Archive for the 'irony' Category

“You should probably be working at Starbucks.”

This is exactly the kind of thing authors of the unbearably famous Bad Pitch Blog tell those PR practitioners unlucky enough to see their latest debauchery end up on badpitch.blogspot.com.

For several years now, PR pros Richard Laermer (@laermer) and Kevin Dugan (@prblog) have joined forces to write the award winning industry watchdog blog, and now they are hosting their first live teleseminar. And everyone is invited.

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, July 29 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. EDT. PR know-it-alls Richard Laermer (Punk Marketing, Full Frontal PR) and Kevin Dugan (Strategic PR Blog) are hosting the brand new “Bad Pitch Night School (During The Day).”

Admission gets you:

• A smart, step by step approach to pitching that includes hilarious case studies and goes beyond that simple email. From looking at the whole pitch lifecycle, including the truth about pitching bloggers and using social media, to tips that will no doubt make you better-informed (and tell you how) plus the keys to pitch inspiration, they’ll help you improve your game.
• Plus, a free e-book of Laermer`s classic Full Frontal PR handbook.

In this nonstop, ridiculously cool hour the boys are going to knock you out with more learning than you thought possible!

$49 bucks gets you admission for as many people as you can cram into a conference room (via speakerphone, natch), and your free e-book. What a deal!

There’s a Bad Pitch Blog Scholarship Program! What would a school (and a recession) be without scholarships? Bad Pitch Blog gives out five FREE student scholarships and five FREE professional scholarships to those professionals “between jobs/in transition/laid off/out of work.” If you qualify write the boys at badpitch@gmail.com Do it now. Time is fleeting.

Learn more, sign up and be cool at www.CrappyPR.com. Oh and laugh a bit.

Misguided teen queen Jamie Lynn Spears appeared last night on ABC’s new show, Miss Guided. In dictionaries all across America, the entries for irony just exploded.

The “second” Spears (gee, we need a spare) played a troubled teen debating between going to college or sticking around for a boyfriend. For those of you shacking up in Saddam’s old spiderhole, Jamie Lynn just made the decision to have a baby and take some time off from her acting career.

Is this life imitating art or the other way around?

Her sabbatical is treating her well - things have never been better for SpearsSpare! By taking time off, she meant taking time to get even more famous. Though her pregnancy goes against Nickelodeon’s wholesome image, ratings for her show, Zoey 101 have soared. And the hype around her appearance on Miss Guided… well, I’m even talking about it. (Shame on me, I know.)

Who’s to blame! Let’s go with Juno. Jamie Lynn’s publicists are not idiots, and we know the Spears clan has a knack for drawing attention (self-promotion is too generous). They saw the amniotic fluid on the wall after Juno went big and so they said “Here’s a way to make JLS super known.” Quietly dealing with the situation back home on the Bayou wouldn’t work for this management. Instead they SOLD the story to OK! magazine for seven figures. A nation of kids now considers her the real life Juno McGuff. Except, instead of being the cheese to someone’s macaroni, Jamie Lynn is the Easy Mac for the college kid on a budget (no offense meant to Easy Mac).

In my last post on celebrity babies, I intentionally barely touched on this. There’s just something unsettling about babies having babies. I’m old school, but there’s a way to handle very public scandals that, while acknowledging mistakes, deals with the repercussions soberly. It reflects strong character and just happens to be the healthy way to live a life. It’s a personal opinion, and the public, at least in the long term, appreciates it more than a naked parade around the town square.

That respect/goodwill counts when trying to make a career in the public sphere.

A wise man named Jack Handy once said, “To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there’s no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.” These wise words remind me of the Spears clan. Their lives are primetime dramas, except there are no ratings, nothing but shame gained, and at the end of the third trimester, Jamie Lynn really will have a baby, G-d love her. Sometimes bad publicity is just bad publicity.