Archive for the ‘Journalists and Reporters’ Category

Tiger Woods apology and press conference yesterday went off without a glitch except for a couple of nervous stops in the beginning. He tried to talk about everything a reporter would have wanted to question him. His mom was present and his wife’s family, he even thanked Accenture, and the golfing community for understanding the timing of his apology.

The read out speech asking for atonement, telling the Paparazzi to stay away from his family and saying he was sorry thrice was all very well.

In celebrity reputation management terms, Tiger did all that he needed to do, touching upon spirituality and Buddhism and his therapy and the millions of kids who idolized him – he said it all!

But I wasn’t moved, there were tears and he touched on all aspects, yet watching it one was left with questions of how it seemed only rehearsed.

• This is a man who was an expert in leading a double life and perpetuating a holier-than-thou persona off the golf course.
• The Tiger brand thrived on his presumed golden image – the star with no faults –  a star like no other.

The extent of the damage on the Tiger Woods brand to me seemed more evident yesterday in the public apology. Again we are not talking about the golfer Tiger Woods but the brand which projected him as the ideal on and off the field.

Tiger is definitely not out of the woods yet, with his problems or image, the public still feel cheated and only time and a phenomenal comeback in the game can really solve this.

Conclusion: For now this ‘mea culpa’ can be only termed as the tiniest step in rebuilding his brand. The golfing circuits need the Tiger brand back and up; after all he is the one who brings in the crowds!

The White House seems defensive and even apologetic to a growing number of people in the US and they are growing in numbers. The Tea Party Convention is the most striking example of the culmination of anti Obama views. This is a very large group of people against the healthcare plan and the large amount of taxes they are being charged by the Obama government.

Quick to ride the Tea-Party wave is Sarah Palin, who with her appearance as a speaker at the convention, made it clear she has her sights set on the presidency. Palin has been clawing her way out of bad press,  planning out her candidacy  after resigning as governor. She has penned a book and is now a political commentator on FoxNews and the stage was set at the Tea Party Convention when she said…

“This is about the people, and it’s bigger than any king or queen of a Tea Party. And it’s a lot bigger than any charismatic guy with a teleprompter”

Palin took a dig at Obama at the tea party convention and has even gone on to say if its right for America she is ready to run for President in 2012.

“Now a year later, I got to ask the supporters of all that, how is that hope-y, change-y stuff working out for you”

Statements from Palin, quite like the ones used during election campaigns.

Bad press continues: The speaker’s fee of $100,000 paid to Sarah Palin has been in the news and Palin has claimed it does not go to her but to her party’s campaigning fund but this had been dogging her. Other news reports talk of how involved her husband Todd Palin has been in the Alaska governance.

Sarah Palin is simply great bad press material, sometimes ridicule and most importantly great NEWS! One thing’s for sure Palin is everywhere and there she will remain for a long time to come.

As for the Democrats, it will be unwise on their part to take her lightly, the US has elected movie stars like Regan to the White House and even the first mixed race President in Obama, so could a woman be far behind? ?

If Obama bungles up on the healthcare program and the national security issues and continue to remain on the defensive chances are Sarah Palin is right there to take his place.

For now even the Tea Party Convention don’t want her as their leader but in the times we are in, the Democrats better be wary even though Sarah Palin may seem like no Margaret Thatcher or Indira Gandhi!

The Sarah Palin brand chugs on and she as a politician is building up both her celebrity and her reputation.

Shashi Tharoor tweeted again and explained why he was quiet while the visa controversy was going on everywhere on TV and the WWW. His boss Minister of External Affairs, S M Krishna went on to say that such matters should not be discussed on a public forum like Twitter. Tharoor however tweeted so this morning…

Was travelling outof range& missed brouhaha.Now that EAM Krishnaji,whom I respect,has spoken,I hv nothing 2add.Will discuss visa issue w him.

But thanks for all the kind words over the last 24hrs. Appreciate the support!

Support he had from everywhere but the politicians of both the ruling Congress party and the opposition. Debates went on on all major news channels on Tharoor’s tweets. People were amused and felt he has every right to tweet what he feels like while his party were left explaining. The difference of opinion between the MEA (Ministry of External Affairs) and the Home Ministry was discussed at length.

For the rest of the country it was a great day – a minister telling them things like it is. There’s hope for politicians in India after all, we may yet have a new breed of leaders who dare to be different.

Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs is no stranger to social networking and is the highest followed person in India on Twitter. Tharoor in fact popularised Twitter in India to a great extent with his now controversial Tweets and was even named “Twitteroor” for his political gaffes as far as his political party’s stances were concerned.

The minister is intellectual, tech-savvy and popular with the masses and has 537,478 followers on Twitter when this post was written. The problem with Tharoor is that his Tweets are a source of both admiration and political uproar at the same time. Even as he endears himself to the youngsters, the geriatric members of his often sycophantic Congress party look at him as an up-start of sorts.

That Tharoor was in the initial stages a close rival to the UN Secretary-General post of Ban Ki Moon and that he has numerous books to his name all accord him a celebrity status. What I like about him the most is his constant attempts at making his countrymen laugh at themselves. Here he is back in the news for tweeting against his own government’s tightening of tourist visas to India. This is what he tweeted -

Dilemma of our age: tough visa restrictions in hope of btr (better) security or openness & (and) liberality to encourage tourism & goodwill? I prefer latter.

When asked about the economy class of Air India he famously tweeted -

“absolutely, in cattle class out of solidarity with all our holy cows!”

The slang was lost on most people in India and when he added the holy cows all hell broke loose.

That he has huge plans for his country and is not afraid to speak his mind and even against his own government makes him stand apart. But then these days how the mighty fall ( Tiger Woods) and before you know it, courting controversy can finally catch up. The minister sure needs some expert reputation management for continuing his work well and to be in the good books of the old war horses in the Congress party.

Being a busy man he needs the services of an army of experts to help him with online reputation management and being a celebrity and a politician the need only magnifies manifold.

When you get a spam mail do not delete it and take sometime to read it (do not reply or react). If you notice the content of the mails are mostly promotional about all kinds of business. The majority of spam mails is to do with breast enlargement or about male enhancement. Do not be surprised to know that these mail as they claim comes from bigger companies than you own.

Now that’s a bait!
Some people ignorant of the fact what spam mail are suppose to be tend to reply them. What tempts them to respond is something interesting, well! It’s the big names like MSN, Amazon or Paypal attached to this email.

Now that’s what we call bait – you being skeptical shoot an email to that owner only to know it was spam. Unfortunately the damage is already done, you have authenticated and confirmed your email address, and now the spammer has all sources at his disposal to flood your Inbox.

What is the point.
Well give it a thought! If the spammer thinks that using reputed companies like MSN, Amazon or Paypal is perfectly fine, what makes you think that your business is safe. As we all know burglars are always on the lookout for huge cache, and they en route their plans using smaller companies because they know with smaller companies it is always a win-win situation. If this situation is not handled properly, imagine the kind of damage your business will inherit, you may even close your shop.

How to shield
Now urgency has pounced on you, there is nothing as important, but to shield your reputation before more people gives it a bad name. This not only results in loosing business even your identity too.

Smart move, you want somebody to take responsibility and guard your business and personal reputation.

Reputation managers will then try to capitalize on the already done damage until such time your reputation is secure. This is probably the best option and least you worry about the reputation of your business.

Send out a strong message and let no one think about using your company’s goodwill to fill their own coffers in future.

The BBC reports that a survey conducted by British Heart Foundation found that most mothers were hoodwinked by the nutrition table on products they bought for their children. The online survey done on 1454 parents between ages 16 to 64 and kids aged 15 or below brought out these interesting facts listed below.

Nestle’s Honey Shreddies, which claim to be wholegrain and to “keep your heart healthy and maintain a healthy body”, contain more sugar [13.6g] than a ring doughnut [9.2g] in an average serving.

Kellogg’s Coco Pops cereal and milk bars are labelled as “a source of calcium, iron and six vitamins” and 63% of mothers in the survey thought they were healthy.

“Contains no artificial flavouring or sweeteners or preservatives” was taken as healthy by most parents along with the tag “wholegrain”, while this is not true. It’s all in the wording, this is designed to be misleading within the EU Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation.

We cannot single out Nestle or Kelloggs alone for this, it’s become the norm and when they make these nutrition labels they only say the good part of it all. While the hiding quantity of sugar and fats are usually in the fine print. We need to be informed and be told things in plain terms.

Food and drink industry is monitored all the time but something like this especially when it comes to healthy snacks for kids can be quite a blow to the big names in the industry. Not quite the Christmas gift they were expecting, right?

What can food companies do for brand protection from this bad press? Get information out there about the benefits and even come clean about the not-so-great facts, for a start. Nothing like a few twitter posts and blogs in these times of google real-time search integration, to tackle this crsis.  Nestle and Kelloggs, what say?

Having just listen to Rage Against the Machine, it would be hilarious if they were number one for Christmas, it’s the least Christmas song I’ve ever heard.  Somehow though, I think Joe McElderry might just win this close competition.  It’s a reminder, gone are the days of TV being the only way people can be influenced.  How many decisions will made in the future depending on Facebook polls outcomes?

Social networks are here to stay, knowing how to work them will be key for online marketing in the future.

X factor  certainly did very little to protect their contestants from some pretty harsh attacks online, maybe that’s their goal.  I’m sure the contestants would prefer not to have such a rough time though.

Tiger Woods is really stuck between a hard place and a rock, no matter what he does now people will have a different opinion of the golfing superstar.  His reputation has been tested and how he responds over the next few weeks will be critical for hi public image.

Of course the difference between bad press in the newspaper and online is it tends to die away after a while, however on the net it just stays there and quite often attracts more responses and comments.  We don’t mind Tiger having an issue at home, actually it’s quite refreshing to know everyone goes through rough patches, but how you deal with it is important.

He should have just been honest from the start and owned up to it all, no one would attack him for that.  Don’t try and spin it or hide from it, it just makes people more curious and delve deeper, worst of all people will loose there trust in Tiger.

Now there is talk he won’t be golfing till 2010, not sure that’s the best approach either, he should just pick yourself up and get on with what he’s good at.  This will inspire people again and show truly how good a sports player he really is.

Stephen Fry is a great example of a celebrity who could easily protect his own reputation on-line with a bit of guidance.  Stephen has a massive following of almost 1 million on Twitter which is growing daily.  With that many people following it’s easy to use it as a PR machine if done correctly.  The issue with the Internet is anything you say is picked up and replicated 100’s if not 1000’s of time, so thought has to be given when you have such a high, dominating presence on the net.  Social networks can be your best friend or your worst nightmare depending on how and what you do.

With a little work Stephen Fry could banish pretty much any negative content ever showing in page 1 of Google’s search results and never worry about 3rd party comments.  At least Stephen knows people are reading what he is saying unlike most of mortal human beings…  Keep up the good work!!!

Celebrity Damage Limitation

Shows like the X Factor always bring it home when things are not preempted, especially when it comes to damage limitation and reputation management online.  The contestants are thrown into the light and the public which is fuelled by the press can be very cruel indeed.  You only have to see the blogs, social network sites going after contestants like John and Edward and Danyl Johnson.

Any celebrity will attract good and bad reviews, but the difference is when it starts to get nasty.  A Celebrity’s name is everything, its their brand, their product and their reputation and therefore protecting it and making sure you have damage limitation both off line and online is crucial.

People perception of a celebrity is everything, especially when it comes to advertisers looking for someone to represent them.  The two biggest issues with the Internet are one, because things are written then people assume it to be correct even when it is not (look at wikipedia to see examples of that) and the second reason is because any negative content stays on the Internet 24 / 7.  Papers and magazines have a shelf life 1 day to 1 month, however the Internet is different, it’s on all the time.  Quite often the advise from the experts in PR and damage limitation is just to ignore negative publications and it will go away.  The Internet is completely different, if you ignore negative content it can get momentum and start becoming much more of an issue.  How you deal with online negative content is crucial because you also don’t want to deal with it in the wrong way as it can also be like poring fuel on a fire.

We specialise in celebrity damage control and reputation management online, if you want to protect your name or need help with negative results appearing in the search results then please get in touch with us confidentially.

Call: UK +44(0)845 862 1893

Call: USA +1 646 723 3965