A PR strategy for the Kony fightback In the wake of the viral video, Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army are facing what those in the public relations business call "a bit of an image problem." This surely offers a business opportunity to one of those firms that specialises in making the case for murderous regimes. To Joseph.Kony@LRA.com. From: alan@brandofgold.net Hi Joseph, Hope all is well with you. Sorry you couldn't make the Hockney evening at the Royal Academy; it was quite a turn out although, sadly, a few of the News Corp guys were otherwise engaged. Anyway, I said I'd get back to you with some preliminary thoughts on your brand campaign. There's a lot of catch-up to do, but we have some advantages. First, you are an internationally recognised name with a high degree of brand purity. But we need to challenge existing assumptions about you and present a more balanced picture of you as an African thought-leader. 1) On reviewing the optics around your brand, we feel stage one should focus on tackling the negatives: detoxifying and recasting you into a more compelling narrative. You do have some "issues" but it's not as if you've ever worked for Goldman Sachs. Our polling suggest, however, that the name Kony may no longer work for you; how would you feel about styling yourself JK? It's more user-friendly and has positive associations with Harry Potter. 2) We feel there is still significant brand value in your rebel status, if we can just nudge the public from its perception of you as a homicidal child-snatcher. There is nothing wrong with a "badass" reputation as long as it is not too bad. So we want to reposition you as a rebel and freedom fighter - a sort of African Braveheart. We can do this by moving the dialogue away from the child abductions and massacres, and towards the shortcomings of the Ugandan regime whose virulent, anti-gay stance, once exposed, will deter many of your celebrity opponents. There are also some strong political buttons we can press in America, where we can stress your role as an enemy of Big Government and a target of the International Criminal Court, whose jurisdiction is not recognised by the US. This essentially makes the campaign against you anti-American. We may see if Tony Blair is willing to become a political adviser; he has some of our other clients on his books already. 3) We see significant scope for recasting you as something of an eco-warrior; living in the jungle with an extremely low carbon footprint, the lowest of any African rebel. We'd like to organise a Hello! magazine spread, welcoming readers to your lovely eco-home. I know you are cagey about giving clues to your location, but readers go nuts for a bit of Congolese mahogany. 4) At present, views of you are being fashioned by your enemies, so we think it is particularly important that your own authentic voice is heard. We've set up a Twitter account in your name. Don't worry if you are busy; we have people who can do your authentic voice for you. 5) Working on the "badass" theme, we want to turn you from gangster to gangsta - a Robin Hood or John Dillinger figure. We see you as the next Che Guevara - we're talking T-shirts. There are a lot of media opportunities in this space and we think we can secure you a comedy role in The Hangover III. We're also looking at whether you could date one of the Kardashian sisters. We'd have liked Kim, obviously, but she's not onside so it will have to be one of the others, who is looking to boost her profile. I'd love to see you accompany them to the MTV awards, ideally in something by Tom Ford. But this may have to wait until you feel able to travel more freely. It would, as a byproduct, open up interesting commercial opportunities. Naturally, all money raised would go to the charitable foundation we are establishing in your name, working for displaced children. 6) All of which brings us to one of your big negatives - the whole child-abduction thing is definitely playing against you. Also, this getting them to murder their parents business is something of a PR no-no. Even so, we're going to try to reposition you as an educationist whose work is less about abduction, slaughter and child prostitution, and more of a youth training scheme. Yes, you take children away from their homes but so does Haringey social services. This still needs some work - so for now, best stick to abducting adults? Let me know what you think, JK. We're really pumped for this and looking forward to working with you. Keep it gangsta. Alan