Exxon’s PR Wizard
Herbert Schmertz was the head of Exxon’s PR operations from the early 1970s to the late 1980s, as the company was moving through the energy crisis of that era—and overlapping to when Exxon was beginning to do its own scientific work around climate change. What makes Schmertz, who died in 2018, such a good candidate for a movie is how he ruthlessly deployed new tactics to keep Big Oil in business.
He pioneered now-standard advertising techniques like disguising paid content as editorial content and having companies sponsor the arts to bolster their public image, not necessarily sell product (Exxon famously sponsored episodes of Masterpiece Theater in the 1970s). Schmertz also fostered particularly aggressive relationships with reporters that helped him get the company’s message across. His ideas not only changed the face of the advertising industry, but also shaped how Exxon would do battle with reporters and manipulate science for its own gain in the decades to come. If the producers of Thank You For Smoking are hunting for a follow-up, Schmertz would be a great subject.
