So you’re Johnny Damon’s PR guy. Your client just did the unthinkable. The unkempt (and thus wildly adored) Red Sox centerfielder took the Steinbrenner bait — $52 million over four years. He’s now a Yankee. In so doing, Mr. Damon left the rabid Red Sox fans with as much contempt for him (and the team’s management) as they likely had for the Bambino when he bolted Beantown for the Big Apple 87 years ago, let alone the many others since.

Is there any hope of rebuilding his burnt bridges to Boston? Not a chance, especially since it appears he didn’t even let the team counter offer. The Governor, whose first name mandated a weigh-in, had this to say:

“Do you owe anything to the team that you’ve been with for a number of years, and to the fans that have supported you like the fans have?” asked Romney. “And my opinion is, yes, you do owe something.”

What could he do to avoid the beer bottles and boos on his trip back to Fenway next spring? This: “Mr. Steinbrenner I am flattered that you so fervently pursued me to join your team. But, I have made my career in Boston. I like the fans and the organization, and there’s more to life than money.” Well, that ain’t about to happen. After all, this is pro sports where money is everything. Still, I think about the positive (and future bankable) impact of Reggie telling the NFL, “I have decided that a college degree is more important than the money right now.”

With his reputation in Boston in tatters, Mr. Damon can never go home again. Now he has to make peace with the rabid Yankee fans who heretofore have preferred the Aqua-Velva look of Derek Jeter.

PR sports
baseball

As the battle lines are drawn over just how much power the executive branch should have to “fight the war on terror,” few will argue with the awesome power on display these last couple of weeks as this administration set about the task of fishing Mr. Bush’s approval ratings out of the toilet. He and his inner circle pulled out all the stops to reframe the debate and reshape public opinion at a time when many media types were penning their death notices for this presidency.

The PR consiglieres on Pennsylvania Avenue were not about to capitulate. They deployed their most potent troops: the President, Vice President, Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, among them, to their channel of choice Fox News , and elsewhere, to blunt their critics. The usually inhospitable Bill O’Reilly positively gushed as he sat opposite Mr. Rumsfeld to whom he quipped, “Are you having fun, yet?” Mr. Bush did his part by holding two rare news conferences and giving a number of canned speeches. Every surrogate and pundit available to the White House PR machine suddenly surfaced in message unison and media ubiquity.

Guess what? The strategy is working. In spite of possibly breaching the U.S. Constitution and other sordid misdeeds, Mr. Bush’s numbers again are on the rise. The latest polls have the communications team on Pennsylvania Avenue high-fiving at its success with its end-of-the-year public relations offensive.

The fact remains: newsmakers, no matter what flavor, have incredible power to influence public opinion with relative ease. From George Bush to Steve Jobs to Tom Cruise, powerful A-listers have the capacity (should they choose to use it) to command and control the primary channel of influence — the news media. This is in spite of the promise of the citizen journalist movement (”the fifth estate”) to serve as a new media check and balance. At this writing, however, the blogosphere remains too fragmented and immature to temper the powerful — especially those who have succeeded in undermining the ability of the media to do its job in the first place.

PR politics
media

Since its opening late last week, “King Kong” has endured more than an oversized gorilla’s share of disappointing news from the box office. The presumed blockbuster movie took in $50 mill over the weekend — a respectable number nowadays, but much less than predicted. Could it be that the pre-release hype regarding box office potential actually hurt the film’s prospects by raising the bar so high that anything short of Titanic-sized receipts would be deemed a failure?

Of course in the days leading up to the release, potential moviegoers were subject to the usual TV appearances by the stars and the film’s celebrated director. Then there was the flash bulb-popping premiere/photo-op in midtown Manhattan, followed by a spate of national stories predicting a record take at the box office. It was this last messaging strategy that struck me as odd. Sure, network interviews and a star-studded opening event, followed by strong critical reviews, typically suffice for putting fannies in seats. (In fact, some believe that the last item is all that’s needed.)

But I can’t recall such a pervasive media campaign touting a film’s financial success prior to its actual release. Was this a mistake? Hindsight is 20/20, but my hunch is that this self-fulfilling prophetic approach to marketing ultimately had a deleterious impact in the all-important, 2nd week “legs” department. Kong’s rave reviews alone might have propelled it to the top of the Empire State Building and back.

PR movies
entertainment King Kong