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00:00So we start out with negative public opinion which is most important to at least be aware that if you do have any poll this is what you find. That can be depressing at one level. But let me tell you something that people don't think about. Few people that I can get it. But it's the difference between people having a public opinion and people making a public interest . When people come to so-called public judgment public opinion is . I'm a Democrat or a Republican and I like people who haven't fever after doing that you have a public opinion about the Democrats or the Republicans. Public judgment is when the public decides that they want to vote for somebody would not vote for somebody even across party lines based on some facts . Facts are most important and public judgment is deeper than public opinion. When you achieve public judgment about something especially something that you're not in favor of you're willing to tax it. You're willing to ban it. You're willing to put warnings on something that's when you get public judgment and the political process won't go that far until there's public judgment about something. Now again there's a whole school of thought here that I don't want to get into. But what we need to do is obviously be engaged in public judgment because we can't do anything about the public opinion certainly not in the short term maybe never the public judgment can be on our side. Now when women we have visited this is an attempt at public opinion. This is what Obamacare was going through the legislative process. And so we put this ad in The New York Times and basically said hey you know I'd be concerned about health care but the health care bill. But we didn't really say why. I always said you know seniors might have to pay more money or your premiums might go up but there wasn't any facts here. So this is an attempt at creating public opinion about something kind of soft top line when you want to get into public judgment. You can't be on the defensive because when you're on defense you're always answering somebody else's question. You'd have to be on offense if you want to get public judgment on your side. You have to start the conversation. People sometimes ask me Well how do I know if I'm on offense or defense. And I say well you're a defense if you're responding to somebody else if you're on offense you're there are groups out there. And I don't I don't need to name names you would have to. Well yeah we'll take the labor unions for example are well known for going after the labor unions for a thousand different reasons and people say well what's your office. I said I get up every morning and I try to figure out how to screw with the labor unions. That's my office. OK. I produce FTSE respond to something. I'm just figuring out how I'm going to reduce their brand. How am I going to take their brand. Everybody has a brand. That's that public opinion brand. So there are three basic ways. This is that I would I will tell you this. This is the niche business is there. I mean it's a very important niche but it's the niche business that we're retained to do. I tell you what I'm on offense I'm going to reframe the issue. I'm not going to allow the conversation to be based upon how somebody else's frame the issue because then I'm going to be on defense I'm going to be arguing about what they've said repositioning the Opposition suggests telling people Oh you think that this group is a group that does X. Well let me tell you what they're really doing is why I don't care what they're telling you that they're doing they're doing something else. One of the classic cases some of you may even see the ISE we you represent a lot of agricultural interests who are being attacked by the Humane Society of the United States. They say the United States is not connected to your local pet shelter. They raise money with these weepy ads on television showing dogs and cats and creating cages and they get a lot of money to get there their nineteen dollars a month but then they use the money to attack farms actually farmers who raise all sorts of animals for food because even they say in the United States if you look at them and you don't have to look very closely to see this is basically a big ad organization. They don't want people killing animals for fish. So repositioning them in the public's mind by saying hey give us your local shelter but don't give to the Humane Society of the United States because they are not who they say they are is an attempt every position and then the third one is taking away people's moral authority getting people to understand that these people look the people in this debate that you're in with today they were they weren't appointed to do this they weren't elected to do this you might say that Poland was elected but he wasn't elected to play the role he's playing today. So he had a plan to appoint a group of people an unelected group of people and they're managing public opinion which in turn could conceivably get the public to vote a certain way or get politicians over not available to certainly take away your moral authority. Who the hell are these people and why are they the ones who are determining what the energy policy of the state where the country for that matter should be. So I told you this would be fast and now very speeded up . I'm just going to give you a couple of examples of how you do this and then we'll get into a wider conversation with CAC . You'll be familiar with this ad if you haven't seen it you're going to see it now. But this is somebody else this is the only ad that I have not done that show or the only thing that that's out here. But this is somebody reframing the issue here is a time rejoin the group here. Here is a similar of Vonnie Quinn much more. Also when you know can leave in fury job. Well first off you still go to school. Daniel and it's not rude to point out reckless. No one that you see. So you can see how somebody is reframing the debate. What you do oftentimes in framing is use analogies or metaphors and say well if you like to drink let me tell you that this is a better way to go if you're looking to get high. If you're just looking for taste while they go drink a cup here here's a better example they have the unions right now. Again unless you've been living in a cave and pushing for increased minimum wage at the federal level. So they've had this bus tour and they're going around with his big bus they go all around the country with this bus tour saying we need to raise the minimum wage by 40 percent to 10 percent. And so what we've done because sometimes we do things that are what you would call street theater what we've done is we've been chasing this bus around with our own bus or our truck. And so wherever they go We're basically get we're reframing this today. So it's not just about going up to CAC . There are some other things that people think that you can't get people to say. One of my North Stars is to get people to say you know I never thought of it that way before because we need people to say that. Here's what you get. Instead of getting the he said she said Take what you get with the passion oftentimes you're going to get into you know people get overwhelmed by the science and I don't know who to believe but if you've got enough on your side you get people into a position of paralysis absolutely not experts and so you don't want to try and be experts but if you put enough information and you say well you know I don't care how much we also lose right . Congressional Budget Office estimates it was a lot of jobs. I mean again we've had a lot of ads on this thing. Yes. You get in people's minds a time they don't know who's right and you reinforce ties because the tie basically ensures the status quo . People are not prepared to give the rest of the movie where to go. So we all take a tie any day. If I'm trying to preserve the status quo here's another one on refresh. Some of you may remember the hardship today where the unions were trying to see to it that there would not be an election to unionize a workplace. All you gotta do is get people to sign cards. Even under these circumstances. So we oftentimes will use children or animals if you want a Twitter video to go viral kids around . So we will you rule use kids. And again in a metaphorical way in this case we're trying to show how the unions will like to have real elections to improve the context of an election for class president. But what if labor bosses control motions emotions Shery Ahn Shery ahn. Oh for me. Best for you. James is just agreed and there isn't going to be any secret book signings past you want to see like that. My campaign for me . OK. Encounter today thousands of workers are being forced into unions without a secret ballot for a reason number five for the Employee Rights Act. You sure about this. OK so that gives you again some sense I would like to use humor to use years that line up on the fracking site like an issue because humor doesn't offend people. And at the same time they get the message if you want to have a really hard hitting message that's fine . Sometimes it's very appropriate sometimes we do that. But wherever possible I like to use humor to minimize or marginalize the people on the other side. I talk about repositioning the opposition. Well here here's another union video which was very popular on repositioning I mean most people don't know much about unions right. What do you love about your union. You know what I'm paying you to do just like you keep my job. I think it's great mom you can do it you're going to politicians . I believe in life. I really am I count on you and you discriminates against minorities. No no man yelling and I wasn't playing in that camp right now. Corruption discrimination politics and forced to find out the facts about union officials and union Brad Stone Tom MacKenzie nothin to go on. Again this is repositioning this is getting people to say oh it was the exact I've heard about something you want to hear about something they have to hear about more than once for them to get it in their head. We have to achieve something that I call common knowledge and that's another thing that I'm always working towards if we have enough time commonality to give you an example. If I were to do a survey in this room and I would ask you which is statistically more dangerous Miles traveled places to drive to Denver airport or to fly to your destination . Statistically miles traveled basis driver most of you would say it's more dangerous to drive to the airport and I would agree with you. And then I would say is it 2 4 8 times more dangerous and all of you would say I don't know. And then I would say well then how do you know it's more dangerous. And you would say well everybody knows. But how do you know you particularly where did you find out it was more dangerous. And you said I don't know. I've heard that I've heard a lot of times and everybody knows that it is a threat. That's common knowledge and that's that comes from people hearing something enough times from enough different places people repeating it to each other that you reach a point where you have solidified your position. If we can solidify the position on drilling fracking etc. We have achieved something that the other side cannot overcome because it's very tough to bring common knowledge . It's very tough to break first opinions. You know the guy who gets to make the first pick in the first impression has a huge advantage because people don't want to admit they were wrong the first time. So that's where an offense comes in. That's what I'm trying to get there early in. Unfortunately again I've done work in a lot of business sectors people never want to invest in being there early. They only want to invest in stopping something that's a problem. And of course it's a problem after it becomes a big problem. So take that for what it's worth . Here's another one to reposition the opposition. This was on trial lawyers and trial lawyers who were suing food companies over the obesity issue. So you sold my client these chocolate chips and Tom Keene no warning label just free speech. Just look what this reckless thinking business has done to my you . Your honor obviously she's guilty and needs to pay me my client's damages human beings can learn from this. I guess we're more about lawyers cashing on in obesity and consumer freedom. TOM KEENE And these Web sites that you see Union Facts consumer freedom etc. These are Web sites that we maintain and we have about 25 different Web sites for probably more than that on different issues. The last thing I said was about diminishing moral authority. You know Jack will talk to you later about you getting unique spokespersons in our firm on project the day I got George McGovern to come out and say that the unions were wrong. I represent some alcohol companies. I go to Candy Lightner who started Mothers Against Drunk Driving to come out and say that MADD was overreaching and that she endorsed our position our client position and our position . That is a diminishing of moral authority where you can get people to be saying something that you wouldn't expect them to be said. It may be counterintuitive it may be unusual but the point is it breaks through. So in diminishing moral authority sometimes sometimes in this case you have to be tougher because you're going after someone that's got a crowd. And you know if you want to attack when she was alive if you were going to attack Mother Teresa you better have a very unusual campaign . So hardball is something that I'm a big fan of applied appropriately. So you see that this is a big billboard in Times Square. And this was about the events. And this was about trying to get people to say you know WTA where's all the money that the Humane Society collects and they never give it to shelters even. I won't tell you this whole video. You can go to this video on Google. You can go to lawyers in cages. This is hard. And we talk about something going viral this has had over 3 million views and this is a parody of this of the very nice soft commercial about raising money for dogs and cats and charities but as I told it to me so it doesn't really put anybody in the shelters. But if you may say employs over 50 lawyers they have more lawyers that are suing businesses basically agricultural businesses independent streak. There was noise in the White House. So this is a parody I'll just show you some some come to mind there's a lobbyist now in the country who find themselves out of work and unemployed. He's gone. How would you know. Nineteen dollars a month. You can join the Humane Society of the United States and I'm going to hire more willing people often think that Yvonne man charities that simply isn't true. We don't know a single one. We only only one percent to give money to pet shelters. You're only 19 never smoked a homicide. Money as a and make money you know donations to our pension fund our massive fundraising operation collected by 30 million dollars last year. But we need more money. If these millions could talk they'd tell you they desperately need you to help them . There's actually a longer version of this on the Internet where she says we're basically just like Peter except we use it except we have the suits in the order but that's it. So you know that what I tried to do here is a tragedy to try to frame this thing logically for you because people are oftentimes getting in a reactive mode they get angry. That anger leads to reaction and and that sometimes work but it's not it's not the logical way to go the logical way to go is that obviously have a positive campaign which you guys been doing very good with because that's a good public opinion component. And also explaining stuff to people no offense caregiving and I joke about the logic and the Ibex campaign is diminishing the other side's ability to capture people's imagination and to become credible. I want the other side to not incredible because you can imagine where they can lose. But you're you're ahead either way and so and and that's the logic of this whole position. I mean let me tell you a story about logic Amanda Lang Jack guy walking down the street and he runs into an old friend of his. And he starts talking to friends is how you do it in the first guy starts complaining he's got a lower manager position can't get ahead. His friend says you know why is it. No he just goes you never went to college you didn't get a degree . This is great. I'm in my 40s what am I supposed to do about that now. Francis good community college here in town. They'll be just they'll give you schooling and go to school at night eventually you'll get a degree and then you get a promotion and you'll you'll have a better life. So it makes sense to me goes to school and talks to the Dean. Dean says yes we have love does come with continuing education though probably already started. He said I don't have any idea about any of this. He said Just give me a suggestion the teacher is my hero. We start out of course in history of course in English. And of course in logic and this is logic to what's logic. These are you know logic is if you learn certain facts it takes you to a conclusion that that conclusion can take you to another fact and so on . And you can build up a real awareness of something that you never knew before. I don't understand any of this. Dean says Let me give an example. He says if you've got a weed whacker . He says yes he's a Lebanese you have a lot. Yeah. And he says you have a line. My guess is you have houses that do to you have the houses truly have families and they've got a family . You got a family I assume you're married today and he says if you marry this you here essentially says Yeah. If he says you see how this goes. One thing leads to another this is the logic in all of this he says when they call logical conclusions. He says OK I get it again. Two weeks later he's on the street again rejected the same old friend who he and a lot of time they start talking again as friends in the House. Kelly says I took your advice and go to school taking lots of courses everything's great. Where you think. He said taking English and take a history. I think a lot of really this is what's logical. You know no logic is to Vonnie Quinn. He says if you go we you said no well then he must be gay . So my nature and I do own weed whacker I have a wife and two daughters. And as tough talk about Rick on any of these things because he does back me up but he's really really good at what he does. And some of you I met last night. And for those of you who did not meet. I have been working with Rick for eight years now and prior that I was working on Wall Street and I sort of came the revelation revelation when I was working on Wall Street. I became convinced that everyone that I was working with and everyone and I was working for were a bunch of crooks and I became very very dispirited and I then made a decision that I was going to move to Washington D.C. I had wanted to go like Senator IBEX but I can honestly say that the eight years that I spent here working with Rick it had been nothing but some yet. More importantly as you'll see in this presentation some of the message that we have or up to on the environmental front we really are making a difference. And Rick sometimes likes to say that he does not get involved in anything he doesn't feel passionate about and I feel very much the same way. And what we're dealing here is so important because the implications if you folks lose this thing it will obviously be bad for you it will be bad for your bottom line. It was bad for your employees but it's bad for the state . It's bad for sixty eight thousand people or maybe even more who could lose their jobs but to rewind a little bit I want to start by telling us through how this whole thing came about prior to us getting involved in Colorado. I guess this was maybe six to nine months ago we received some support from some companies and foundations who had seen a lot of these past ads and campaigns that we ran going at the Humane Society and other people and they said Oh my God we need this for our industry and for our cause right now because these antique energy groups are getting a free pass and no one is going on offense against them in that hard. So we receive funding to start something called a free market and the green radicals was and continues to be a national campaign. And the initial targets of that campaign were this year a club NBC wouldn't want to watch. And if you're wondering why those three organizations frankly were the targets of this public education campaign. Well they're all unique in general. They're all very very powerful nationally. They're all very very powerful in Washington D.C. of the lobbying here behind some of the most stringent in the and the energy initiatives and legislation out there and both of them have very very large budgets and we'll get to that a little bit later. But this is how the campaign started. So we thought how are we going to kick off this campaign. Take the typical Berman and Company model in terms of undermining these folks credibility and diminish their moral authority. So one of the first things we did we said well let's make this a little personal. Let's find out whether these people are practicing what they preach and what we did was we conducted a whole bunch of intense opposition research digging into their board of directors and we pulled all of the title information for all the vehicles that they are. And we released a report of which you'll see the findings in a minute but it really took off like wildfire because it was a really damning report against them and their board of directors. And this next clip shows you some of the coverage and this is just one of the examples of the coverage that we received from that report . Christine thank you very much for it. The Sierra Club one of the nation's old environmental organizations is all about pushing the Obama administration's increased gas mileage or fuel efficiency standards. Just one problem is that their board of directors. They don't exactly do what they say. Some of them actually drag it around in gas companies that come between 2008 and 2012. Ninety nine percent of the group's donations went to Democrats. You've got to practice what you preach. If you tell somebody else you do this but you don't do it yourself. You are a hypocrite if you dictate national policy but you don't support that policy in your own actions. You are a hypocrite as you say . Let's take the case of the Sierra Club. Sure. A conservative organization looked at the Sierra Club and what they do. They say to the world you get out there and you drive fuel efficient cars. Right. But the board of directors 15 out of the Sierra Club they do not practice what they preach. They've got 32 vehicles between 15 board members 32 vehicles the average fuel economy for those vehicles is 27 miles per gallon. And they got in that team so to speak. Seven SUV global luxury Jack was reaching a very low gas mileage and that fuel economy is about half of what the president wants to half. So you get the gist of it right there. I will continue. That was a piece of a much longer segment it lasted for about five minutes and then it's written on the Sierra Club. Said that television show The Morning is the highest with when it comes to folks watching . It's the one that has the highest ratings on cable news. So it's just one example of that is really engaging in a way that you know gets coverage. There are so many people out there who are producing studies that collect dust on bookshelves. But one of the things that we're really focused on is how do we take the message put it on a bumper sticker and get it out to the public so that it gets coverage and you break through the 24 7 news cycle. So let's jump to Colorado. These are things you folks already know. But Colorado is a very in a very unique position right now because you have these ballot issues. You have a Senate race in the governor's race and you combine all of those things. It means there is going to be a ton of left wing money coming into this state. We've seen inklings of it. I can honestly say the old saying nothing. Yes I think it's going to hold true. And in fact when I was talking with Rick a little bit before this presentation he said you never know what the opposition is going to do in a month or two before the actual election. And what we anticipate just based on having done this for a long time is you're going to see a ramped up intensity that I think will surprise even folks in industry and political operatives. Given these three things all happening at the same time . So how do we get involved in Colorado the secret ballot this campaign gave us the perfect platform to engage and we have currently received support from companies to take that big green radicals campaign that we start at the national level and begin at the Colorado level and to talk through some of the players here. These are folks who we would anticipate are going to get engaged or have already gotten engaged in this fight. We're watching an annual budget of twelve million dollars. The Sierra Club seventy nine million dollars. Now obviously all of that will not be spent in total but frankly there are a lot of folks in the environmental community who are looking at Colorado saying this is great because this can be a great opportunity to create a copycat scenario where we're successful here we can take the strategy and we can run it through other states and other localities. So the stakes are really high here for the Sierra Club and others. The Park Foundation is a left wing foundation that was started by a wealthy individual whose children's children have I guess lost their way and grown up with a lot of money and became left wing activists and they spent a lot of money finding these things. I would be surprised to see them coming out and funding some of the things going on here. Next is my favorite Congressman Gary Condit. 68 million dollars. Make his money by starting Pro Flowers that Blue Mountain greeting cards he and his husband they own three homes one of which is right outside of Washington D.C. worth over five million dollars. OK. This guy is not going to comment on the campaign. I think this is so out of touch with the public because you have this typical well you do gooder left wing activist who has a seat in Congress that thinks that he can dictate policy for everyone else. And we all get really deep on policy. You're going to see more stuff coming out. But we have uncovered the fact that currently he has over a million dollars invested in the energy industry and energy funds that include companies that have fracking positions . And this is a guy that's out there saying that it's not good enough for you folks FTSE man the state making money off of it and collecting dividends. And it's a policy that works . Lastly Tom Steyer If you don't know Tom Steyer as you're going to know by 2016 Tom Steyer is a wealthy hedge fund manager who is worth one point six billion dollars with a B. And for some reason he's obsessed with going after the energy industry despite the fact that we need a significant amount of his fortune investing in the coal industry which is beyond likely . But he has come out publicly and said that he is going to spend one hundred million dollars this election cycle to elect Democrats and push environmental causes and you can bet given the Senate race that's going on here combined with the ballot issues I would not be surprised to see millions of dollars coming into the state from this this guy so what does the campaign look like. I'm going to run through pretty quickly what we're up to but we have an online Web site . We have some of the best opposition research folks I think in the country not to mention Washington D.C. These people need deeper on the path. We've got a radio ad there's going to be television going up you've probably seen some good print. And we're really engaged in online advertising because it's cheap way effective way to reach people that you can reach it with very little money and you can accomplish the same thing that you might have been able to do in television. So our Web site is figuring radical stuff. And there's a significant power outage . And what we do on that site I'm going to take it online for a minute while the right hand column we give it to every group we waste their money. The list of funders we list their radical positions and then we have a section on every single happiness rap sheets that criminal rappers that they have. We're really making this personal we're trying to make it clear that they don't have any credibility with the public with the media or with the legislators. This is a chart that our researchers did . And you're not going to be able to follow it just from a distance it's one of these things that you have to sit down and read. We've all provided it for the media and public for the members of the public who are interested in learning more about what's going on. But the Web that is being weaved here in Colorado is beyond dizzying. You have multiple shell organizations that are being propped up high. Who is funding what so people are just disclosing that the shell organization wrote the check. So we don't know who funded that original one . You have outside money getting involved. You have people like Yoko Ono. We'll talk about her. Then you're going to see her get engaged. And one of the things that always strikes me as somewhat funny and disingenuous is that the name of the organization that's behind a lot of this stuff is Frack Free Colorado and you have as well as all his cronies come out and they say we're not against fracking and I say to myself if you're not against fracking why is your name Frack Free Colorado . I mean these people have no interest in the industry operating in any way. And I know that the industry right now is split on a compromise and that has to do with people's positions as well as future aspirations in the state. But I will just warn you even if you do make this go away what happens is that it's actually a phrase that Rick is faulty when the activist group if they do lose. They never say we lost. They say we didn't win yet and they're going to keep pushing this thing and risk on and off a little bit about sort of the endless war that you guys are facing in this state. So this is an online video that we have up on our Web site and went up last week. And since then we've been heavily engaged in running geo targeted ads focused on Colorado. And as of this morning one hundred and ten thousand people have viewed this commercial this online commercial . Ninety one percent are from Colorado. So I'll play it for you . If you live in Colorado you've seen the Dax in commercials from radical environmental activists who want you to think they have the state's best interest in mind. They claim to represent local Coloradans but the truth is really these activists actually hail from New York California and Washington D.C. . That's a long way from the front range. These out-of-state activists are in town pushing a cause that they call local control. It sounds pleasant enough but in reality show means you have no control over your own property. The government does and with wealthy environmentalists who are determined to drive up heating bills by limiting the development of our own natural resources. The activists favorite tactic is scaring Coloradans with bogus claims about energy development and hydraulic fracturing or fracking. But the facts tell a different story . Even the Environmental Protection Agency no friend of energy development has publicly stated that fracking is safe. I'm not aware of any proven cases where the fracking process itself has affected water. Activists love to spread rumors and scary exaggerations. Scientists say fracking is safe. Unfortunately twisting the truth isn't even the worst of it. Peace activists will do some of the local control. Organizers in Colorado have disturbing rap sheets including charges of disorderly conduct resisting arrest and harassment. Some have histories that include violent government protests radical environmentalists say they care about Colorado. But that's not true. They care about their own agenda an agenda that will drive Jones out Colorado high gas prices and make us more dependent on foreign energy. If we have these resources at home should we use them instead of shipping more money and jobs overseas. Find out more and color going to green radicals dot com. So that's hardball here. That's a longer spot you can do that online. In the next two weeks we're going to have a television commercial that will definitely be hard hitting but it's going to be very humorous yet. We're going to run out on television. So between online and TV we think we can reach a significant number of people in the state. And that advertising budget is going to keep ramping up as we go through the next couple weeks. This is the full page ad that some of you may have seen in the Denver Post as well as some other newspapers and the reason for this ad was one to launch that campaign. But it was also a positioning ad you folks are dealing with multiple ballot issues. And it's incredibly complicated and inside baseball when you start talking to people about setbacks and this and that and both of control. And next thing you know you're sitting there trying to play defense against multiple initiatives that are very different and very complex and the public frankly doesn't have the time or the brains to understand them all. So what we wanted to do is we wanted to brand the entire movement that's behind this. It's not being credible I had Dax science so you can see here this is our fracking activist is actually a gentleman in our office. Stop that there. We had a lot of fun shooting. He sort of embarrassed that he's a full page ad in The Denver Post but I got a lot of great reviews and some earned media coverage which is great. This is a cartoon is where it is fun for you guys to see but this poll was running off the cliff leaving everybody else but it shows how isolated he is and the fact that there are so many folks even on the Democratic side who are sitting there going oh my god please don't do this. So one thing. So this fight is sort of interesting and Rick hinted at it when we talked about George McGovern coming out against labor unions or the founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving coming out in favor of the physicians of the alcohol industry one of the things that we are very very good at is engaging your party messengers to get involved on this stuff where people say oh my goodness why are they getting about. This is really controversial. This is going to get a lot of coverage and it undermines the credibility of some of the people who are pushing this since is this a public a public venue I'm not going to go into details as to what we're doing. I will only say you've probably seen some of our work go on after some folks through some other organizations and entities. Yes. We're going to keep it up. And if you have any questions or thoughts about that on talking me and I can relate more on a one to one basis as opposed to in a public speech. So coming soon we're going to be doing TV we're going to be doing radio there'll be more print ads and there will be more online advertising and along that theme of coming soon Joe Weisenthal will probably soon as well as a whole host of other celebrities will be Robert Redford or others. And this is a billboard we put up in Pennsylvania about why did take energy advice for the woman who broke up the Beatles. And it's sort of tongue in cheek. We have Lady Gaga and we have one on Robert Redford. But the reason I show it is because you should be prepared that these folks are going to be flying in on their private jet or maybe not flying and maybe just shooting commercials and shipping them into the state. But you're going to see them on TV. And the problem is that the public really does have a celebrity worship culture. But the good news is that there is nothing the public like what tearing down celebrities and playing fantasy and golf. So that's just about everything I have to say as to what we're up to. This campaign is going to grow and it's going to become more intense and risk and to talk a little bit more in a minute before he comes up here. I just want to share one short quick story. My grandmother she was from Brooklyn and she suffered from dementia later in life and it was a slow mind and she started to become more and more inappropriate the things she said and she became convinced every single day that she was going to die tomorrow . And she called me Jack that Jack and he died. All right I need to give you a piece of advice and this went on for months and it was everything from business from life from marriage to sex which was really uncomfortable. But one of the last things she told me she said she called me and she said Jackie if you ever get in trouble and if your back is ever up against the law . Hire a good Jewish lawyer. With that I ended over the offensive campaign designed to attack not a positive campaign. A lot of times people say well we shouldn't be that nasty we shouldn't be that aggressive and they told you can sometimes very that aggression Rick Perry. But there is a place for this there's no silver bullet in these campaigns. There's an offense there's a defense there's a prophesy there's an entire time you can use the word game this pretty easily. But this is something that quite frankly a lot of people leave on the table. I've had clients say to me you know I don't really want to attack anybody. That's not who we are. And I say well you know you can either you can really win ugly or lose free . You know you figure out where you want to be. But sometimes this is what you need. I've had people say to me at times that they characterize us in a campaign as being a guys with the black helicopters. And to some degree that's true. We're doing stuff to diminish the other side's ability to operate. What other North Star if you will that I use some years ago I came up with this acronym. I was convinced that you could not get into people's heads and convince them to do something as easily as you could get into their hearts or into their gut to convince them to do so because emotions drive people much better than intellectual intellectual Tiffany's Oh I just heard this in your theory that you know you got to get it you've got to get people emotionally engaged. So I came up with the acronym plaques which I think emotion that I look at when you're trying to Caroline Hyde people. The first one is here. The second one is love or like. So there is anger. Greed has to do with I want to get something out of this for myself. And this one is sympathy too. If you think about how you get people it's one of those five emotions if you can tap into two of them you're that much better off the two that resonate best with people that we're trying to use in this particular campaign of fear and anger. Anger is what people have over something that has happened here is what people have when they think something might happen is it's what you tell people be careful what you wish for. The law of unintended consequences. This might happen even though you don't want to think fear and anger have to be part of this campaign. If you want to win that's what we're going to we're not going to get people to like the oil and gas industry over the next few months. And there is no sympathy for the oil and gas industry so we're not going to tap into one sympathetic to all those poor guys who are running the energy companies would you guys use the ISE people fearful about what is on the table. A I get people angry over the fact that they're being misled. Nobody likes being lied to. Nobody likes being told that oh this will hurt. And so that is central to the messaging campaign belt & road and to last line Jack mentioned endless war. This is an endless war. What I like to do when I come up against some of these organizations who control some of the budgets of some of these people have I look at their tax returns. And if they've got a pension plan and it's a well-funded pension plan I know that these people are not going away. And so people say well if we just win this fight. But no these people are in business to keep this going . It is a business they are in the public policy business. They are in the business to change laws and to change laws by changing people's behavior. You change laws by changing people's attitudes which in turn is followed by legislators changing everything. So think of it as an endless war and you have to budget for it. Friend of mine is the founder of a big company was in a room with me when he talked to a bunch of senior executives and he got up and he said I know what all you guys were saying. You say it's not in the budget. He said I've got a solution to the budget because going forward that's what you've got to do. I mean there are certain things you have to change your business when the external environment is changing around. And I will tell you with the advent of the internet then plus the fact that some of these people have grown up I these you know kids are on vacation in Daytona Beach on spring break. These are these are serious people who are pressing these issues forward and they've got money and they've got agendas and they've got they've got staff and they have no natural enemies. If you think about these group humans the Sierra Club Natural Enemy of the Sierra Club who is the enemy of Greenpeace you know at the surface you would love to be a group like that because you know everybody should be in favor of you who can be against you. That's very difficult to overcome. And they play on that and they train on and and that's our opportunity and also our challenge. So it is an endless war. We're in a game think of it. So the sports metaphor before we're going to game with no clock. The game never ends. You move the ball forward maybe the quarterback but the game never ends. The last thing I'll tell you Jack mentioned that there were some companies who have been supporting what we're doing and who pledged to do some stuff in the future. People always ask me one question all the time and say how do I know that I won't be found out as a supporter of what you're doing. We run all this stuff through nonprofit organizations that are insulated from having to disclose donors. There's total anonymity. People don't know who supports us. We've been doing this for 20 something years in this regard and to the degree that anybody is concerned about that. I will tell you that there's all sorts of ways all sorts of firewalls that have been established to get this done on a number. And we have there's just a few minutes left. The question is what I just go Hi. I think you've been very very helpful. And I'm very interested in your comments about emotions and I think what are often labeled as an industry is that we're greedy. So you're using fear and greed against Dax. Do you think came from loud . Is there a way that we can defeat their emotional ploys with other emotional place. Well I didn't. I didn't discover emotions obviously the other side uses that all the time. And it's one of the reasons why business oftentimes fails in their campaigns. Any business writ large is that they won't get into the emotions they will you know the business gets attacked and then the group of companies come together who is affected by this. And I'm not referring to your group because Tim has done an excellent job. I see I see businesses across the board. You guys have done much much better job of getting engaged quickly and not waiting until you know late August to do something here . But typically what companies do with it when there's this emotional attack agreed greed if you will be receiving right now the minimum wage debate I was referring to is a you know how much money is the chairman of Wal-Mart. How much weight as a chairman of McDonald's Starbucks etc. They're paying their people minimum wage. And I understand that they're always going to use it. We have to we can't say that we can't play that way . Typically what businesses say is OK. They've accused us of this. Let's get an economist we'll get a 70 page report from the economist to say what the other side says is wrong. And six months later he put out a report. The other side puts their message out on a bumper sticker and we've got this 17 page late report that says the bumper sticker is wrong doesn't work just because you're using emotion doesn't mean it weakens. We just have to use emotion that's factually based Joel Weber. And at the same time say that what they're talking about is incorrect . So you don't get preempted because somebody used the same tactic that you want to use but you do learn from your adversary remember they're in the business of doing this. I will say that I didn't just decide all of this on my own. I studied what the other side is that these are terrible and then translated into how this is affecting Yes well first of all thank you it's brilliant in its simplicity and we appreciate all the help we can guess. But I have to ask Who knows who is who is funding your efforts. It is you that last like and here here's what I tell people how many of you are Rachel Maddow. OK. If you go to our website we have a website Urban pro here in the NC dot com. If you click on my badge you will see the interview I had with Rachel Maddow Rachel Maddow BBC reporter etc. You know she had his interview with me. I wasn't there but she said I mean they have every firm and then the next night he said Hey remember last night there's a referral Nikkei every firm. Again here's some other stuff. So four nights in a row. So I go up and say you you just can't do that without giving Toby a chance to respond. She says Why did you want a response from on the show . So I went on the show and I couldn't get the OMXS because this is all she said who funds you. And I said Well I'm not going to tell you who funds me maybe in D.C. you're your boss could be funding but it's not up to me to say who funds me if the company wants to say that they're funding people the company wants to tell somebody else that's their business. It's that's me . What's up to me to do is to report factually. Jack said that I was a lawyer. It's one of the things that I use in my business this is my. My aversion to being found out of making stuff up . I don't make stuff up. So if I quote authoritative sources it doesn't matter who funds me they have given me the opportunity to present a point of view. And if someone says Well that's not a legitimate point of view I said if I if I say the chairman of the Department of Public Health at Harvard University and I put that in an ad I don't have to say Give me the money for that . The question is is the ad right or wrong. That's what the does for what people always want to do is they want to know who fund you so they can then attack the funding they want to shoot the messenger and they want to see if they're funded it must be wrong. So I am religious about not allowing company names to ever get used at least I'm not going to allow this to get used and I don't want companies to ever admit it because it does give the other side a way to diminish our message. So if you want to know who's funding us in this room you'll have to go around ask everybody individually. RUTH Good to see you again. Great presentation. I'm curious you touched on budgeting but you didn't really give a number of what the green radicals annual cost or what it takes to set a budget for companies that wanted to contribute to the effort OK so you know just a question of how high up because you can if you could . You can spend a lot of money. Let me give you. Let me give you an example. We were retained to do a campaign in New Jersey . We had two words for the campaign. We were given two million dollars. Issues that worked. We started out with 76 percent disapproval in two words we got down to 60 percent disapproval . So we moved the needle sixteen point two million dollars in two months. We were really proud of ourselves except for the fact that we lost because we started out so bad. Sixteen year seventy six percent is a long way to go. The jury said seventy six percent. So that's what two billion blocks in two months . You guys are a lot closer. Even so I would tell you that if between now and the end of the session if you will know that if you ise on what I'm talking about here I know you spent a lot of money in politics. You spent several hours maybe two to three million dollars on extending this campaign. It would be I think it would be a game changer. I think the two to three million has to be a game changer. What individual countries contribute is quite frankly up to them. I mean we've had we've had six figure contributions to date from a few companies in this room to help us get to where we are. But you know people gave fifty thousand one hundred thousand dollars more. If they did they thought well of it that would be up to them. But we don't have a schedule. I will tell you this. All of our money is spent transparently. And if anybody wants to see where it's spent they can see it most and mostly I mean very little overhead something like this because once you start it is just media and we don't have the overhead of buying media. We're not you know this sets up a lot of what is just before this is over . Read your aunt ise Indian ads were great. How hard was it to find actors actresses and don't actors that weren't even in the film . Saying that the DAX union bosses weren't we. We filmed that in Baton Rouge Louisiana. There are no unions. And quite frankly we have. I mean if you go to Union Facts dot com Center for Union Facts there is a lot of stuff that we've done there against unions and we get a lot of people who want to build and they're not in the union and they have no problem doing so rigorously really idea of nationalism and where you're going at it is really the only thing I have a question on ise. I've seen commercials in the past and Amanda Lang always only what I thought was great cause terribly. Can you hold this as a public like this. So is it getting the direction they were doing for eternity. Some of the direction that we're headed with our other campaigns this is kind of like my question. Right. You know the answer is yes and no . If you do if you do polling we what we will tend to do is do polling on the Internet. You know if you do a focus group the Family Focus Group do that quite frankly the groups do small focus groups and usually the quality of the issue you know where you're trying to get information out to people about what you think we should say this week said that way. So the polling that we do on the Internet is the quantitative polling is generally good. But I will tell you this in an issue like this where you're starting out where there's a relatively polarized thing you know people hear the word fracking and you don't even like it. You know we can't keep of that right now the semantics are very important in these debates . Actually we have we have in some campaigns actually changed the terms of the debate because just changing the term changes people's reaction to it and I can tell you that for the most part we don't get anybody against us when we do what we do unless people are just like us but we're always aiming for the middle and upholding what we see. You know I care. I don't care where you know I'm somewhere in the middle. Well we aim for our messages for the people in the middle. I don't try to appeal to people who are leaving us and they don't try to convince people who were never really. I'm always playing to the middle and through that the anecdotal results as well as the polling results support what we do now. I will also tell you that we have put has adapted don't work and when they don't work I follow. And one of the ways you can tell if not working. And it really gets and go is what kind of mail do you get back. And we look where it's coming from what's the it's coming . Definitely what are people saying. And I can tell you that for the most part when our stuff is working it's very viral. And people are passing it along. People who don't like something don't pass it on to some other people they just don't like it sending nasty. So you know like that lawyers in cages when I see three million people as you look. We put something out the other day Friday night is already on the Internet and it's already probably close to a thousand views. I know people are pass it along and that's as good a measure as any what about the G in math. How would that play in Colorado . Because I mean we're trying to make the point. You take fracking away you've taken 500 to 600 million dollars away from schools. Is that something that might be looked at or you're just sticking them with fear and anger. Well that that would make people fearful that that the school system was going to be the next great thing. The emotional greed thing is that if somebody thinks I can win the lottery lottery and so I can make a lot of money off of this thing. And so and that's where people will use greed to actually want to get somewhat invested in what you're talking about selling something to somebody because there's something in it for them. But in this case it's Tesla last chance so I'll tell you one more story this very good audience. But it's almost not appropriate for this group but in some ways it is. It's a story about a guy who is learning how to play golf and he's thinking about it like he's not very good at fooling ordinates. And the pro that he's trying to teach in this game very upset that this guy just can't get the ball decently. And he finally says to the guy look I've taught you everything I can possibly teach you. Maybe you're just nervous trying to play me. Just go on of course by yourself and see if that does increase comedic pressure. Make it better. So he goes out once the ball and he hits the ball unfairly for sure. It's usually unfortunately that first shot rolls into a sand trap. And when he gets to the sand trap he notices that the ball not you hit the sand trap just rolled a couple of inches and rolled on top of this tiny little handful in the center. And so he's a little disgusted that that's the result of his her shot. But he pulled out the proper quality positions his feet properly. Texas swing swings through the air sea and in the answer fly in every place. When the dust clears the ball is sitting there had moved so now I've got everything else was rescued. Picks up the call again. He goes through the mental checklist. He brings the quote that slices through the air sand dance in every direction and the ball since they're motionless and it's about that time that one in his overheard the same to another. You know what we're going to survive this ordeal. I think we all get on the ball . Thank you .

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Rick Berman Tells Fracking Advocates to `Win Ugly'

Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Rick Berman, a veteran Washington public relations executive, speaks to the Western Energy Alliance about how oil and gas drillers can counter anti-fracking activists. Berman, president of Berman & Co., spoke on June 25 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Jack Hubbard, a vice president at Berman, also spoke. (Source: Obtained by Bloomberg.)

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