lesson section.
RAINMAKER: Exactly. And that lesson-learned is what caused him to start a foundation to help dogs. He's asking everyone with fighting dogs to give up the sport and give the dogs to care centers that the foundation will fund, and the dogs will be retrained as guide dogs for the blind.
SMELT: Now you've gone too far - that can't be possible.
RAINMAKER: OK, whatever. Maybe the dogs become companions for old ladies. We need only one cute mutt and one old lady, and then we have the photo op.
SMELT: For credibility, Vick turns the project over to the ASPCA, with a big donation, and they name him "dog's best friend."
DeFUNK: That's going to be pricey. Maybe we go for some smaller group with a good name. Or maybe we create an organization with a kindly name, like Habitat for Dogmanity. "Dog" and "man" . . . get it?
RAINMAKER: And meanwhile, we do a flanking maneuver, arguing that he has more than paid his debt to society. After all, the guy lost a career, got nearly two years in prison and took a hit of $142 million. We make a case that he has "overpaid his debt." I did some quick research and found two athletes who killed people - people, not pooches - and got a fraction of the punishment.
There was a football player in the '90s who was driving drunk and killed a woman - a mom - and got 90 days and lost $125,000 in salary. And there was a hockey player, who killed somebody while driving drunk, did a year in jail, then played for more than a decade and is still coaching.
SMELT: You have just pulled out my favorite board game: Who's the Victim?
DeFUNK: But hold on. If he lost $142 million, how's he going to sponsor a foundation and still pay us? I don't want to be the victim here.
RAINMAKER: Got it covered, boss. We take a cut of his future salary. As for the foundation, we count on his fellow players to help fund the thing. All Vick puts up is the seed money. So what if the foundation peters out? By the time it does, we're already certified PR geniuses.
SMELT: Legends of the business.
DeFUNK: That's the game we'll play: Who's the legend?
Dale Dauten is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at dale@dauten.com.
