I have first-hand experience of using a firm of PR agents to promote a company. For a fee of £10,000 plus VAT, my words on a recently acquired software suite were duly inserted in a trade magazine, accompanied by an advertisement feature that cost almost double that amount.
Anyone who wishes to view how this works should take a look at the output of Chris ‘Union’ Jack at The Herald. Rangers, the client, instruct Level 5, the agent, to promote season ticket sales. A deal is then struck with The Herald commercial team for what is known as a promotional package. A junior hack, Chris Jack, is then provided with the bullet points as written by James Traynor or Stephen Kerr that he cuts and pastes into an article that gives the impression that it’s a piece of sports reportage, when it’s true purpose is season ticket promotion. Other examples of Level 5’s handiwork can be seen at one of Trinity Mirror’s stable, The Sunday Mail under several by-lines.
However Level 5 can do much more than Trojan Horse promotion. They can create the myth of a corporate Messiah. Dave King’s attempt to convince fans to send their season ticket money, to an escrow account, controlled by King with Richard Gough as de facto curator, flopped spectacularly. The fact that he had to surrender his passport to the Crown Prosecution Authority of South Africa until August 2013 precluded the possibility of a personal appearance.
Armed with a briefcase which was empty save for an A4 plastic folder, King attempted to convince David Somers to provide him with a written guarantee that his back of a *** packet offer of £16m had the support of 75% of shareholders. This is presumably why he brought the folder. However he did not have any proof of funds nor was he willing to name four members in his consortium of eight individuals. It was obvious to David Somers, that King would have used any written proof of acceptance to canvass financial support from third parties without investing anything in the scheme other than his time. King’s scheme was as transparent as his folder.
For his next trick he managed to convince his concert party to buy shares for themselves and in his name, being careful not to disclose his relationship with Taylor as this breached the 30% compulsory equity offer threshold. King then contacts James Traynor, who had engaged in pro-King PR work prior to Level 5, to commission him to create positive media coverage of his bid for control, and simultaneously spread what is known in the dark arts as fear, uncertainty and doubt about the current regime. It is no coincidence that the Rangers supporters portals were inundated with letters from concerned supporters of Newcastle United. Would it surprise anyone to know that the majority of these originated in Glasgow?
Candy-coating a penniless spiv masquerading as a white-collar criminal was Traynor & Kerr’s biggest challenge. Soundbites such as ‘favourable result’ joined a growing lexicon of positive messages about King, that were fed daily to The Daily Record. Keith Jackson was banned from both Ibrox and Celtic Park so anything on Rangers was manna from heaven. This was primarily Stephen Kerr’s handiwork. Press conferences were organised with pre-written questions provided by Level 5 to the hacks to ensure they did not delve into how King could afford to run Rangers. There was talk of a choice of NOMADS and of Mike Ashley being a man ‘one can do business with.’ One lie soon followed another as those who knew that he had been wiped out financially and was lucky to escape an 82 year prison sentence, looked on at the PR revisionism with slack-jawed amazement. Anyone who doubted King was provided with the level of comfort of a sleuth of three benevolent bears that were backing King’s ambitions.
Of course it was all a pack of well-conceived, finely polished, lies. As for Ashley being someone they could do business with, he called an EGM to highlight how underfunded they were and their inability to repay him the money that was loaned to RIFC. He also took them to The High Courts of Justice (Chancery Division) to shut King up. King’s decision to leak details of the confidential Rangers Retail contract to The Daily Record, via Level 5, cost the club a minimum of £400,000.
How much did all this PR cost? Conservative estimates from informed sources suggest a minimum of £600,000 for the lies that delivered King, Murray & Gilligan, not one of whom have any appreciable wealth to add value to Rangers. Of course no-one would expect someone, notorious for his parsimony,to actually pay for his PR. The invoices from Level 5 continue to be sent to Rangers, not King.
Not one of the four hundred companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange would consider King as an non-executive director. Everyone knows he is a crook and his made up qualifications a crock. By portraying King as a Real Rangers Man, we now have a chairman cut from the same cloth as Craig Whyte. Whyte’s path to pre-pack administration was aided and abetted by the positive press coverage of James Traynor.
When you add the cost of the court case to the creation of the Messiah Myth, King’s self-serving decision to be our chairman has cost Rangers a million pounds. He has spent more on PR and court costs than has been spent on the team on the park and it’s beginning to show.