Public Relations Lesson One: ‘All publicity is good publicity.’
We’ve all heard this phrase. We might even believe it, and with good reason, because by and large, it’s actually true (read my black comedy book How To Be Famous to see just how dangerously this double-edged sword can play out).
But there is definitely a tipping point. In fact, the fine line between good publicity, worthy publicity, and media saturation to the point of negative publicity is a much more delicate balance than one might think. Happy slapper Will Smith, for example, could have had a glorious night at the Oscars in 2022, happily sharing the spotlight with the other guests, winners and nominees, and basking in career-affirming glory… except for his unnecessary stage-storming, face-beating, attention-grabbing stunt, which immediately ensured that he was the only guest that night making all the headlines.
And now, as a consequence, there are legions of potential filmgoers out there who attest that they’re sick of seeing his face, and his popularity has gone down like a lead balloon. With one swift, ill-tempered slap, Smith simultaneously earned himself more publicity than the best PR agency in the world could have hoped for, and yet he cost himself more fans, good will and job offers than he ever dreamed possible. All publicity is good publicity? He certainly slapped that theory into redundancy, and he willingly did so on live TV!
Another entity trying-and-seemingly-failing to employ this technique is the garish fashion brand Balenciaga, whose recent publicity campaign – featuring fresh-faced, doe-eyed children posing with kids’ teddy bears dressed in bondage-themed sex gear, body harnesses and BDSM attire - has garnered headlines this week and attracted an entirely predictable amount of publicity. And this wasn't a one-off. One of their ads promoting its “Hourglass” handbag even contained court documents referencing Supreme Court cases on child pornography, as though it was something glamorous and cute to look at!
Make no mistake, this headline-grabbing outrage was exactly what they were counting on. But like many before them, they may find to their cost that they’ve poorly negotiated the fine and often fuzzy line between intriguingly controversial and irredeemably offensive. Social media users are outraged. Tabloids are condemning them. The words “child ad” and “scandal” are the first two words that appear associated with the brand in search engines. High profile endorsers are being harangued by their fans daily to cut ties with the fashion house with immediate effect.
But it’s all publicity, right?
You might even forgive those at the helm of Balenciaga’s marketing for wondering whether they’ve even made a mistake at all. Perhaps this is exactly what they wanted. It seems unlikely that they would be naïve enough to have expected anything else.
After all, this is nothing new. Pre-teen singers like JoJo have been encouraged to push the envelope and sing about adult relationships for eons. Reality TV competitions have been embracing and marketing younger and younger stars to capture audiences’ interests for years, even at the cost of taking children out of school and pushing them into gruelling careers of performing for the masses.
And who could forget David LaChapelle’s infamous (and at the time, controversial) photoshoot with a then just seventeen-year-old megastar, Britney Spears (right).
Is this really that much different?
Perhaps times are different in the relatively new digital age of trial-by-social media. The idea of “cancelling” a person or a brand overnight would have seemed nightmarish and unethical just a few short years ago, and yet now, the idea that something as simple as the wrong word being uttered, or a short statement that has perhaps been taken out of context, justifies a digital lynch mob that can unanimously decide to end a career and orchestrate the media blackout of a person is so common place, barely an eyelid is batted at the term ‘cancel culture’.
So what happens now?
Predictably, the fall-out from the child porn-inspired shoot has followed such a strategic pattern, I could have written this part of the blog before it had even begun. Firstly, there was the obligatory, token apology on social media from Balenciaga to their followers - so dry and clinically worded you might well believe it was crafted by an automated bot rather than an actual person. They would like us to know that they’re sorry for any “offense” caused, as though there was no way they could have foreseen that using a marketing plan involving Supreme Court cases on child pornography would be perceived as anything other than tasteful.
And the fuss didn’t die down. Which is what they wanted. Or so they thought.
But then, some of the brand’s ambassador’s (i.e. celebrities who have the skillset required to let their agents accept freebies on their behalf) began to pick up on the controversy, and decided not to roll the dice on this particular publicity minefield. Kanye West, television personality and entrepreneur Bethenny Frankel, and activist Lila Rose all made a point of condemning the advertising campaign and distancing themselves from the brand in just under a week (although, it’s worth noting that West made the curious decision to distance himself from the brand by publicly wearing the brand in front of a dutifully waiting paparazzo).
But still the fuss didn’t die down. If anything, it gained momentum. Balenciaga seemed to finally start taking the hint that they had perhaps made a bad decision.
The next stage, as standard, came the inevitable blame game. Balenciaga, who paid for and published the advertising promotion, are now officially blaming the production company and set designer for the ill-advised adverts, suing them for a reported $25 million for use of legal documents in the campaign. Gabriele Galimberti, one of the photographers for the controversial shoots, rather interestingly, has publicly declared that he had no involvement in the photoshoot’s setup at all. The fashion brand has now said it is pursuing legal action against “the parties responsible for creating the set and including unapproved items”, while the on-set photographer has declared that, “The direction of the campaign and the choice of the objects displayed are not in the hands of the photographer”. You’d be hard pushed to find anyone at all who apparently made any of the decisions regarding this offensive campaign, it seems!
I wonder if these people would be so quick to deny their creative input if the kiddie-BDSM shoot had been lauded as a success.
Now all eyes have fallen to the uncharacteristically quiet Kim Kardashian, the brand’s official representative. Unsurprisingly, Kim – the billionaire who successfully fought for two hundred thousand dollars each month from Kanye West to pay her for their children, and who regularly receives flak for exposing her children on the Internet against their father’s wishes – initially didn’t have much to say about Balenciaga’s supposed exploitation of children on a global scale. She appeared to be taking a notably muted wait-and-see approach.
And still, this fuss hasn’t died down.
Finally, the Balenciaga representative simply had to address the backlash on her social media. It was clear that she couldn’t just ignore this latest controversy to bestow her. The fans were unrelenting this time, no matter how long she waited in silence for it to all go away. “I’ve been quiet for a few days”, Kardashian eventually admitted (it is worth noting almost two full weeks of controversy had already passed before she even acknowledged the child-porn inspired shoot). She added, “The safety of children must be held with the highest regard… I appreciate Balenciaga's removal of the campaigns and apology”.
As for the future of her representation of the brand and the freebies she loves to wear from them? Kim is firmly sitting on the fence on this one, only stating that she’s ‘currently re-evaluating her professional relationship with Balenciaga’.
Will that prove to be enough? For a woman who regularly airbrushes her own children’s photos for the benefits of strangers online, promotes her children on social media platforms and engages them in money-making exploits, you might forgive her for believing she is untouchable when it comes to these kinds of controversies. Perhaps people might even think it hypocritical of her to condemn the fashion house by deciding that this is where she draws the line, when she herself is no stranger to cynical child-exploitation accusations and controversies.
Whatever the case, the fuss surrounding the Balenciaga campaign has certainly highlighted a lot of hypocrisy, disingenuous outrage and a shocking lack of personal responsibility all round. But while it's generally agreed that there should be shamed faces all around, nobody seems quite willing to take any responsibility for the fall out.
Can anybody’s reputation truly survive a backlash like this in the age of the cancel culture?
Perhaps so, but either way, it’s a sad indictment of a severe lack of backbone and integrity for people like Kim Kardashian, who seems to be waiting for her Instagram followers to decide for her how she actually feels about the company she represents.
After all, it comes to something when a person’s values lie more with what is trending on social media rather than endorsing a brand that exploits child pornography for its advertising purposes. And perhaps this sad aspect is the only thing we're ever going to learn from all of this.
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