Yikes!

Crisis management is a fundamental part of public relations. Some professionals specialize in this area however, no public relations practitioner wants their client to be stuck in this predicament. Unfortunately, entertainment public relations agents often find themselves having to deal with the mistakes their clients make. Take Lindsey Lohan for example. She has had to hire a team of crisis management specialists in order to deal with all the negative publicity she’s faced in the past few months.

While going through my classmates blogs, I came across Lisa Perez’s blog. In it, she attaches a link to the "Lohan Rollercoaster" . This describes Lohan’s ups and downs over the past year. It’s almost a humorous link…well humorous to the mass public, not humorous if she is your client. No entertainment public relations practitioner wants their client to be the subject of such negativity.

Since Lohan has had the need for so much crisis management, Ashley’s blog deals with crisis management . In it, she attaches links and articles to help one learning the basics of crisis management and the best ways to deal with certain situations. Ashley blog assists those in need of the proper guidance of what to do, when a crisis hits.

All entertainment public relations professionals must know how to deal with crisis management. Lisa and Ashley both give prime examples of a client undergoing scrutiny, and then how it should be handled.

If You've Got It, I want It.

If You’ve Got It, I Want It.

It’s no secret that we all look up to celebrities. We follow the trends they make popular. We want to dress like them, drive the cars they drive, and vacation at the same destinations as them. With this, so many companies have started to depend on paying celebrities to endorse their products. They know that the public seeks to be like them and if they can get a celebrity to endorse their product, they know the return will be large.

New products are especially ones which come out featuring various celebrities. When they are in the experimental phase, companies often pay celebrities to be photographed with them. Thus, the public sees them, and then wants it. Whether it is through a tabloid or a professional ad, all of us are suckers.

I found this article, to be extremely interesting with celebrities and endorsements. It breaks down advertisements and explains how companies know they take a risk when hiring a celebrity, but it is risk they are willing to take. Even when celebrities receive bad publicity, the products they endorse, still sell.

 Entertainment public relations professionals are usually the bridge between a company and their client. They are the hookup, getting their client’s face in the news as well as getting a product out into the publics mind. One of the main jobs an entertainment public relations practitioner does is to get the experimental products sold, by combining the company with the celebrity. Once the public sees the product with their favorite socialite, they have to have it.

The Naked Truth

The past few weeks in my international public relations class we have been discussing the importance of culture. Every nation has a culture specific to them. They have values and morals which they follow. Some countries may have opposite ones to others. Conflicting values occur often. This has allowed me to realize how important conducting research is.

Research is such a vital tool in the industry. We need to be able to understand the culture of the people in which we are pitching too. It is important to not offend anyone. In order to reach our goals and objectives, a public relations practitioner practicing in another country, should conduct as much research as possible.

This is where surveys can come in handy. After some prior research on the core values of a certain society, a survey can be distributed to groups of people in the area to find out their particular views on a subject. These ideas they give us can then further hone our researching skills, thus making our campaigns more of a success.

If you haven’t heard, Pamela Anderson is being slammed for donating her profits from her most recent Playboy Cover shoot to the disaster funds set up for the Tsunami in Indonesia. This is because the vast culture of Indonesia believe the nudity to be a form of defamation. They don’t agree with the way the money was earned, therefore they don’t want it. (http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/11/01/pam-andersons-playboy-donation-slammed-muslim-group-immoral/)

First of all, her public relations person should have looked into this. A culture which does not have a high tolerance for feminist rights to begin with, should have understood that the money would not be appreciated. Some simple research could have been conducted and easily avoided this catastrophe. Playboy isn’t necessarily frowned upon here, but that doesn’t mean all countries accept naked women and their charities.

For some thorough researching, a public relations agent could have gotten in contact with some people of the Indonesian society and distributed a simple survey asking on their views on general topics. I think that it would have been simple to gather this information with a survey, rather than go through the stresses Pam, Playboy and their public relations teams are dealing with now.