There Is No Such Thing as Bad Publicity

¶ … BAD PUBLICITY?

Generally, product manufacturers and marketers do everything possible to maintain their products in the most positive light possible, avoiding negative associations at all costs. In many respects, and as a general rule, that is an approach that is highly likely to be beneficial to sales revenue. However, there are several dramatic examples that seem to illustrate that publicity and notoriety can be tremendously beneficial even when that publicity and notoriety arises in connection with obviously negative connotations.

In 1994, O.J. Simpson, a retired NFL all-star and Hollywood actor murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown-Simpson and, Ronald Goldman, a friend of hers in cold blood. Although he was acquitted in a controversial criminal trial in 1995, his guilt was fairly obvious from the start and in 1997, Simpson was found liable to the parents of Ronald Goldman for the wrongful death of their son. During the trial, the prosecution introduced large photographs of Simpson wearing an extremely obscure Italian-made designer shoe made by Bruno Magli in Italy.

Prior to their unexpected publicity in the United States in connection with a trial in which they were displayed on Simpson in various settings prior to 1994, the company sold only a few dozen pairs of that particular model annually. Notwithstanding the fact that they were being displayed as having been the source of bloody shoe prints taken from a horrific murder scene in which a young woman was nearly decapitated by her ex-husband, sales of Bruno Magli shoes immediately exploded, far exceeding the capacity of the company to produce those shoes.

Similarly, the day of the infamous slow-speed car chase of Simpson by police televised live to the nation in the Summer of 1994, Simpson was shown fleeing in a white Ford Bronco SUV and news stations reported that the Husky dog once owned by the Simpsons and kept by Nicole after their divorce had drawn the attention of neighbors on the morning of the murder by his unusual wailing. In the following weeks, pet store owners reported a tremendous number of people who had no idea what breed of dog it was were asking for an "O. J. Dog"; similarly, Ford dealerships were quickly inundated with requests for Broncos in white, hardly a popular color for SUVs.

Recently, it was widely reported that the clothing manufacturer Tommy Hilfiger had signed a contract with one of the members of the cast of the MTV show The Jersey Shore not to wear their products anymore. Many suspected that this was nothing more than a publicity stunt designed to result in widespread coverage of the story and, therefore, volumes of free publicity for the company. To date, it has not been revealed publicly whether or not the contract was genuine, but either way, it turned out to be tremendously valuable in terms of the amount of coverage the story got and the resulting exposure for Tommy Hilfiger clothing.