Well the Bruno movie is officially out in cinemas, and Bruno himself, the gay Austrian fashion journalist (a creation of English comedian Sasha Baron Cohen) has been in town this week doing a bit of promotion for it. He made a particular funny appearance on Rove last Sunday night, pushing the boundaries of social decency (with hilarious results) using a lot of shock tactics to get laughs out of people. (Rove in a naked suit anyone?)
This reminded me of Gordon Ramsay’s controversial appearance on Rove, and got me thinking about the lengths in which people will go to promote themselves. Which begs me to ask the question – Is all publicity good publicity? In the case of Bruno, I would have to say yes. Pictures have been popping up of him everywhere; people can’t seem to get enough of him. One minute he is dressed as a bull in Spain, and then next he is flashing his shiny silver g-string on Rove and asking to see his “coogle sack.” His catchphrases are everywhere, “this is the most influential movie about a gay Austrian since Terminator 2”, and his shock tactics have only served to help promote his film.
In the case of Gordon Ramsay, his now infamous fight with Tracy Grimshaw earned him a lot of critics – yet it was all anyone could talk about! It made headlines across the globe. As a result, an incredible amount of publicity was generated for The Good Food and Wine Festival, the whole reason Gordon was here. Was it any coincidence that the ‘fight’ between Grimshaw and Ramsay escalated when he made comments about Grimshaw while cooking at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, thus putting the festival back into the spotlight? I think not! Was his reputation damaged as a result? Not really. But then, celebrities can often take more risks when it comes to publicity and more often than not it will work in their favour.
But what about when ad agency Naked Communications decided to take a risk for their client Witchery, with the ‘girl in café looking for love’ YouTube video? The story went like this: girl meets guy in café. Guy leaves jacket behind. Girl launches YouTube video to search for her ‘prince’ and to return the wonderful, well made jacket. People got swept up in the story. It’s was then revealed that it was a carefully orchestrated PR stunt to promote the jacket as part of Witchery’s latest collection. It was at this point that everything went up in flames for Witchery. People were angry at being duped into believing it was real, and the mainstream media when out of their way to not name the fashion brand. This was a clear case of publicity backfiring. Big time.
The lesson here? Do your research! Know who your audience are and how they interact with media before launching a big public assault and pimping out your business in any way you can. As with any good marketing campaign, you need to develop clear objectives. Know what you want to achieve, how you are going to implement it, and what measures you are going to put in place in case it doesn’t go as planned!
If you are of the opinion that all publicity is good publicity then you have to understand the risks involved and be prepared to deal with the consequences if you fall flat on your face.
Do you think all publicity is good publicity? Is there such a thing as ‘bad’ publicity?
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Small businesses should take marketing and public relations in their own hands.
I believe that every small business should be a walking talking public relations advocate for their company that’s why I train small business operators in media skills in small groups so they can get out their messages.
Most small businesses can’t afford to retain full time public relations consultants so I have found that they respond to my media training in small groups for a modest outlay.
Doesn’t it come down to intent? If the PR is driven by a need to generate discussion (PR for free debate) and awareness, then that’s not bad.
If it’s in response to unplanned events or has negative unintended consequences (the phantom ute emails), then that’s bad… very bad. So bad infact you head to Afgahnistan to get away from it.
Two words: Crisis Control. If all publicity was good, oil spills wouldn’t need a communications team to clean up after them.
All publicity is definitely not good publicity – just ask Mr Turnbull at the moment – his slipping popularity is testament to bad PR!
With Jen’s blog about Publicity Queen’s media guarantee, while there was an element of defensiveness and scepticism from other PR practitioners [which I expected], I didn’t view the discussion as entirely negative.
However, given the undertones of competitors’ perceptions, it was imperative for me to get involved in the debate and to be open and frank.
As a professional corporate communicator, I wanted to be involved in the conversation so that I had an opportunity to clarify my organisation’s message and influence the tone of the debate which is exactly what happened – I’m still getting positive feedback now!
Publicity is a very powerful marketing tool and can have disastrous effects if it all turns bad and that’s why PR needs to be managed so strategically.
Seriously, that old publicity adage needs to go!
PR for free sparked debate, that\’s not negative publicity.
Publicity about being incompetent, dishonest or otherwise dodgy is bad publicity and bad for business. responding well to a negative issue is vital or your business will suffer.
(incidentally, she wouldn\’t have got much business if she\’d promised \’negative media coverage or your PR for free\’)
Rove: “Describe yourself in one sentence.”
Bruno: “I’m just like cocaine. I’m white, I’m addictive and men leave toilet cubicles with me all over their face”
He’s a genius!
Publicity needs to take into account what you’re trying to do in your overall promotional strategy and if this is done properly, a business should be able to measure those goals.
If there’s a lot of positive chatter about a brand in the general public space but the business’ core customer is nonplussed, then it’s clear the publicity hasn’t done much for sales. That’s a failed campaign, if the purpose of the publicity campaign was to lift sales.
So, Witchery may have experienced a backlash about their campaign, but if sales of the jacket went up, who’s to say that wasn’t good publicity?
It’s a bit like when I blogged about Sally Romano of PR agency Publicity Queen and her ‘media coverage or your PR for free’ guarantee. The negative backlash was incredible but Sally wasn’t worried and was happy to get her company’s name out there, sparking debate. She recently beat off competition to get a new client so maybe it didn’t do her any harm?
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