Bad Publicity is Good Publicity? A Study Says Maybe

In light of the Charlie Sheen fiasco in the news, I thought BrandMakerNews.com post on bad publicity was inspired by it. It turns out their article was a repost of “Better to be reviled than ignored” by the Economist. The article begins with examples of bad publicity for well-established entities that barely bounced back from it. But Alan Sorensen, an economics professor, did a study looking at the New York Times book reviews and the effect on sales. The results:

“…well-known authors who earned glowing reviews for a new book could expect to sell 42% more copies, whereas a negative review caused sales to drop by 15%. For unknown authors, however, it did not matter whether a book was panned or lauded. Simply being reviewed in the Times bumped up sales by a third”

The study concluded that unknown brands benefit from bad publicity because the name is out and bad publicity won’t be remembered considering the brand isn’t well known. Simply put, consumers only remember the publicity. The article gave an example: Kazahstan whose tourism went up even after it was ridiculed on “Borat”. The article also gave an antithesis example: Vitaly Borker, the online eyeglass seller who purposely provided bad service to increase his online complaints and thus boast his Google search ranking. He was exposed after gloating about his strategy to the New York Times (I wrote about the article in “The Definition of Anti-Salesmanship”). He was eventually arrested for harassment and Google dropped his rank.

I can appreciate the results of the study; unfortunately, bad reviews from the New York Times cannot be compared to all bad publicity. As an avid reader, when I come across a bad book review, sometimes I choose to read the book to find out for myself if the book is indeed horrible. After all, books can be interpreted many ways and are often reviewed by the unintended audience. On the other hand, when a celebrity, like Charlie Sheen, or a designer, like John Galliano, have a bad moment in the press, will people respond like readers to books? No. For one, I can’t read the two men. I can watch Sheen’s work or wear Galliano’s clothing. At the end of the day, my choice to partake in their work is not about interpretation of their actions but about if these actions affect me as a consumer. So far, bad publicity hasn’t gone too well for these men: Sheen might have supporters but he got suspended; Galliano got fired from Dior, might lose coveted celebrity supporters, and is facing hate crime charges in France.

A writers image is often not considered with their work, for celebrities the image is everything, and for businesses its somewhere in the middle. I would say that some bad publicity is good publicity, depending on the how bad it is, your part in the creation of the bad publicity, and the response of the business. In business, no one should strive for bad publicity but if it comes to you, make the best of it and move forward.