Who is Jackson?

By day, Jackson Wightman is Communications Director for CauseForce. In this capacity he is responsible for external and internal communications as well as fun things like guerrilla marketing. CauseForce produces large-scale fundraising events for non-profits across North America. Its notable brands include the Ride to Conquer Cancer, the Weekend to End Women’s Cancers and the Underwear Affair. Over his career, Jackson has designed communications strategies for a myriad of organizations in the private, non-profit and governmental sectors. He has placed clients in every major Canadian media outlet and most major US media organizations.

He is real into guerrilla marketing and has designed and staged numerous multi-city guerrilla initiatives. Jackson’s guerrilla work has been profiled in industry trade publications for its innovativeness. Among others, the good folks at PR Week, Marketing Magazine, BizBash and Media in Canada found his stuff kinda cool. Additionally, Jackson has had the distinct pleasure of working in the War Room on two national election campaigns as a member of the issue management team. He has an MA in International Politics from Carleton and an MBA from Concordia. It took a considerable amount of subterfuge and wheedling for these institutions to actually award him these degrees.

Let’s now reiterate that anything you read on this blog in no way reflects the opinions of CauseForce (for whom Jackson wishes to remain gainfully employed) or any of the fantabulous clients Jackson has the pleasure of working with.

By night, he is a revolutionary fighting to spread the gospel about the need for propaganda to be proper. So much of the PR and marketing we are assaulted by each time we open our eyes is full of crap. It is over the top, uses language that would get most of us punched in the nose by our friends and family if we indulged in it and insults our intelligence to the core. In short, it is improper. This needs to change. Saying that one works in PR or marketing is now akin to telling people “I am a tax collector,” or “I practice law.”

The industry has only itself to blame.

Full disclosure: Jackson is guilty of all the sins he writes about here. He has spammed reporters, regularly used over the top language replete with hyperbolic nonsense, and even got paid to write spin lines for politicians. In short, Jackson Wightman was the problem. So maybe this is a little piece of purgatory. Hopefully it is useful and entertaining.