Glitter-wrapped Robbie (Update)
Interesting story which has developed in the past couple of days. Originally, I had planned to send this story to Shel & Neville for discussion in the Hobson and Holtz Report. However, in what is a first since I am listening to the show, they moved it up a day. Since I am usually late and often post my comments on Thursday morning’s I blew it this time. Funny side note: the question of “Do you expect a regular podcast each week, what if we miss one?” was just discussed on Across the Sound, nothing about being a day early though. (Gents, I am of course not complaining!)
Back to the story: Last weekend marked the ‘Return of Robbie Williams’. He was scheduled for a press conference with ‘first listen’ to the new record and a kick-off concert on Sunday. (For American readers: He used to be in Take That and is now one of the biggest selling artists in Europe.) His management thought it might be a good idea to get some sponsoring aboard and this is where my story begins. First off, the foto-op during the press conference:
As you can see on this AP-foto, he looks like a football coach during a TV interview. The stuff on the back-drop to his left? Logos of the sponsor. Not nice. Then the first-listen. Not with CD-players or iPod nanos, no, since it is a sponsor from the mobile telecommunication sector, journalists were given a cell phone which were loaded with the new album. Very confusing for some, I have read. Not nice twice. Finally, the show, respectively the after show. Some journalists were forced to sign an agreement not to use the pictures before XX which was two weeks away. As a consequence, Germany’s leading news wire dpa cancelled reporting of the event!
I have seen newspaper articles where the name of the sponsor is spelled wrong on purpose, but this is still not the tip of the ice-berg. Journalists were only admitted to the after-show party after signing an agreement that in any reporting the sponsor would be mentioned by name! Not nice thrice, strike out. On Tuesday, it was reported that the PR-agency in charge was fired by the telecomster, “having stepped over the line.” How about that, and for the American reader, imagine this had happened with Britney.
If you can read German, follow some of it here, here and here.
So dear readers, what do you think? How bad is this for the PR-agency (whose website is hard to find), how bad for the image of the telecomster or the artist? How can the agency overestimate the power of the brand compared with the rights of the journalists? And how come I am not reading any of this in the blogosphere?
(Update) After catching up on my feeds I saw that T. Knuewer had already covered it. However, silence on the PR-side.