That old saying - no news is good news - well evidently scandal is not bad news these days. Even if your damage control is lousy.
Conventional wisdom in the PR business is that scandal must be managed - messages must be created - issues must be mitigated - trouble must be buried.
But an Adweek Media/Harris Poll found out differently. Even though Tiger Woods was a very bad husband - turns out a majority of people could care less.
Perhaps we're just so saturated with celebrity scandals - unless it's something as bad as the head of the Family Research Council taking a Rent-a-Boy to Europe to carry his luggage - oh the late night comedians love this - that most of the time it doesn't affect our impressions of a celebrity.
Here's some interesting tidbits from the survey:
75% of Americans say when a celebrity endorser gets involved in a scandal, how they feel about the brands that the celebrity endorses is not affected.
20% of Americans say they feel worse about the endorsed brands.
5% say they feel better about them.
Who are these people who don't live off of TMZ and Entertainment Tonight?
81% of Americans age 55+ say a scandal has no impact on how they feel about the brand
77% of those age 35-44 said scandals don't change their opinion.
28% of those age 45-54 say they feel worse about the brand.
11% of consumers age 18-34 say they feel better about the brand after a celebrity gets involved in a scandal. (This I just don't get but maybe it's the reality TV phenomenon).
Consumers in the Midwest are most likely to have a negative attitude toward brands after a celebrity scandal.
26% of Midwesterners say they would feel worse about a brand after a scandal.
19% of Easterners say they'd feel worse.
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