(This week, PR News editors Phil Hall and Courtney M. Barnes mix considerations of branding and damage control with the antics of a certain couch-jumping movie
star.)
PHIL: Did you see that news item last week about Tom Cruise firing his publicist, who also happens to be his sister, Lee Anne DeVette, and hiring Rogers & Cowan.
While it is obviously fun to gossip about movie stars, I can't help but feel there are also some serious and potentially disturbing messages to come out of Tom Cruise's PR mishaps
this year. Primarily, I see the "blame the publicist for the bad PR" reaction to be too typical of how people think. From my viewpoint, I think DeVette is not responsible for
the horrible PR Cruise generated this summer. What do you think?
COURTNEY: I think managing PR for anyone with Cruise's (ahem) personality would be a test of more than just communications know-how, but unfortunately many pros see similar
lines of behavior with clients and CEOs who deviate from the message, albeit without jumping on couches. It raises the question: What do you do when said client or CEO veers off
course from the brand/marketing plan? When you're Tom Cruise, you don't need help getting your name out there - you need someone making sure that name isn't tied to negative
connotations. Now, whether it's Michael Brown of FEMA or Terrell Owens of the Philadelphia Eagles or your CEO, the larger lesson here is that the buck has to stop somewhere.
Ultimately, it's with you, the senior PR manager.
PHIL: I used to run a PR agency, so the Cruise PR debacle and its aftermath makes me cringe because the blame is being dumped on the PR manager - in this case, DeVette, who is
being held up for international ridicule as the reason why the normally cool Cruise became so frenetic whenever the cameras were on him. I don't know Cruise or DeVette, so I can't
say for certain if there were serious PR strategy meetings before each of Cruise's media appearances. Yet I cannot imagine DeVette instructed or suggested that he use Oprah
Winfrey's couch as a trampoline while declaring his love for Katie Holmes. Nor can I imagine DeVette urging Cruise to approach that now-infamous interview with Matt Lauer with
seething hostility and body language that would suggest Lauer's neck was about to be choked. Clearly, Cruise's public persona needs damage control, but I think declaring DeVette
the root of the problem actually did more damage.
COURTNEY: I agree that in this case, the PR pro isn't to blame for a series of public embarrassments. I do believe that it is indicative of a larger problem that can arise
when your client or CEO has a public persona that needs to be kept in check. It plays into the issue of reputation. Look at Bill Gates - he went from being resented as the
richest man in the world to being seen and admired as a philanthropist. Microsoft has benefited accordingly, but surely his PR team is working to promote his good will. It's
easy to blame the publicists when things go badly and overlook them when they go well. The take-away lesson here is that for a PR exec whose client/CEO is getting bad ink, there
must be a strategic reevaluation of the message that needs to be conveyed. Then what I call "damage control" kicks in - that is, repositioning the person and "reintroducing" him
or her into the media cycle, this time with a very safe, clear-cut message.
PHIL: And let's not forget the damage control message should be always be positive. The worst damage control involves a hastily pointed finger and the less-than-credible
insistence that someone else is the genuine culprit behind the mess. The blame game wrap-up to Cruise's PR mishaps only served to remind everyone of his image problem - it did
nothing to realign his public persona back to the realm of respectability.