By Richard Laermer
I wonder if Tom Cruise can teach PR managers and directors to be more accountable. Cruise -- who recently ran amok on "Oprah," berated "Today" co-host Matt Lauer, pranced
around Europe with fiancée Katie Holmes and grinned like a sheepdog gone astray for the pages of Entertainment Weekly - has become a prime example of the leader gone
berserk.
Sound like a stretch for us? Not really. See, Cruise is head of an enterprise ("Tom Cruise Movies") that makes billions for many, and so he is ostensibly a CEO...of a business
in danger of shuttering.
If this feels far from your reality, witness: Actor Tom Cruise once enjoyed an enviable professional relationship with the influential Lauer.
However, in a June 25 appearance on the morning show, Cruise ranted at Lauer about how psychiatry and drugs cannot match vitamins, exercise and conformity. (Cruise was on about
actress Brooke Shields' use of Paxil while suffering from postpartum depression.) Watching this movie-star meltdown got me thinking how we have to be managing CEOs who are hard-
to-rein press hogs.
Remember the rules: I laugh when CEOs say they have friends in high places and that they meet reporters at cocktail parties. They think they can do it themselves. No, they
think journalists are there to do them a "favor"--that's the real F word.
Journalists chatting up CEOs aren't friends. They cover your beat, and they lie in wait for a less-than-intelligent statement to fall from your CEO's loose lips. We all need to
do one thing when dealing with heads of companies: Make sure the CEO understands boundaries when talking to the press. Make sure the CEO knows everyone's doing a job. He or she
had better stay on top of the game.
Then there's messaging. Cruise has gone so far off-topic that it's going to be hard to regain that "mega-watt perfect Hollywood smiley-face" image. Sure, "War of the Worlds" is
a hit (near $200 million and running), and his public displays had a goal to get the MTV Generation to again love him. But his next outing, "Mission Impossible 3," won't be
an easy sell because action heroes are meant to be solid citizens -- not screamers from rafters.
Have you ever seen Sly/"Rocky" jump up and down like Tom? The best stories have a bit of challenge in them. Cruise Model 2005 is a doozey; he wishes to appear "happy," gushing
about his devotion to Scientology as well as his new love.
He no longer wants to be viewed as a walking conglomerate, and this means his argumentative side -- once dormant -- is coming out with a vengeance.
Cruise's messages are so far off from the bland persona we've known for decades that it's too much to ask members of the press to accept them.
CEOs don't want to say the company is doing anything but phenomenally, so they fill interview time with theorizing or windy messages ripped from marketing material. Many talk
like sleep-inducing PowerPoints to friends-slash-reporters, and they often philosophize and get off onto unnecessarily dangerous tangents when on a roll.
Our job as PR pros is to always set it right. You get the designated story to reporters, even to the point of interrupting a moment. You present a CEO (the "movie star" of your
company) who talks the directed poop. If you don't, or if that CEO will not, it's likely to all fall apart.
Then the hoped-for story is doomed, and a reporter covering the industry either will laugh at you or be mad eternally. It's your gig; let's not let the big guys ruin it for
everyone. Those at the top have tough-to-handle egos, yes, but if you're challenged with getting exposure, and you were placed at your desk -- albeit a smaller one than the CEO's
-- for a reason.
Lest we forget, Cruise might have benefited greatly from a gifted PR person (or at least one who knows how to play).
The pro could have gotten one of the biggest stars in the land off a ledge of destruction, getting the message straight and perhaps taking time to clarify some of Tom's ultra-
beloved "research."
Will Cruise's recent rants hurt his "brand?" Only time will tell...or Time will.