All PR Is Good PR?
Two items struck me this morning when looking at my RSS news feeds that led me to think about the old adage that in marketing there is no bad PR. First was the seemingly manipulated roll-out of the new PS3. Here are two headlines from the Associated Press:

Sony PlayStation 3 Debuts to Long Lines

1 Shot in Conn. Playstation Waiting Line
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting for the new Playstation 3 game system to go on sale early Friday and shot a man who refused to give up his money, authorities said. In other states, customers pushed and shoved their way to the shelves to get at the limited supply, and in Kentucky, four people were grazed by BBs fired from a passing vehicle as they waited for a Best Buy store to open.

Sony knows that there is a good way to inflate the view of demand- keep the numbers available low and the die-hard gamers will do the rest to give you the PR. So there are some instances of bad behavior (like calling Mark Foley's text messages "naughty"). The PR is out there.

The other one that I continue to wonder about is the PR around the movie Borat. I have not yet seen it but I admit to being suspicious and somewhat turned off by the stereotyping and ethnic-style humor that I have seen of it. In any case the stories that are coming out now about towns in Romania, frat boys in North Carolina, and an etiquette coach challenging the contracts and explanations are interesting and probably raise some issues. But chances are that will do anything BUT hurt the movie's box office. Again, the PR is out there and the movie's name is kept in the spotlight.

This is different from "word of mouth" which can and often does hurt a movie's box office. This is truly PR- advertising- free thanks to the news.