Slaves to fashion of sorts

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 "Big Lots" discount electronics category.
  • Next month, you can buy Lady Gaga's CD of duets with legendary crooner Tony Bennett. Tony doesn't need the money or a singing partner. Gaga, on the other hand, basks in Tony's music halo, perhaps extending her brand to a demographic that knows her best for buying dresses in the meat department at PathMark.
Lady Gaga knows opportunity when she sees it. She doesn't know PR the way professionals do, but has good instincts about what's popular and a smart strategy team helping her. And when you have a $90 million empire and more than 47 million Facebook fans, it's hard to fault her choices.

On the other hand, you wouldn't go to her for PR advice if you were, say, a singer named Justin on a never-ending bender. So while she profits from a good instinct for notoriety, I'm reluctant to crown her a master of PR. 

STILL, it says something when you bump a sitting president off the cover of a PR textbook. He, too, has a similar strategy team -- apparently with less smarts than Gaga's.






Popular posts from this blog

Questioning the New York (Times) Athletic Club

Image
The New York Times dropped the axe on its legendary sports department in early July. Sports reporting we read in the Times henceforth will originate with The Athletic, a younger (and perhaps more agile) sportswriting website purchased by the NYT Corp.  You'll find a good assessment of the move here .  As a Times subscriber, I have automatic access to any sports reporting it produces. I won't call it "free access," however, because my ever-increasing monthly rate for a three-day Times subscription surely will include a tithe to cover the Athletic.  But ditching the Times ' sports desk and dispersing its fine sports journalists and photographers to other NYT jobs? That's a loss. Here's why: Conflict of interest: The Athletic allows its staff to report on sports gambling, while some are paid contractors of the sportsbook companies. Is there a Pete Rose-style conflict here? I'd expect so. The Times allowed no double-dipping within its sports staff. The s
Read more

Your hand's already in my pocket

Image
I use an ad blocker, and probably you do, too. Every day, even on websites where I pay a monthly subscription fee, I see a pop-up that say: "We Notice You Are Using an Ad Blocker." And they ask me to turn it off. I don't. I'm already paying for that news website's reporting. Their hands are already in my pocket. And, truth is, I don't mind digital ads that are somewhat relevant to my tastes. Show me an ad for a guitar deal or Ford car parts, and I'll probably read it. Screen shot, unnamed Gannett publication, Sept. 2018 But I don't care about Patrick Swayze's secret son. Or what forgotten 1970s actress Loni Anderson looks like today. (I was more of a Howard Hesseman /Dr. Johnny Fever fan, anyway.) When newspapers relied on print ad revenue, I'd glance at those ads -- and sometimes, I'd bite -- because those ads were for local or regional merchants. They wanted to build a relationship with me.  They didn't try
Read more

Readers get the (drive) shaft in motorsports coverage

Image
In mid-August, the U.S.'s premier auto racing sport will compete at a road racing course in Watkins Glen, NY. NASCAR's brutish Cup series cars will race in this rural community Aug. 20.  May 2023, Charlotte Motor Speedway. (c) DKassnoff, 2023. But, don't expect  The New York Times  to cover NASCAR before then. The newspaper's sports section -- now outsourced to The Athletic, its sportsbook subsidiary -- hasn't covered NASCAR since July 2. That's when NASCAR's drivers competed on the rain-soaked streets of Chicago. The Times provided no coverage of their July 30 race in Richmond, VA, or any NASCAR race since early July. The Times  has focused its motorsports coverage on Formula 1 racing. These are the expensive, open-wheeled, high performance racing teams once called Grand Prix. This class of racing is controlled by another media company: John Malone's Liberty Media, which purchased Formula 1 in 2017 and returned it to profitability. Visit the Times '
Read more