Spinning around

Precis, The Association of Public Relations Consultancies in Sweden, are hosting an event tonight that I am going to attend. The event is called Spinn 2004 and during the evening Precis will hand out awards for best marketing PR in 8 categories. The name Spinn upset people at agency Spinn Action Marketing AB, who thought Precis should have managed to give their competition a name that had not been taken by an agency.

I have another problem with the word “spin”. It doesn’t have very positive connotations to it and I am surprised that the PR industry really wants to be associated with spin or to be recognized as spin doctors.

Some negative definitions of the word spin:

> twist and turn so as to give an intended interpretation; “The President’s spokesmen had to spin the story to make it less embarrasing”

> make up a story; “spin a yarn”

The name was coined by Citigate Gramma.