I'll admit I'm a self professed pop culture junk. I love celebrity scandals, outrage interviews, and of course the leaked nude photos or sex tape. While I read and watch all these things go down, I always think, "What is this persons public relations team doing right now?". Which made me think, how involved in a celebrities life should there publicity/public relations team be?
First let me give some examples of what I'm talking about. Last week Britney Spears twitter account was hacked. The hacker sent a few tweets saying like "Praise Satan!" as well as changed her account picture. Now even though it was very obvious to see that Spears' team did not tweet such things, they were quite slow on dealing with the matter. It was a few hours until the team realized what had happened and was able to get on the site and delete the tweets and apologize for the mishap. I know it's nearly impossible for celebrity public relation teams to be monitoring social media 24/7, but a star popular as Spears probably should have a team trying to do just that.
Besides just monitoring social media, how involved should publicist be with celebrities interviews? Yesterday I saw this interview with Miley Cyrus on YouTube. The interviewer asks Cyrus some questions about her chart topping hit "Party in the USA", and her response are less than desired for her publicity team I'm sure. She tells the interviewer not only does she not listen Pop Music but she only choice the song to help promote her clothing line. The interviewer tries to help Cyrus out but she continues to make herself sound ungrateful. Now she could have follow strict guidelines from her team on what to say in the interview but instead she chose to speak freely.
Which leads back to the question how involved should the stars publicity team be in their life/career?
I found this article online at PR Week about how having a publicist can help celebrities careers (in this case Tom Cruise).
Sound off: What do you think the involvement should be for publicists? And how should they go about monitoring social media?
I have to say, I disagree with some of this.
ReplyDeleteI don't care much about celebrities, aside from specific ones whose art and/or accomplishments I admire. That said, I think it's cool when famous people disobey their "handlers" and even their public relations people. This creates moments (like Kanye West post-Katrina) that humanize celebs, bringing them off of the pedestal of fame. Why do you think the most popular sections of gossip mags have names like "celebs are just like us!"?
The famous people who have gained the most from social media applications like Twitter are the ones who handle them personally, without apparent help from publicists. Britney Spears and her team have absolutely benefited from her Twitter account (she has nearly 4 MILLION followers, for God's sake). But I think people like John Mayer and Shaquille O'Neal, who have very openly put themselves out there online, warts (and misspellings, and off-color comments...) and all, have bolstered their fan base using Twitter far more than Britney has.
Obviously there are a ton of public relations reasons why celebrities shouldn't be allowed to say anything they want on the internet. They are, after all, generally idiots. Still, social media is all about informal connection and relevance, and forums like Twitter are no place for sterilized, boring content. To me, that means it's worth it for celebrities to expose some of their imperfections in the name of humanizing themselves, connecting with fans, and strengthening their personal brands.
At least I'm not the only one posting about celebrities. I wrote a long post about the Gosselins that could have been much longer if I didn't relate them to public relations.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Nick. Unless a celeb is prone to say something Imus-worthy, what harm can a Twitter "scandal" bring? So Miley's an ungrateful high-schooler. Hannah Montana hatred drives her brand as much as moms shelling out thousands for concert tickets.
A tip from Peter Shankman that I blogged about recently: relevance is based on reaction. Celebrities do nothing but provoke reactions (LiLo, Speidi, etc.). If I were a celebrity publicist, I'd keep their spontaneity in check, but otherwise allow them to mold their image. After all, they are the brand.
Sarah and Nick I agree with both of you. I wasn't trying to say that I think celebrities should be monitored by their publicist for everything they say. Let's face it who doesn't love when they say something ridiculous. (I'm looking at you Spencer Pratt) I think it's a publicist job to keep them in check, or do damage control if the comment is outrageous. Sarah I definitely agree their personality is their brand, and that's what makes them interesting.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Britney twitter hacking, I was merely surprised at how long it took for them to see that it had been hacked. I'm sure 99.9% of her followers immediately realized it was hacked. I'm sure she didn't lose any of her following from it.