Nigel Oakes

Nigel Oakes (Date of Birth: 03/07/1962) is the Chief Executive Officer of Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL}, the "leading supplier of strategic communications, information operations and public diplomacy to governments and military clients around the world". He is the older brother of Alex Oakes

According to the Independent:

His career has included working in the record industry, giving lectures at Harvard and running a company which fills shops with nice smells to encourage spending. Indonesians who have met him speak of his charm, good manners and immaculate tailoring. But during the 1980s, he was known for rather different reasons. Mr Oakes enjoyed a brief period of notoriety as the boyfriend of Lady Helen Windsor, now Lady Helen Taylor, the daughter of the Queen's cousin. On her engagement in 1992, he gave an interview to the Sunday Mirror which was perhaps less than discreet. "She was quite passionate and demonstrative," he said of their physical relationship. "It would be done in an old-fashioned, romantic way, wearing a nightie and pyjamas."

Events managment

It is a big industry. Nobody knows quite how big because statistics are unreliable, but its trade organisation reckons that annual turnover is now around pounds 1.2 billion. And events organisers, communications consultancies, conference organisers, production companies - call them what you will - finally seem to be gaining the client recognition they have long sought. There are many reasons why it has taken 25 years for the industry to establish itself as a serious force. One problem is how it defines itself. If you produce advertisements, you're an ad agency. If you handle PR, you're a PR agency. If you organise events, video, conferences or print production you can describe yourself in one of a dozen ways... All communications consultancies are adamant that the best way of adding value is through integration. Some, like Harrington Oakes, are passionate on the subject. Nigel Oakes says: 'Too few clients are moving towards what we call relationship marketing. We have been known to be rude to clients who want a one-off job because they are wasting their money. We see ourselves as 'value-driven' and we will not accept a brief unless it is expressed in terms of the degree of change required from the audience.'

Since it was founded in 1989, Harrington Oakes has built its reputation on a detailed understanding of how communications work. It originally traded as Behavioural Dynamics, a concept company which - through a body of knowledge built on psychology - dealt in the methodology of communications. Through courses and consultancy, it helped communications companies understand the psychological profiling of an audience and how to motivate that audience. Harrington Oakes is now a production company in its own right with Behavioural Dynamics as its guiding principle. Oakes says: 'There is a distinction between the scientific and creative approaches to information. Those who ignore the scientific approach will be left behind. We would much rather be in competition with consul-tancies which use behavioural knowledge because it makes for a more advanced industry. 'Some 75 per cent of communications is bought because it looks pretty - which is ridiculous. In a few years' time, if you don't know what you're doing and you keep hiding behind an artistic, creative veil, you will get fired. The guesswork has to stop.' 'We don't have a name that people understand. The terminology changes all the time which makes it difficult for clients to appreciate what we offer'.

Selling with smelling

In 1994 Oakes popped up talking about the use of smell in marketing:

marketing companies have started collaborating with chemists to whip up a range of whiffs that operate under our level of consciousness to evoke sweet feelings and irresistible impulses in us. Leading the pong offensive is Aromatics Marketing, a subsidiary of Behavioural Dynamics, itself a Swiss-owned company headed by ex-Saatchi Group director Nigel Oakes, which draws on psychologists to help businesses shape their customers' buying patterns. Aromatics Marketing uses research by its scientific adviser Dr George Dodd, a chemist specialising in olfactory research at Warwick University, to produce scents that supposedly prompt that buying feeling. Marketing director Paul Roach says it is developing corporate aromas for a range of companies, including a chain of high-street convenience stores.

'We develop a fragrance to suit the corporate identity and the environment,' Roach explains. Depending on the complexity of the brief, this could cost the client from £2,000 to £10,000. The resulting scent (Roach flinches delicately from the word smell - 'We don't flog smells') is then sold to the company in jars of liquid which can be squirted into the air or distributed through the air-conditioning system. THE question is: does it make customers buy? 'There's been remarkably little research into the commercial consequences of creating a pleasant aroma in the environment,' muses David Booth, professor of psychology specialising in consumer behaviour at the University of Birmingham. 'But common sense says people will linger longer in pleasant smelling environments and hurry out of an unpleasant one.'

And again in 1996:

Most feel there's something unsavoury about subliminal tactics. When a number of US companies tested subliminal advertising, Coca-Cola tried one commercial involving split-second images of the word "THIRSTY". Not only were the results inconclusive, but consumers were put off by the covert manipulation. Oakes describes titillating and targeting consumer's senses as "subrational" rather than "subliminal": "Sub-liminal means below the threshold for detection. If that were the case, it wouldn't work." Tackling one sense in isolation is unlikely to result in increased sales. "But producing the right ambience undoubtedly has re-sults."

Yet Oakes remains cautious. "It's more than a gimmick: it's being driven by companies trying to increase profits. But they would be foolish to believe they can rely on tactics like these to guarantee success. After all, these tricks are mainly cosmetic. And they're tantamount to manipulating the customer, which is largely un-ethical." Instead, he advocates: "The creation of an environment conducive to selling. You need only a few people to start talking about 'trickery' and you've lost all credibility." Even so, he concedes, there is a fine line to tread between "encouragement" and "persuasion".

Role in Jakarta in 2000

Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid has turned to British public affairs consultant Nigel Oakes to help manage his image amid a tide of unpopularity which threatens to engulf his presidency.

Wahid hired Oakes, who runs Jakarta PR and public affairs shop Strategic Communications Laboratories, on the word of his advisers. His tasks include monitoring and evaluation of media coverage of the Wahid administration, which has been criticised as ineffective since the recent resumption of ethnic and separatist violence on several islands in the Indonesian archipelago. Oakes' appointment comes shortly before this month's session of the People's Consultative Assembly at which some members have threatened an attempt to remove the president. Wahid came to power nine months ago on a reformist platform after the dissolution of president Suharto's 30-year term in office in 1998.

The Jakarta Post reports:

President Abdurrahman Wahid and Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri have failed in eliminating the corrupt practices of their predecessors. In fact, the indications are abundant that the President and Vice President's close circles are engaged in the same practices... As if the President's alleged nepotism were not bad enough, Gus Dur's sense of Indonesia's economic crisis has also left many of his own friends bewildered. Last September, people were shocked to read a statement by a palace spokesperson that the travel-hungry head of state was considering buying a US$60 million twin-engined Boeing 737-800 for the Presi-dent's use. The President immediately dismissed those reports (Associated Press, Sept. 6, 2000; Indonesian Observer, Sept. 6 & 8, 2000). A similar brief controversy developed in Jakarta, when the media reported that Gus Dur's family and inner circle of friends had hired a British political consultant, Nigel Oakes, to launch a US$2 million public relations campaign to improve the President's public profile. Oakes eventually closed shop and left the country, after one presidential insider had paid him US$300,000 cash for a two-month media campaign (Asian Wall Street Journal, Aug. 1, 2000; The Independ-ent, Aug. 6, 2000; Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 8, 2000).

A British political consultant, hired to help lift the deteriorating public image of Indonesian President Ab-durrahman Wahid, has quit after his public relations methods came under scrutiny.

Old Etonian Nigel Oakes, 38, was said to have left the country for Singapore and shut down his media centre in Jakarta. The centre, established under the guise of an independent monitoring agency, was quietly campaigning on behalf of Mr Wahid, who is said to have first met Mr Oakes in June. One report suggested that members of the Wahid family and inner circle of supporters had paid for the campaign with up to $US2million ($A3.4million). But staff last week were reportedly seen carrying away televisions and computer screens, and newspaper had been plastered over the windows. The closure followed an Asian Wall Street Journal report question-ing its role. According to the report, the agency monitored local and international media but also engineered a PR campaign in the name of the "Foundation of Independent Journalists". This included the screening of televi-sion commercials stressing religious and ethnic harmony that gave implicit backing to the beleaguered President. The centre also held a seminar on journalistic ethics and independence, but shielded from participants the fact that it was being funded by the presidential palace. Mr Oakes' main company, Strategic Communications Laboratories, has operated in Indonesia since the final days of the Suharto regime. Asked yesterday by London's Sunday Times why he had closed down the centre, he replied: "The reason that it has been closed down is that any PR organisation does not want to be in the news. You don't want a higher profile than your client."

The Independent added:

UNTIL LAST week, when it evaporated as suddenly as it had appeared, the headquarters of Behav-ioural Dynamics was one of the hidden wonders of Jakarta.

Even the people who worked there speak with awe of the vast room, with its 25 computers, its 16 hi-tech flat-screen monitors, and the two giant TV screens. Men and women sat glued to the internet, or analysed news stories from home and abroad. Above their workstations stretched a long mirror, and it was behind here that the real business of Behavioural Dynamics went on. 
From the far side, some of the most influential people in Indonesia were discreetly ushered in to look down on the scene below through the one- way glass. Visitors compared it to a Tom Clancy novel, or to the greatest secret agent of them all. "It was fun and exciting, but also a bit dangerous because everything he did was so secretive," an Indonesian who worked in the operations room, officially called the Jakarta Interna-tional Media Research Centre, said of his boss. "We didn't know the purpose of it all, we just did what he asked. We called him Mr Bond because he is English, and because he is such a mystery."... it was around this time, in early June, that members of the president's family met Mr Oakes, head of a company called Strategic Communications Laboratories. Under discussion was the crescendo of attacks on Mr Wahid in the media: when Mr Oakes outlined ways of turning this around, his listeners were impressed. Money changed hands - reports vary from $ 300,000 to $ 2m (pounds 207,000 to pounds 1.3m). Within days, the gleaming operations centre had been set up... According to diplomats he first made his presence known in Jakarta towards the end of Mr Suharto's new order. He unsuccessfully offered his services to Mr Habibie and set up an earlier version of his ops room in Jakarta's Mandarin Hotel. Finally he was introduced to Mr Wahid's daughter Yenni. Two months later the fusillade of criticism of the president has eased somewhat, but whether that is Mr Oakes's doing is another question.

His work appears to have been rather limited. A series of television messages were produced in the name of the obscure Foundation of Independent Journalists, stressing religious and ethnic harmony - implic-itly saying only Mr Wahid could deliver this. He then organised a seminar on journalistic ethics and inde-pendence; ironically, its participants appeared to be unaware that it was subsidised by the presidential palace. Otherwise, the operations centre monitored stories about Mr Wahid, but its primary function appears to have been cosmetic. "It was just like a movie set to impress the clients, to calm down the family," said one Indonesian who visited it. "They are really desperate." Indeed, it is unclear how much say the 60-year-old president, who is almost blind, had in the hiring of Mr Oakes. There appears to have been little co -ordination with other departments: sources in the presidential secretariat say that the first they knew about Mr Oakes's contract was a newspaper report last week. Others say that it was a personal initiative of the Wahid entourage. "I'm not sure whether (he) knows about it," said one. "It's the family and the people around him. They need him to keep his power."

The Sunday Times:

Nigel Oakes says he was caught up in a dangerous web of intrigue and disinformation ahead of a crucial session of the Indonesian parliament this week. President Abdurrahman Wahid, whose officials hired Oakes to boost his image, is fighting to maintain his position amid political turbulence and outbreaks of secessionist and religious violence. Oakes, 38, flew to Singapore last week after an article in The Wall Street Journal detailed criticism of his practices in running a campaign on behalf of the president. A "media-monitoring centre" set up with banks of televisions and computers in Jakarta was rapidly shut down and staff were seen carrying equipment from the premises.

"The reason it has been closed down is that any PR organisation does not want to be in the news. You don't want a higher profile than your client," Oakes said yesterday. He acknowledged that the monitoring centre "looked like something out of James Bond", but said its role had been misunderstood.

"I've terminated all my connections. I'm no longer in the country," he added. "I do not want to be the centre of attention. I shall come back when I'm no longer of interest." Oakes runs a consultancy whose website (www.behavioural.com) emphasises confidentiality and security. However, he has a colourful past, re-corded in tabloid newspapers that chronicled his friendship with Lady Helen Windsor in the 1980s. Oakes, an Old Etonian, says he does not want to talk about his past. He may have appeared to be the right man to help the hapless Indonesian government tackle the daunt-ing crises that have beset the country since the fall of President Suharto, its long-time strongman, amid riots in 1998 that cost at least 1,200 lives. Thousands more have died since in conflicts ranging from East Timor to the western province of Aceh.

Oakes is listed as a director of 10 companies, but his main business appears to be Strategic Communi-cation Laboratories. SCL describes itself as an "elite communications team" of 32 "senior partners" and 72 "staff consultants" working with governments. SCL's website promises ex-pertise in "managing public opinion, whether for the purposes of winning election campaigns, handling disruptive minority groups or broadening government popularity". Perhaps most appealing to the beleaguered Indonesian government was SCL's pitch that "traditional methods of utilising force to tackle dissent may still be efficient in the short run, but tend to have negative repercussions in this more liberal environment". The company pledges strict confidentiality, saying that "absolutely no information concerning any of our past projects will be made available under any circumstances". Oakes acknowledged working in South Africa but refused to talk about any other clients.

However, he has now been thrust into the limelight in one of the most corrupt and conspiracy-obsessed countries on earth. He came to Indonesia ahead of the presidential elections in 1999. At that time he was looking for business from the then president, BJ Habibie, and was pitching for work from the ruling Golkar party. Oakes and his associates are believed to have identified General Wiranto, the then armed forces chief, as a saleable candidate for president. But Golkar officials said the consultancy price was too high and no deal was done. Wiranto was purged from power by the new government after the military was implicated in massacres in East Timor last year. Oakes says he renewed contact with the presidential palace earlier this year. The new president's aides were desperate to assert the coalition government's authority over a fractious military and factions still loyal to Suharto.

To conform with Indonesian law, Oakes says, he worked through PT Ellipse, a local public relations firm run by Tony Gourlay, an Australian. Oakes set up an operation to monitor media coverage for the palace. He also disbursed funds to a local group called the Foundation of Independent Journalists and helped it to sponsor a conference on journalistic ethics, addressed by the president. The foundation says it did not know that the funds came from the government. Oakes and the Ellipse team created a series of television advertisements to persuade Indonesians of the virtues of tolerance and democracy. Viewers had no idea they were paid for by the government, but Oakes says the commercials were non-political. "It is hearts and minds but it is hearts and minds from the point of view of the population," he says. "We were completely open and above board."

Oakes has been practising advanced techniques to mould public opinion since the 1980s. Among the methods he offered to British companies were pumping smells into retail outlets to influence customers, and using tapes to deter shoplifters by constant subtle references to security guards. "We use the same techniques as Aristotle and Hitler," Oakes was quoted as saying by Marketing, a trade magazine, in 1992. "We appeal to people on an emotional level to get them to agree on a functional level." The problem in dysfunctional Indonesia is that the depth of its crisis defies any glib marketing solutions. Such is the paranoid nature of its politics that any hint of foreign plots or interference can prove dangerous. "I have no connection with any British agency, the British embassy or the military," Oakes emphasised yesterday. The work is continuing through PT Ellipse, he says, although he cut all ties to it last week. "They are a straightforward PR company," he says. "I am a political consultant, which always carries a negative spin-doctor tag."

False account of background

According to the SCL website in September 2007:

Oakes was educated at Eton College and studied psychology at University College London (UCL). In 1982 he joined Monte Carlo TV as a producer and in 1985 became its Head of International Production. He joined Saatchi and Saatchi as a Senior Producer in 1987.

In 1989 he established the Behavioural Dynamics Working Group at UCL and in 1990, the Behavioural Dynamics Institute (BDI) was formed as a centre of excellence and a research facility for strategic communication and social marketing. Over the next nine years BDi commissioned $17m in pioneering communication research programmes. In 1993 Oakes set up Strategic Communication Laboratories and using the new communication methodology from BDi, ran election campaigns and national communication campaigns for a broad variety of international governments. Published clients include South Africa, USA, St Vincent & the Grenadines, Antigua, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Grenada, Nepal, Pakistan and Switzerland.

FoI requests to UCL revealed that 'Nigel Oakes never attended UCL' and that 'we can find no record since 1955 of Nigel Oakes studying psychology at UCL. We have been trying to locate information about the BDWG, but so far have failed to find any information. However the psychology department have still to confirm definitively one way or the other. We will continue to investigate, and respond one way or the other.' Finally it was reported that 'Neither the Behavioural Dynamics Working Group or Nigel Oakes are known to the UCL Psychology Department.' UCL then wrote (on 17 september 2007) to Oakes asking him for details of his alleged involvement with the university and that 'If [he] did not study at UCL [to] please confirm that [he] will amend the SCL website' according to UCL Oakes did not reply. However the SCL website was altered to remove references to UCL. It now (January 2008) reads:

Nigel Oakes was educated at Eton College and later studied Psychology. In 1982 he joined Monte Carlo TV as a producer and in 1985 became its Head of International Production. Two years later Nigel joined Saatchi and Saatchi as a Senior Producer. In 1989 he established the Behavioural Dynamics Working Group and, in 1990, the Behavioural Dynamics Institute (BDi) was formed as a centre of excellence and a research facility for strategic communication and social marketing.

Elsewhere, on the BDI site it is said that 'In 1989 Nigel Oakes set up an academic working group at London University to develop a more effective method of communication for conflict reduction.' An FoI request to the University of London drew the following response:

There is no record of a person of this name being designated a Professor, Reader or Teacher of the University of London, although he could have been connected to one of the nineteen self-governing Colleges without being given one of these designations. The central University has no knowledge of or connection with a Behavioural Dynamics Working Group or a BDI.

What is the BD Institute?

So what of the Institute? There is a company called Behavioural Dynamics Holdings Limited which was created in 1991. In 2006 it had one director (Nigel Oakes) and a secretary N Dickens. documents at companies House show that the company 'was under the control of Diggle Investments Limited, a company incorpoorated in Jersey'. These documents also show that the company was dormant in 2006.

Other directorships

Name: NIGEL JOHN OAKES Nationality: BRITISH Latest Address: 11 BATTERSEA CHURCH ROAD, LONDON Postcode: SW11 3LY Date of Birth: 03/07/1962

• Company Appointments: Current: 2 / Resigned: 6 / Dissolved : 9

• SECRETARY Appointed: pre 28/09/1991 Dissolved: 01/01/1999 Occupation: DIRECTOR Company Number: 02544175 Company Name: BEHAVIOURAL DYNAMICS LIMITED Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 18/03/1993Dissolved: 30/06/1998 Occupation: DIRECTOR Company Number: 02801165 Company Name: THE HOTLINER COMPANY LIMITED Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: pre 09/11/1991 Dissolved: 08/10/1998 Occupation: DIRECTOR Company Number: 02558780 Company Name: UNIVERSAL LIVE COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 18/03/1993 Dissolved: 04/02/2003 Occupation: DIRECTOR Company Number: 02801160 Company Name: HARRINGTON OAKES LIMITED Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 14/01/1994 Dissolved: 29/12/1998 Occupation: DIRECTOR Company Number: 02693710 Company Name: ULC LIMITED Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 26/01/1995 Dissolved: 10/11/1998 Occupation: CHAIRMAN Company Number: 03014815 Company Name: FINANCIAL PRESENTATIONS LIMITED Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 08/02/1991Occupation: DIRECTOR Company Number: 02580903 Company Name: BEHAVIOURAL DYNAMICS HOLDINGS LIMITED Active
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 23/07/1996 Dissolved: 12/05/1998 Occupation: BUSINESSMAN Company Number: 03228280 Company Name: LEVEL 1 CONSULTING LTD. Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 23/08/1996Dissolved: 16/06/1998 Occupation: BUSINESSMAN Company Number: 03241699 Company Name: ORGANISATIONAL SUPPORT SERVICES LTD. Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 29/05/1996 Dissolved: 10/03/1998 Occupation: COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT Company Number: 03204737 Company Name: BEHAVIOURAL DYNAMICS CONSULTING LIMITED Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 03/10/2005 Occupation: COMPANY DIRECTOR Company Number: 05514098 Company Name: STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION LABORATORIES LIMITED Active
• SECRETARY Appointed: 19/12/1991 Resigned: 10/07/1992 Occupation: Company Number: 02674216 Company Name: RETAIL DYNAMICS LIMITED Active
• SECRETARY Appointed: pre 09/11/1991 Resigned: 13/04/1993 Occupation: Company Number: 02558780 Company Name: UNIVERSAL LIVE COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 08/02/1991Resigned: 13/04/1993 Occupation: PRODUCER Company Number: 02580903 Company Name: BEHAVIOURAL DYNAMICS HOLDINGS LIMITED Active
• DIRECTOR Appointed: pre 28/09/1991Resigned: 13/04/1993 Occupation: DIRECTOR Company Number: 02544175 Company Name: BEHAVIOURAL DYNAMICS LIMITED Dissolved
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 19/12/1991 Resigned: 10/07/1992 Occupation: DIRECTOR Company Number: 02674216 Company Name: RETAIL DYNAMICS LIMITED Active
• DIRECTOR Appointed: 19/03/1993 Resigned: 08/02/1996 Occupation: DIRECTOR Company Number: 02801345 Company Name: MARKETING AROMATICS LIMITED, Dissolved