When Sound bites go Wild

Many of you have heard about John Mayer using the N word in a major interview with playboy. I am a fan of Mayer’s and have tickets to his concert in Philadelphia.  You can imagine my chagrin at this. What was he doing? What was he thinking? Someone told him he needed to be edgy and controversial to be a good Playboy Magazine Interview, but they didn’t tell HOW to. So he threw out the only shock factor he could think of. Low brow humor and dishing on his ex girlfriends in ways that were not appreciated.

So the lesson here is Media Training is important. Details of the outlet you are working with are important. Keeping some integrity is important. He is getting a lot of fame however, people including me see him in a different light. Lucky for him, the tickets were purchased a while ago.

This article is for people contemplating publicity stunts. In light of current news events with publicity stunts going wrong, this article is to inform those who engage in publicity stunts on how to make them work to their own benefit.

Publicity stunts have been around since Barnum. He was very good at making them work not only for his own benefit, but to also make them fun for those who observe them. The days of having fun with publicity stunts are slowly coming to an end as the blunders become costly and even endanger the life of others. Here are a few mistakes to avoid when putting on a publicity stunt.

Everyone must be on board: When little Falcon announced that they did the balloon stunt for
TV while on a national TV show he spilled the beans. When the entire country was concerned for his safety, people were outraged to find he was never in danger. They were even more outraged to know that county resources were wasted looking for a child who was sitting safely at home. All parties must be on board with a a publicity stunt and know what to say and what not to see. You can see why stunts rarely involve children, you can never really predict what they will say. If your stunt results in the world hating you, you failed.

If it works , do it again. The Pilsbury bake off was intentded as a one time event, but when they saw how much participation they got, they repeated the event. The event resulted in an increase in sales. (more…)

This video addresses some email questions about media:
How do I target the right poeple
and
When is the right time to begin media for a new project

Also check out http://wrightplacetv.com/instant-radio-star/ (more…)