Bad PR

Rather than make its clothing more interesting, Italian fashion house United Colors of Benetton has garnered attention once again by creating controversy with its advertising.

Instead of death row inmates or abortion tools as in previous shock-stunts, the UNHate campaign released this week showcases images of world leaders kissing on the mouth – President Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, for one.

The most shocking of the images, a photo of the Pope kissing an imam, was pulled in response to outrage. It was nowhere to be found on the Benetton website by Thursday evening, but the company had not released a statement about its removal.

The Vatican is expected to sue.

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People love Jay-Z and his Rocawear clothing brand. But people did not like the fact that they decided to co-opt the Occupy Wall Street movement to turn a quick buck on sales of a t-shirt. After appearing for sale on the Rocawear site, the offending garment has been removed.

The t-shirt, first seen on Hova in a photo with Russell Simmons, caused problems when the company revealed that none of the proceeds from the sales of the shirt would go to fund the movement. In a statement, Rocawear said, “Occupy All Streets’ is our way of reminding people that there is change to be made everywhere, not just on Wall Street. At this time we have not made an official commitment to monetarily support the movement.” Well now. At least they weren’t trying to spin it some way or another.

Both Animal NY and the Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog say they’ve tried to contact Rocawear for a follow-up post-removal statement but haven’t gotten one.

Last week, the Obama administration nearly caused the destruction of all that is sacred in America when a 15-cent fee was levied on fresh Christmas trees. Lump of coal for the government.

The tax was levied (and was quickly tossed) after the effective lobbying of the National Christmas Tree Association, which wanted to use the extra money for a marketing campaign. The goal of the campaign: to reverse the slipping sales of real Christmas trees.

Though Obama felt the heat, The Atlantic puts the marketing fail directly at the feet of the Christmas tree group. The story also makes the case for artificial trees, one that consumers have obviously made with their wallets: money savings over the lifetime of the tree (which is forever) and less mess.

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Entertainment Weekly reports that 42West has dumped one of its celebrity clients, Hilary Swank, over a crisis response disagreement.

Hilary Swank has been catching major heat over her October 5 appearance at a party for Chechen president and alleged baddie Ramzan Kadyrov. He’s accused by human rights watchers of torture, kidnapping, and other atrocities. During her appearance, Swank said Kadyrov’s government has a ”passion to make peace and to make something beautiful.”

Heidi Klum’s hubby Seal and Jean-Claude Van Damme also went to the party.

It’s been reported that Hilary Swank did some dumping of her own, getting rid of the staff that booked the gig.

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TV One, a television network that focuses on programming for and about African-Americans, has broadcast an apology for an episode of one of its programs, Love That Girl, that crossed the line into what one website calls “size-ism.”

The show featured a scene where the head of its star, Tatyana Ali (from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air) was placed on the body of comedian Erica Watson. Plus Model Magazine called out the episode, saying it was “not unacceptable.” Separately, the blog Frisky actually recognized Watson’s clothing in the picture that was used in the episode, which made fun of the image. Viewers, friends, and fans also expressed their anger over the episode.

In an email to Frisky, Watson wrote, “Why is my body a joke from the waist down?  It’s very hurtful.” Ugh. Colossal fail.

But TV One was quick to apologize and state plainly that it was “unaware” that the production company for the show had used “an unauthorized image of Erica Watson.” The apology is on TV One’s Facebook page, homepage, and Twitter feed. The offending image has been taken down as well. Companies have to apologize sometimes and that’s how you do it folks.

The latest in the never-ending back-and-forth between Jack O’Dwyer and the PRSA: O’Dwyer, who, if we’re not mistaken, had been talking about being barred from this week’s PRSA conference for weeks, showed up at the conference in Florida and was barred. He was sure to let everyone know. The PRSA gave him lunch anyway.

Interestingly, the National Press Club has issued a statement saying it was “disappointed” to learn that O’Dwyer had been banned. With knowledge of the longstanding “disagreements,” the organization tried to negotiate with the PRSA, but the PRSA wouldn’t budge on its position to keep O’Dwyer out.

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Last Friday, author and entertainer Harry Belafonte was all miked up for a morning interview with the reporters at California’s KBAK-KBFX TV station. Only when the cameras beamed him in from New York, he was sitting in his chair seemingly asleep. Despite a few shouts from the news crew, Belafonte looked to be out like a light. Haha. Interview fail to the max.

We say “seemingly” because now, through his publicist Ken Sunshine, Belafonte is saying that he was meditating, not sleeping.

“True to form, there was a technical glitch in the feed to a local station in Bakersfield, CA. His earpiece wasn’t working, so he decided to take the time to meditate before the rest of his Day-O,” reads a statement, published on TMZ.

Suspect! True or not, when the cameras are ready to roll, best advise your client to be ready also.

When Netflix announced earlier this week that it would be putting the kibosh on Qwikster before it even launched, the entertainment company’s customers (those that haven’t already taken their movie-watching business elsewhere) were pretty happy. But was the damage to the Netflix brand already done?

In today’s guest post, Barbara Apple Sullivan, founder of the brand engagement firm Sullivan, proposes five reasons why the harm to the Netflix brand may very likely be irreparable.  Sullivan founded her firm in 1990 after a career in the financial services industry. The firm has worked with clients including American Express, BlackRock, and UC Berkeley.

Click through to read on.

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Responding to widespread anger about spinning off its DVD business, Netflix has dumped Qwikster before it was even out of the gate. Based on the news, The New York Times says Netflix’s stock price has moved in a positive direction and Wired has published the image at left. Huzzah!

Subscribers came out in full force when the plan to split the DVD and streaming service was announced just a few weeks ago, with many dropping the service. A blog post (that has comments calling for CEO Reed Hastings’s ouster) has posted and subscribers got an email with the new plan.

“Dear Tonya,” the email reads, “It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.” Price changes will stay the same, but streaming selection will improve, the company says.

The Wall Street Journal calls it Netflix’s “New Coke” moment. And while it doesn’t do a company any good to rile up its customers, listening to them and dumping a bad idea is a smart step.

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Photo via Flickr, christopherdale

A Brandlink CommunicationsVP hit “reply all” on an email that included The Bloggess and, oh wow, now there’s a problem.

In a nutshell: Brandlink works with a pantyhose client and sent The Bloggess a pitch letting her know that Kim Kardashian was seen wearing this pantyhose brand because that is important. When The Bloggess is spammed, she sends her standard response, which drew another response from Brandlink. But then, another Brandlink VP identified as “Jose” hit the “reply all” button with the blogger included and called her a “f***g bitch.” Yowsers.

So The Bloggess be blogging and now the story is on the Internet and Brandlink has a mess on its hands.

We spoke with a partner at the firm, Carol Bell, who says Brandlink is apologizing and taking steps to handle the situation.

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