No such thing as bad publicity? There is; it’s anything that doesn’t deliver a commercial impact.
By Phil Borge-Slavnich
You’d think there weren’t many people who still buy into the old adage that ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’.
Yet I’ve been asked countless times “can you make us famous?” by brands and businesses.
That’s a relatively simple goal to achieve, if you don’t care how you do it.
Run down the street naked!
Run through your competitor’s office naked!
In fact, run around anywhere naked, and however fast you run, the headlines will catch up with you.
There are a million things you can do to become ‘famous’, if what you’re famous for and why doesn’t really matter. But that’s why there’s clearly a difference between using PR and communications to create and keep a positive and trusted reputation, versus acting in a way that negatively impacts reputation, damages your positioning and erodes trust.
But I’d go one step further. Bad publicity is anything that isn’t designed to support or deliver on your commercial objectives.
Almost all communication activities can and should be linked back to what the brand or business is trying to achieve. Sometimes it’s as straightforward as supporting sales, other times the line between awareness, reputation and bottom line is more complex.
And even if you can’t easily identify the relationship between PR investment and commercial impact, it matters, otherwise no smart financial director is going to sign off the budget.
Of course, you need to know why you’re doing it. If the commercial objectives are clear – and, just as importantly, communicated and understood across the team so everyone can buy into the strategy and their role within it – the comms strategy responds to that, and the delivery makes it true, you’ll be on the right path.
If in doubt, don’t be afraid to keep asking the questions, as many times as you need to.
Why are we doing this? What does it deliver? And what’s that worth to us?
Answer those honestly, and you’ll never need to get your kit off to get noticed.