Voice and Vision
Voice and Vision was a public relations firm. It began as a subsidiary of advertising firm Colman, Prentis and Varley and at one stage it was the 'biggest PR organization in Britain'.[1]
Contents
Central African Federation
In 1961 it was involved in 'one of the best known political operation in Britain' for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland - commonly known as the Central African Federation:
- The campaign used straight advertising in the serious press. It also included taking forty members of Parliament to the Federation for a fortnight's tour; half of the MPs were Labour, and the man responsible for the job of choosing them was a former Lobby Correspondent of the Daily Herald. Only two of the forty MPs were critical of the Federation upon return, but the campaign, though successful in this respect, backfired from the point of view of the large amount of bad publicity which the MPs free trips received in the press.[2]
According to the Sunday Telegraph at the time 'The cost of each tour is £4,000, which will renew the widespread misgivings among MPs about the activities at Westminster of public relations firms representing commercial or political pressure groups. Many MPs believe that action will have to be taken by the authorities to deal with the problem before it becomes a serious abuse.'[3]
One of those who undertook the trip was Sir Anthony Fell (Conservative MP for Great Yarmouth from 1951-1983). According to a report in the Guardian:
- As an imperialist, [Fell's] greatest enthusiasm was for people like his Rhodesian friend Sir Roy Welensky, whom he visited in 1960 as the guest of Sir Roy's public relations firm, Voice and Vision, which had been commissioned to help save Sir Roy's Central African Federation. When I lunched him on his return, he acclaimed Sir Roy as one of the world's three greatest men - the others being de Gaulle and Krushchev.[4]
According to press reports Voice and Vision later also represented Rhodesia.[5]
Joint Palestine Appeal - 'Stop Nasser Now!'
In 1967 the firm was retained by the Joint Palestine Appeal. It produced 10,000 'STOP NASSER NOW' car stickers, and a 320 page book entitled 'Six Days in June' to commemorate the war (largely made up of advertisements, each page costing £500 – this raised another £200,000).[6]
People
Resources
- Andrew Cohen '“Voice and Vision” – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland’s Public Relations Campaign in Britain: 1960-1963', Historia 54,2, November 2009, pp 113-132
Notes
- ↑ Jeremy Tunstall The Advertsing Man, London: The Shenval Press, 1964, p. 187
- ↑ Jeremy Tunstall The Advertsing Man, London: The Shenval Press, 1964, p. 165
- ↑ Cited in Paul Clements 'FROM THE ARCHIVE; In the latest in a year-long series, we present snapshots of five tumultu-ous decades from the pages of The Sunday Telegraph' The Sunday Telegraph (London) May 22, 2011, Pg. 31
- ↑ Andrew Roth 'Obituary: Sir Anthony Fell; For King, Country and Great Yarmouth' The Guardian (London) March 25, 1998, Pg. 16
- ↑ Anthony Howard 'Creatures of the dark', The Times, July 14, 1998, Tuesday
- ↑ Aris, Stephan. The Jews in Business. London: Cape, 1970, p. 215
