Annan Scouts Stars to Give U.N. Luster

Looking to lend a little glamour to the United Nations, Secretary-General Kofi Annan is recruiting celebrities--from Luciano Pavarotti to Earvin “Magic” Johnson--as cheerleaders for the organization, and, after two days in the Bay Area, he’ll shop for more at a Los Angeles reception today with movie luminaries.

U.N. officials grimace at the suggestion that they’re “going Hollywood,” but they acknowledge that although Annan may have journeyed to Baghdad and faced down Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, he can’t compete with Leonardo DiCaprio for media attention.

The officials know that many of the country’s television networks, newspapers and magazines are closing foreign news bureaus at the same time they’re increasing their coverage of entertainment, and so it only makes sense, these officials say, for the U.N. to hitch itself to the stars.

“These people have an ability to communicate with the public that most of us can only dream about,” said Gillian Sorensen, U.N. assistant secretary-general for external affairs and architect of the California trip.

At a meeting today at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel, Annan will designate former Laker star Johnson as a U.N. “peace messenger.” Sorensen said Johnson has agreed to make television public service spots on behalf of an upcoming U.N. special session on combating drug abuse.

Over the rest of the year, Annan plans to tap as many as 30 actors, musicians, athletes and others as peace messengers in what he calls an international networking effort to boost the U.N. image.

In addition to Johnson and Pavarotti--who got his peace messenger pin earlier this year in New York and has agreed to plug the organization at his concerts--the roster so far includes North African singer Enrico Macias, who is little known in the U.S. but beloved in Europe. Meanwhile, actor Danny Glover, actress Linda Gray and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich have been named by assorted U.N. agencies as celebrity spokespersons this year.

Also in the works is a globally televised pop concert in December to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Annan has even approached producers about basing a movie on the exploits of U.N. workers. His pitch, he said in an interview, goes something like this: “Every day, men and women leave their families behind and go off to make a difference in the lives of strangers in Bosnia or stand guard on the border of Iraq and Kuwait. . . . We are not some distant organization out there in a glass house on the East River.”

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Certainly the U.N. seems ripe for a public relations make-over. It is struggling financially, thanks largely to the U.S. failure to pay more than $1 billion in back dues; it is searching to find its role in the post-Cold War world; and it increasingly is a favorite punching bag for conservative Republicans, neo-isolationists and paranoid fantasists imagining black helicopters swooping down from Canada.

But can Magic Johnson do for the U.N. what he did for the Lakers? Do celebrity spokespersons really make a difference?

Advertising research--and the U.N.’s own long experience with its UNICEF “goodwill ambassadors” such as the late Danny Kaye, the late Audrey Hepburn and Harry Belafonte--suggests that they can. But there also are perils in associating with a celebrity, as Hertz can tell you from its relationship with O.J. Simpson.

Public relations and advertising experts say success lies in carefully matching the messenger, the product and the target audience.

One Los Angeles-area public relations executive who specializes in promoting “good works” organizations suggested that Johnson probably is a good match. He may attract young people and sports fans who don’t normally think about the U.N. But Pavarotti appeals to an elite audience that probably is already more knowledgeable about the organization than the average American. “In that case, they’re preaching to the choir,” said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“But the biggest risk you have when you deal with a spokesperson is that . . . just as their celebrity can wash over your brand, which is what you want, anything bad they do can also wash over your brand, which is what you don’t want,” he said.

There also is the unpredictability factor.

Officials at the U.N. Population Fund winced earlier this year when actress Gray, best known for playing the long-suffering wife of J.R. Ewing in the “Dallas” television series, used a U.N.-sponsored news conference to also promote a California-based New Age health clinic. The clinic placed its publicity material alongside the U.N.’s and brought its own public relations representative to the news conference.

To a great degree, however, Annan is seeking to expand throughout the organization the success of UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, which has been using its goodwill ambassadors since 1953 and credits them with helping give it the brightest public profile of any U.N. agency.

Although movie stars long had been used to sell cigarettes, soap, cereal and dozens of other consumer products, and had made patriotic pitches for war bonds in both world wars, UNICEF was a pioneer in using celebrities to raise public awareness and money for a cause.

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Today, the organization, one of several semi-independent agencies under the U.N. umbrella, has two full-time employees mainly devoted to the care and handling of its stable of international celebrities.

The stars have become indispensable, according to Bob Brennan, who as chief of the public participation section has shepherded UNICEF’s goodwill ambassadors around the globe since 1974. Unlike most U.N. agencies, UNICEF gets one-third of its $1-billion-a-year budget from nongovernmental sources, mainly greeting card sales and direct donations, and celebrities are at the center of the fund-raising efforts, from benefit dinners to memorabilia auctions to public appearances.

UNICEF officials contend that the well-covered visits of actresses Liv Ullmann and Hepburn to drought-stricken areas of Africa in the 1980s and early ‘90s helped bolster international relief efforts.

There have been times, Brennan admits, when UNICEF’s stars--all of whom are required to visit a field operation--have a hard time adjusting to the rigors of travel in the developing world, where running water may be a luxury and four-star hotels are nonexistent. Usually, however, it’s the celebrity’s spouse who does the complaining.

“We never know, is this the celebrity who’s saying this, or is it just the mate watching out for her?” he said.

UNICEF’s program began by chance in 1953 when actor Kaye sat next to the agency’s executive director at the time, Maurice Pate, on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. By the time the plane landed, Kaye had volunteered to publicize its activities.

He persuaded Paramount Pictures to make a 20-minute film about UNICEF programs in Asia, “Assignment: Children,” which was used as an introductory short with Paramount features. “Basically, that’s how the public got to know about UNICEF,” Brennan said.

Annan said he wouldn’t mind seeing a studio make a similar short about the U.N. now, and that might be part of his talk when he meets with industry executives today at a reception organized by Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Assn. of America.

He’ll also remind them of their direct stake in the U.N. The Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization, a U.N. affiliate, sets international copyright regulations crucial to the industry’s anti-piracy efforts.

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Annan, 60, is drawn to the industry in part because he and his wife, Nane, a respected artist, are part of the New York cultural scene and love film, theater, concerts and museums. At last year’s Venice Film Festival, he had dinner with Valenti, actor Harrison Ford and screenwriter Melissa Mathison, who is Ford’s wife. Today’s reception grew out of that dinner, Valenti said.

Annan’s activities in Los Angeles will extend beyond show business. He will address an audience of the World Affairs Council/Town Hall, receive a medal from the UCLA School of International Relations and have lunch with former Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

He will fly to Houston on Wednesday night for a Thursday speech at Rice University and a meeting with former President Bush.