"Any Publicity is Good Publicity"?

"Publicity refers to the generation of news about a person, product, or service that appears in broadcast or print media" (Belch 584).  Many say that any publicity is good publicity.  However, what about publicity that truly is not all that "good" in nature?  This comes into play specifically when it comes to people.

Exhibit A: Jeff Skilling

One example of bad publicity is in the case of the energy company Enron and its former president Jeff Skilling.  Enron’s bankruptcy in 2001, after allegations of substantial accounting fraud, wiped out $78 billion in stock market value.  This also led to the collapse of Arthur Andersen and the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.  A class action settlement of $7.185 billion was the largest in history.  Former President/CEO Jeff Skilling is serving a 24-year sentence as a result. (Forbes)

Jeff Skilling’s responsibility for Enron’s accounting fraud got huge publicity in the early to mid 2000s.  It was widely known that he was the reason for the company’s bankruptcy.  Now he is known as the man who may get out of prison earlier than planned for his accounting fraud.  Once he gets out of prison, major corporations and jobs may not take him seriously or want to work with him.  He has built a negative persona for himself that will only taint the reputation of any company he becomes a part of.  It would be a very high risk for any company to put money, time, effort, and trust into him at this point.  And it would be unbelievable for a company to put him in as high of a position as he had with Enron (CEO).

Exhibit B: Mark Foley

Another example of a person that proves that publicity is not always a good thing is former congressman Mark Foley.  Foley was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives representing the 16^th District of Florida from 1995 to 2006 (SourceWatch).  On September 28, 2006, it was reported that a former house page (age 16) had shared with Hill staffers what he believed to be inappropriate e-mails sent to him by Foley in August 2005 (SourceWatch).  Foley also requested a picture of the teenager.  In the following days details of a long history of inappropriate communication with House pages came to light.  For example, former page Patrick McDonald told the The Washington Post that he knew of three or four of his ex-classmates who had received sexual messages from Foley (SourceWatch).  On September 29, 2006, Foley resigned effective immediately after other pages came forward with records of sexually charged instant messages that Foley had sent to them (SourceWatch). 

Foley’s situation was widely reported and known throughout the U.S.  His negative publicity effectively ruined his career.  His days of being an intricate part of the political world are over and his name and face will forever be tainted in the eyes of corporate and social America.  Needless to say, he will never regain a positive image in the public eye, all as a result of his negative publicity.

All in all, the claim that “all publicity is good publicity” is profoundly inaccurate.

Resources and Citations

Belch, GE. and Belch, MA.  Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective, 9th Edition.  McGraw-Hill Companies.  2012.

Mark Foley page scandal. (n.d.). SourceWatch. Retrieved February 28, 2014, from http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Ma

The 10 Biggest Frauds In Recent U.S. History. (n.d.). Forbes. Retrieved February 28, 2014, 
from http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eelg45gkdi/4-cendant-3/