Your PR Architect

Lady Gaga may or may not be a fashion icon. But someone at Pearson Publishing thinks she's a barometer of public relations, and chose her as the cover photo for Fraser Seitel's The Practice of Public Relations (12th edition). Footnote: some guy named Obama was the cover photo of the 11th edition. This isn't about tastes in music or whether Mr. Obama is a successful president. It's about our attitudes toward celebrity, and how we eagerly accept entertainers as exemplars of brilliance. I don't follow Lady Gaga or her music, but I do see how she's adept at leveraging opportunity when it comes her way. Examples: Polaroid -- today a foonote in photography -- made a splash in 2010 when it named Lady Gaga its "creative director."  Digital cameras were wildly popular then, and manufacturers churned them out in semi-bedazzling colors. Polaroid's marketing move cued plenty of headlines. However, Polaroid's brand image never rose above the ...

Try to think of a time when anyone you know said: "Hey, let's pick up a Sbarro's pizza for dinner." Odds are: never. Sbarro isn't a destination eatery. You mainly find them in shopping malls and airports, and unless it's the lunch hour, the meal selections often look as if they've sat under a bright heat lamp longer than a Kardashian. Today, Sbarro filed for bankruptcy reorganization a second time. You could target plenty of reasons why this chain's brand has been eclipsed by Papa John's, Domino's, or even Pizza Hut. Possible causes: saturated fat, sodium, or the reality that no one over age 17 enjoys the experience of eating in a mall's food court under flying sparrows. My view: Sbarro might have done better to personalize its brand to help connect with consumers. They clearly don't have the media ad dollars to compete with Papa John's (and quarterback and Buick pitchman Peyton Manning), leaving their social media presence...