Digging a hole

Orange County Republican Party central committee member Marilyn Davenport let loose her ‘joke’ on Barac Obamas family where she had a picture of apes dressed up in ‘human’ clothing holding their child with the image of Barac Obamas head posted instead of the apes. She had sent the email to her fellow co-workers as a simple joke. News stories and people twitters accounts were going off the hook. People reading the information were gathering on twitter to voice their opinions. Davenport released one statement, “Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black,” – a bit socially incorrect don’t you think? Then released a more formal apology, “I am an imperfect Christian lady who tries her best to live a Christ-like honoring life. I would never do anything to intentionally harm or berate others regardless of ethnicity. Everyone who knows me knows that to be true.” Conservative Orange Country Republican activist Tim Whitacre didn’t help when he stated, “Marilyn believes that nobody knows where he was born and so this picture says a thousand words.” Good one team!

Burson burning

A PR firm Marsteller Burson was hired to plant anti-google ads on facebook due to facebook believing google was breaching privacy laws. Marsteller Burson admitted that “The assignment..should have been declined.” yet denied the entire thing until facebook itself came clean on the ‘operation.’ It is very rare that a PR firm would take on such a huge company and obviously has suffered the consequences. It was said that ‘the clients’ eg Facebook wanted to shed light on the situation. Burson states though, ‘when talking to the media, we need to adhere to strict standards of transparency about clients, and this incident underscores the absolute importance of that principle.’ Could it be a case of, we know we stuffed up?

Joel loves dogs?

Another form of the internet challenging a PR team was the release of the photo of Joel Monaghan playing a part in a sex act with a dog. Pants down for Joel left him with a bad image (literally) and damaging the rugby teams (Canberra Raiders) new ad launch. Managhan released a statement through his manager Jim Banaghan saying “The fact that someone has sought to compound the situation further by the use of social media only adds to the trauma but Joel accepts that it is his actions alone that are at fault.” The individual releasing the photo has copped a lot of criticism from Managhans supporters after releasing the photo on twitter and said that he too was a NRL supporter but cared for animals as well. 

Nixon Nixon Nixon…

So we’ve all heard about the 16 year old girl apparently sleeping with a st kilda football player. We’ve heard her cry wolf about being pregnant to Sam Gilbert. We’ve also heard the court case ruling its not true or at least not illegal. However, Nixon! A man that has had to deal with PR crisis’ before is now caught in the act (or so we think). Whilst saying ‘I did not have sex with that’ after he did indeed admit to being involved in drinking in her hotel room and then being photographed leaving at 7 15 in the morning. This is an example of statements, photos and evidence all clashing. He says one thing, a photo says 1000. It is almost that this girl was made a fool of first time round so she got the evidence so this time, she’d be right. Another aspect is his PR team might have thought, she was wrong last time, she’ll be wrong again. Never should anything go unturned. It is safe to say though that Ricky Nixon leaving the country has definitely proved ‘PR going to ground’

Chris Brown sensitive guy

As to continue on the Chris Brown repent blog it was not only the words of him going to his pastor to resolve and repent his sins commited against Rhianna, it was an inclusion in his statements. Whilst being apologetic Chris Browns PR team had to defend not only his sincerity but what was truth and fiction. “Those posts or writings under my name are frauds” This came in the conclusion of his statement. Unfortunately with the ‘Web 2.0’ it runs in a more group based input. SO his twitter was overwhelmed by acusations and rumors that where more or less true. By putting himself on twitter there would obviously be reprecussions, some postive and some negative! Also in his statement he said he was unable to say much more as he had to wait until the court case. All I have to say is that, you did what you did and now you’ve put it in your music to make millions. Are you truely sorry?

minage

Alternative young female rapper Nikki Minaj has created a new image for herself as she displayed her vicious feisty personality via a twitter post. the post stated that another female rapper was “next” following the death of most wanted terrorist Osama Bin Laden. This pun insinuates violence and is highly offensive so, she deleted the post on twitter immediately. The victim of this post update, Lil Kim had seen the comment prior to deletion and responded in a not-so-friendly way! PR has assisted miss Minaj using online tools to distract her followers from her disrespectful side. They reposted appropriate updates which involved words associated with respect, friends and success much like the approach Kim K’s publicist took. (see below)

Kanye gives up!

Kanye West is usually a favourite when it comes to crisis management and PR. His publicity team work extremely hard to repair his fragile image until they conclude that no matter what tactics are used to mask his ignorant aura, his true menace side is revealed. So, cleverly enough, his Pr team have used this to their advantage and again gone viral to promote his new controversial album which has relations to the occult and have highlighted all of his ‘manly essence’ to the rest of the world. This now gives him a new identity which was created by his PR team and maintained by his ‘charm’!!

sony crisis

Sony has let the online gaming world down with its viral mayhem. In short, there was suspicions of fraud that were untold for over a week which is a long time for such a large company to neglect. So that is exactly what happened, Sony knew about the crisis and left the bad publicity to accumulate. So how did PR come to their aid? through crisis management online, which makes sense as that it where the problem arose in the first place! short articles by ‘fans’ of the brand were posted to distract angry consumers by discussing hot game topics and steering away from the problem. Smart move for an enormous stuff up!

diddy beats

Hip hop mogul P. Diddy – real name Sean combes, has gone viral to promote his new, very expensive headphones called Beats. With the help of Public Relations, Diddy’s debt crisis was transformed by using online tools and tactics to promote the exlusive, fashion statemement making headphones which his reps claim he designed. This is just another demonstation indicating how PR has helped big name corporates in time of crisis.

blondie

Kenda Wilkinson has been exposed numerously to the public with her attention grabbing stunts that are clearly backed up by her PR representative for fame. In more recent news, miss Wilkinson is cleaning her image by going on reality tv show, Dancing with the stars. This program is designed for ‘celebrities’ at a dead end of their career however, she is going viral first to clean up. Twitter, as mentioned so many times has helped public figures re shape their public life by allowing personal updates to be made at any time of the day. Wilkinson has used her account to keep her ‘fans’ up dated and remaining loyal and, as we know, loyalty to a brand or person = fame and fortune.