[Blind Gossip] Lots of wailing and finger-pointing going on at one singer’s PR camp yesterday. The client’s oh-so-carefully crafted and honed reputation suffered a smack upside the head, and she was VERY unhappy about it.
Whose fault was it? Everybody’s!
Just because a celebrity is wealthy and famous doesn’t mean that they are mature or capable of making consistently smart decisions when it comes to their public interactions. Some PR teams struggle every day trying to balance what the client wants to do with what the PR team knows is good for them.
Here’s one axiom that was violated: If there is another celebrity who is making a mistake… let them! Even Napoleon understood that as a war strategy. “Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
While the other celebrity isn’t an enemy, our singer felt compelled to jump right in to the fray. And she did so very publicly. That was dumb.
Here’s the second axiom that was violated: If there is conflict with another celebrity, the standard/proactive/mature/professional approach is to take the conversation offline. In this case, however, they took the reactive/incendiary/public approach. That was also dumb. And our singer got burned in the process.
While you may think that her PR team was angry, they weren’t. Publicists LIVE for this stuff! Watch the client make a mistake, convince the client to step back, then go in and clean up their mess. Every word of the follow-up was written by the pros, and they are coaching her now in what to say in interviews about the conflict.
While this whole thing shouldn’t have happened in the first place, her PR team should definitely be credited for a very nice save.
And, for the near future, the singer will be limiting herself to lighthearted messages like Happy Birthday greetings and thanking her fans.
Celebrity:
[Optional] Is it a good idea for celebrities to have free reign over their media interactions?