Team McCann

The following article was sent to me by elleesa. It was also published here. All credit must go to those who published the article and to elleesa. I have posted without alterations.

The following newspaper article was originally released in the Portuguese Expresso/Unica, June 9 2007 edition. It is an article written by Paulo Paixao with the collaboration of Eunice Goes (in London), Carlos Rodrigues Lima, Maria Barbosa, Raquel Moleiro and Rui Gustavo. The link is no longer active because it's been over a month since it was originally printed.

Behind the scene of the search for Maddie

How the search for Madeleine McCann became the most emotional case ever. A family effort, served by a discrete and effective machine:

During the first week after Madeleine McCann went missing, Brian and Jane Kennedy, the girl’s great-uncle and great-aunt, went twice a day to the central square of Rothley, the village close to Leicester, in central England, where Maddie’s parents live. They were the face that the many journalists on location wanted for their live transmissions. On the day that marked a week after the kidnapping, Brian, a former teacher at the local catholic school, invited “Expresso” for a cup of tea at his home. When our reporters were making an introduction about the newspaper they work for, they were surprised to discover that their hosts knew the facts about portuguese press. On those days, the daily news was UK criticism about the performance of the Policia Judiciaria. Brian Kennedy wanted just one message to get through: “The portuguese need to know that the things the british ‘media’ are printing about your country’s investigators does not reflect our family’s opinion.”

Message delivered, mission accomplished for Maddie’s relatives. This behaviour – with “Expresso” just like with other media – is a matrix for “Team McCann”. Since the very early hours of this family tragedy, Gerry and Kate McCann, the missing child’s parents, concentrated their energies on a campaign that surprises through its sophistication. “The way they have handled the media is very professional, creative and talented”, explains Shemi Orgad, a specialist in media issues at the London School of Economics, in London.

Even press veterans, like “Observer” journalist Ned Tempko, are surprised. “They are clearly determined to avoid that this case turns into another missing girl story. They are aware that they nead to supply a headline, not only every day but for each news cycle”, he says.

“Every day there were things that weren’t new, but that were attractive”, Felisbela Lopes, a teacher for Communication at the University of Minho (PT) points out. “Everything was done by the british ‘media’ and the portuguese went in tow. Sometimes this led to funny episodes: when there was no information, they interviewed the foreigners.”

The McCann’s drama opened tv news all over the world, made the the front page of leading newspapers, generated solidarity reactions from politicias, entrepreneurs, sportsmen, artists, and mainly millions and millions of anonymous citizens. But the echo this case generated was not only due to the way the media work. In effect, the McCanns have a powerful machine on their side, with extensions that are not always visible for public opinion. Built on friends and family, “Team McCann” is divided into two groups. One is based in Praia da Luz and the other one in John McCann’s (Gerry’s brother’s) house, in the scottish city of Glasgow.

The campaign was aldo divided into different phases. On a first moment, Madeleine’s family counted on the services of Alex Woolfall, the director of PR firm Ball Pottinger. Woolfall, who worked previously with the international company Monsanto during the transgenic food crisis, was hired by Mark Warner (the company that owns the resort in Praia da Luz). This assessor “filtered” all the contacts. There were journalists who approached the couple directly – and they didn’t even answer. To find anything out, the media representatives could go only one way: to leave a message on the spokesman’s cell phone. He only replied when there was an interest.

Woolfall was replaced by Sheryl Dodd, nominated by the Foreign Office, who spent less time in the Algarve. Sherry naturally preferred the journalists that were fellow countrymen. She scheduled meetings with them in bars at Praia da Luz. That is how she kept them tied to the case. Always ready to give them a word to avoid that someone became restless.

In the Algarve, the McCann have now at their service the advice from Clarence Mitchell, an ex-BBC journalist, who coordinates all activity. He works as a press advisor at the Cabinet Office (the institution that coordinates all the ministrys of British Government). The specific office Mitchell belongs to, the Media Monitoring Unit, is one of the various organizations that are connected to Downing Street’s communication directory. It was Mitchell who organised and coordinated the McCann’s visits to Rome, Madrid and other european cities. Meanwhile, the couple hired a campaign manager, whose salary will be paid through the fund that was created to support the search for Maddie.

The McCanns also count on the support of various communications agencies, particularly Zenith Optimedia, HSC and the north-american BBH, who united their efforts to obtain the right to broadcast free adverts on Madeleine in various world televisions, as John Chase, the CEO of Zenith Optimedia told “Expresso”. This agency has already obtained the agreement of british tv channels ITV, Channel 5, a digital channel of Channel Four and the north-american CNBC to broadcast videos of the little girl.

The efforts of Team McCann and these professionals have produced extraordinary results. For example, a general practitioner from Aberdeen, who is a family friend, rallied support from oil corporations BP and Exxon for the campaign. These companies are exhibiting a Madeleine poster in petrol stations all over Europe.

It was due to the efforts of a cardiologist friend of Gerry McCann, Stuart Hillis, who worked with the scottish national soccer team and with Alex Ferguson – Manchester United’s manager – that the world of sports got involved in the campaign. Through half a dozen phone calls, Hillis obtained the cooperation of Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham, John Terry and Jose Mourinho. The FA – the british Football Association – also offered to join the efforts. After seeing Madeleine’s video being broadcast at the UEFA Cup final game, in Glasgow, the FA contacted Government officials in order to show their availability to help the family. Thus the same appeal was seen by over 500 million people, in 160 countries, before the final game for the Cup of England that took place in the new Wembley Stadium, and during the break. And two weeks ago a photograph was taken with the british National Team players behind a poster for Madeleine.

The efforts of Philomena McCann (Gerry’s sister) were crucial to mobilize british politicians. Philomena contacted her local representative, Muhammed Sarwar, who answered immediately. With Sarwar’s help, Philomena visited the british Parliament, contacted several ministers and deputies and distributed hundreds of yellow bracelets (symbols of hope). On that day, very few deputies chose not to wear it. Gordon Brown, who is to become prime-minister soon, was not present at the Chamber of Commons, but he called Gerry McCann several times to offer his help. It was through a request from Brown, while still Chancellor of the Treasury, that british officials advised the McCanns to transform the “Madeleine Fund” into a foundation, so they could benefit from fiscal advantages. In this solidarity chain, the Princes of Wales also sent the family a support message.

The media campaign to keep Maddie in the public eye also benefited from many spontaneous actions from private entities, organizations and personalities. By the end of May, 200 british radio stations decided to launch an appeal. At a pre-arranged time, they played the song “Don’t you forget about me” by Simple Minds. Millionaires like Richard Branson, JK Rowling, Philip Green and Stephen Winyard offered a joint reward of 2,5 million pounds (3.7 million Euros) for anyone who offers the right clue to Maddie’s whereabouts. And the Maddie McCann Fund has received almost a million Euros already.

From day one, the control by Team McCann, of all the images and informations – under the leadership of the british media, whom the portuguese didn’t dare to defy – was crucial for the “snowball effect” that this case became. At the beginning of the week after Maddie vanished, on May 3, already the steps of the McCann family seemed to follow a script that left little room for improvisation. Every morning, between 8 and 8.30 am, the girl’s father, either alone or in the company of relatives, left the appartment holding hands with Sean and Amelie (his twin children) and entered the Ocean Club’s reception. This moment, which lasted less than one minute, marked the beginning of yet another news day at Praia da Luz – although there was nothing to inform.

As time went by, it became increasingly frequent to see Gerry and Kate walking hand in hand towards the church at Praia da Luz. A walk that was sporadic in the beginning and became a daily routine, scheduled for 6 pm, allowing the journalists to capture new images they could then broadcast on the evening news.

With the lack of news about the ongoing investigation, the couple’s visit to the local church became a routine. Their spiritual orientation gained an increasingly relevant role in the McCann’s daily life – and the journalist’s. Just as it was with the couple’s visits to Fatima and the Vatican.

If in the first days Gerry and Kate allowed their spokesperson to transmit the information, slowly they began to speak to the reporters directly, and answering questions. As time went by, the couple’s proximity to the media increased.

“Everything the McCanns do – visits to church, walks on the beach, visits to the Pope, the broadcasting of photos or videos of Madeleine – is focussed on keeping the story alive. Apart from that, they delivered artificial stories when there was a lack of news concerning the police investigation”, says Shemi Orgad.
Felisbela Lopes explains the “media machine” operation from the visit to the Pope. For days, the advisors worked on the notion, which was then transmitted by the media, that Kate and Gerry would get a private audience with the Pope. It turned out that they were just sitting in the front row at Saint Peter’s Square, along with dozens of other people. But the image that was broadcast was the Pope blessing a picture of Madeleine. And some of the photos (close-up images) almost gave us the idea of a private meeting. “In some cases, the journalists managed not to report what they saw on location”, the communications professor from Universidade do Minho says.

It was through moments like those, that the most broadcast and commented family drama case was built. Several observers are uninimous as they list the ingredients of the media success this case has been: a pretty child, two pretty twin siblings, good-looking parents with succesful carrers, spending holidays abroad, in a sort of fairytale where nothing bad could happen. But their worst nightmare came true. And that was a click. “As information consumers, we depend from an emotional degree, and we feel compassionate about the unbelievable pain” that this family is experiencing, Felisbela Lopes says. “This story has been kept alive because it is about people’s most common fears. A kidnapped daughter is every parent’s worst nightmare”, says Orgad.

For all this “there is no record of such mediatization in Europe or abroad”, says the University of Minho professor. “The phenomenon’s dimension has surprised me”, says Fernando Nobre, the founding doctor of International Medical Assistance, who has a vast experience of catastrophe situations all over the world- and who often needs to alert the public to situations that are not always front-page news. “I think the response of the anonymous citizen was provoked by the media response”, Nobre says. “Many televisions say they obey their audiences, but it’s the media who induce certain behaviours in people”, he adds. And looking at the planetary dimension of the phenomenon, the doctor recognizes “the weight of the anglo-saxon media”, whose agenda sets the rules.

In this “circular information process”, as Felisbela Lopes calls it, in which “the parents rapidly took advantage of the snowball effect”, the role of traditional media is not the only one, and not the most decisive either. The campaign has been well thought about, and it covers new technologies (where Philomena McCann plays an important part). “The use of internet and chain messages, per mail or SMS, are formats that invite people to participate in the McCann’s pain”, Shemi Orgad says.

But in spite of their apparent capacity to handle the media, “the phenomenon is not a result of control, but of chaos – with the control of the information in the hands of the receiver, not of the emitter”, says Carlos Coelho, a brand manager and Ivity’s president. The professional content producers have opened up to the “social media”, the amateur producers. Maddie’s story revealed “the consumer’s power, through a vehicle of planetary dimension, such as the Internet”, says this marketing specialist.

“Usually the passive receiver of a message, the citizen has become part of an active army that mobilizes for a cause”, Carlos Coelho says. About the moment or episode that has projected this case in a decisive form, this brand manager has no doubts. “The mechanics of this process explains its dimension. But the decisive item is its symbol: Maddie’s photo, which nobody can resist. She is the aggregating element.”