It’s kind of shameful, really, this growing trend of “as long as we make headlines we win” sort of publicity goal. I’ve talked about this before, and it is still no less true: in this age, as long as they are talking about you, you are doing something right. This blog post decries that sort of ad campaign, but still mentions the brand name in the headline, effectively nullifying its main point. If you mention the brand name, regardless of the spin you put on it, they win.
American Apparel did the same thing with the court case in which they were wrapped up. They lost the case, but the publicity that they garnered from it more than made up for the court costs - i.e. being in legal trouble has saved them money. This is not new either, as anyone who has studied Michael Jordan’s history with Nike will know.
All this presents an interesting conundrum, because the goal of “don’t talk about this because then the brand wins” argument is defeated by uttering that sentence alone. The prudent thing to do seems to be just to close the Internet tab and forget about it. But is that ignoring the problem? I’m assuming that most of the outcry over scandalous ads is aimed towards setting some standards of decency, but if those never manifest, then the targeted brand wins out. Should we give them publicity in an attempt to stifle them, or should we just ignore them and hope the campaign shrivels and dies, unnoticed?
_DZ
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