The Role of Public Relations in rebuilding Reputation of the Hollywood Stars
Summary
Public relations is concerned with building strong objective driven relationships for advancement and promotion of the reputation of an individual, an organization, or a specific identity that depends on the opinion of the people for its smooth and successful functioning. The professionals involved in the career of managing public relations need to take care of communicating messages so as to gain allies and supporters, as well as advocates for advocacy programs namely NGO’s. For organizations, it helps in marketing the organization for the purpose of recruitment so that the organization can provide improved quality of services to its customers. For NGOs, an effective Public Relation (PR) activity ensures to the funding agencies that their performance is making a difference to the respective segment where they are active bringing good results. For individuals it can help build or improve an existing reputation. Effective PR practice enhances community relationship, helps build industrial partnerships as well and helps in generating financial support for projects. The more effectively PR is done, the greater is the probability of getting further exposure to media, which increases business possibilities manifold. PR professionals, besides framing draft press releases for their employers, are also required to have knowledge of consumer attitudes and concerns, public interest groups and employees of the respective organization, along with the community inside which the individual or the organization interacts so as to set-up and maintain an accommodative working relationship. The various modes of PR used for fulfilling this objective are-special events and promotions, internal relations and public affairs, community relations and using high-tech PR such as blogging& social networking. (American Physical Society, 2014)
Abstract
Public Relation plays a vital role in enhancing and maintaining the career path of Hollywood stars as the general people see the performance of the stars based on the perception of facts presented before them by the media. The success of the whole business of the movie industry depends on successful management, control and influences generated on people’s perception of a star or the news fed to him. The responsibility of the PR professionals is to initiate a series of desirable behaviours that’s enables a Hollywood star to achieve the desired outcome from that PR activity, particularly when the reputation of a Hollywood star has been tarnished due to happening in his or her personal life, or making some careless or uninformed or prejudiced comments in public. It becomes the responsibility of the PR persons working for those stars to successfully negate the impact and the weight of those negative communications passed out by the stars in public by creating a new and persuasive communication in favour of the star by changing ,reinforcing ,tweaking or creating a new positive image by modifying the existing one. Thus PR people need to go by certain principles to be successful and be always ready with new strategies and be available at a moments’ notice before the stars so as to start working quickly on the process of rebuilding with necessary campaigns depending on the amount of damage done to the existing brand or image of the concerned star by designing swaying communication and implementing it, while closely observing its impact and progress and carrying out necessary modifications in the strategic design of the communication as and when necessary. (World Wide Learn,1999-2014)
The objective of this paper is to focus on the strategic methods adopted by the PR personnel of Hollywood stars who have landed themselves into a negative reputation either objectively or strategically or unknowingly, and the significant role that their PR people are required to play in rebuilding that lost or tarnished reputation. The research would focus David Hasselhoff the star of Baywatch, Britney Spears, George Michael, Mel Gibson and Richard Gere on the basis of the following research questions and how their PR’s helped them or strived to help them, as well as recommend possible strategies that could have helped them to successfully recover the lost reputation and rebuild a new and positive image for them.
Research Questions:
- When does the PR personnel of a Hollywood star needs to consider rebuilding reputation and image?
- Should a Hollywood star consider using negative PR for remaining in the top headlines of news?
- Can a badly tarnished image and reputation of a Hollywood star be ever rebuilt?
- What could be the best reputation rebuild strategies for a star suffering from a tarnished image for creating a long term comeback?
Literature Review
The following resources would provide valuable insight into the research paper, and help one further understand the importance and role of PR in helping the stars achieve their ambition and success by following specific PR strategies necessary for retaining them.
- http://eprints.qut.edu.au/16687/1/Jonathan_Derek_Silver_Thesis.pdf
- http://www.yorku.ca/dzwick/Faden.pdf
- http://jat.uky.edu/pageimages/Lindlof_PDF.pdf
- http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/publication%20files/05-059.pdf
- http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic152447.files/rosen_Hollywood.pdf
- http://www.instituteforpr.org/framework-standards-and-metrics-pr-research-priorities-part-2/
- http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2013/01/how-do-stars-get-on-the-hollywood-walk-of-fame/
- http://www.businessinsider.com/20-most-powerful-publicists-in-hollywood-2012-10?IR=T
- http://www.raindance.org/3-new-rules-of-film-publicity/
- http://www.thefilmcollaborative.org/blog/tag/pr-strategy/
- http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/viewArticle/194
Project Plan
Acknowledgements Page
Abstract
Chapter 1: Introduction: PR – Definition and significance in Business & Industry (2 Pgs)
- Role of PR and Media in Hollywood Film Industry
- David Hasselhoff (the star of Baywatch), Britney Spears, George Michael, Mel Gibson and Richard Gere : Background stories on how negative PR from Media impacted the image & reputation of these Hollywood stars and ruined their career
Chapter 2: Review of Literature: (2 Pgs )
- PR Management Theories- Traditional & Modern
- Technology and PR
- Setting and Managing Public Expectations
Chapter 3: Methods: Secondary Research – (11/2 Pgs )
- How PR strategies of the Fallen stars helped them rebuild their reputation
- A measurement of the PR effort
Chapter 4: An Analysis
- Outcome of the PR strategies of the five aforementioned stars
- Recommendations for what could have been done differently
Chapter 5: Synthesis
- Strengths and Limitations of the paper
- Recommended Future Research
References
Appendixes (if any)
References
APS Physics (2014).The importance of public relations. Available at http://www.aps.org/programs/outreach/guide/pr/importance.cfm
World Wide Learn (1999-2014).The importance of public relations. Available at http://www.worldwidelearn.com/business-career/article/the-importance-of-public relations.html
Write project plan and draft abstract
Sources needed: 2
How they keep them in the public eye in times of triumph, put of press in their hours of shame, and, in general, to provide advice. Please define what stars you are talking about. Also search library data bases for celebrity public relations, rebuilding reputations in movies, etc.
