Jordan and Peter Andre divorce – PR conspiracy? May 12, 2009
Posted by richardglynn in Off Topic.2 comments
I’m not the only thinking it am I?
Media surfer Jordan is hogging column inches once again. This time it’s a divorce, followed by an ironic request for the media to respect her right to privacy.
It’s a tricky call this because divorce is a mightily serious affair with emotional repercussions in the family running wide and deep.
So would she really make it up?
The PR conspiracy theory goes like this: Jordan is perceived as an obsessively focussed woman who makes money. She appears to be a hard nut who will stop at nothing to get at what she wants. And she is impressively successful with minimum talent. Other than the talent to make money and make the most of what she’s got.
But supposing she wants people (the public) to actually start liking her? What’s a girl to do?
Well, a classic method is to become a victim and expose vulnerabilities. Classic angles include illness, crime, and in this case a failed relationship.
While most of us might shrink away and seek comfort from family friends at times like this. Jordan ‘tells all’ to the media.
Anorak News sums things up nicely:
PETER Andre and Katie Price have separated after four years of marriage.
Says Peter:
“For the first three years I was in a different room to her. Then she had her Jordans reduced and we met eye-to-eye for the first time. It was dreadful. I had been speaking to her breasts for ages and we’d formed a real bond. But with Katie it was hard work and we never clicked.”
“He’s an orange Australian! Why did no-one tell me?”
A spokesman explains:
“Peter Andre and Katie Price are separating after four and a half years of marriage, Can Associates Limited can confirm today. They have both requested that the media respect their families’ privacy at this difficult time.”
Or until they can secure a magazine deal…
… which will probably now have to wait until the inevitable reconciliation.
But, would she really make it up? Surely not. Time will tell.
Politicians Passing the Buck – a PR Disaster May 11, 2009
Posted by richardglynn in Best Practice, Off Topic.3 comments
There’s a stand out news story in the UK at the moment. Members of Parliament have been ‘playing the game’ with exorbitant and frivolous expense claims. Worse, they have then used this taxpayers money to fuel property investments totalling millions of pounds.
My father-in-law is fizzing about this. We had an animated discussion about how politicians preach to us on the way we should behave before plumbing the depths of greed themselves. They levy ever-increasing taxes only to squirm their way out of paying there own dues.
It’s no wonder people are hacked off.
We know that the facts are that it’s just the way things have been for MPs. And since everyone has been doing it – none of them wanted to miss out on their own unscrupulous pay day.
But the startling fact is that out of the hundreds of MPs motivated to change public life for the better – it didn’t occur to any one of these lowlifes to blow the whistle.
They stumbled on a proverbial cash machine mistakenly churning out tenners – and have kept schtum while they filled their pockets.
It stinks.
How would a PR advisor deal with this? It’s a tricky one. I certainly wouldn’t even consider pleading innocence or apportioning blame. And no amount of baby-kissing will appease directorate baying for blood.
People say there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Perhaps this exception proves the rule.
