PR-Bridge

With a two year old daughter, my wife and I do not get to go to the movies anymore. When we did, like most people, we enjoyed the previews of upcoming films. Looking around a bit, one could see people all over the theater giving the preview an immediate thumbs up or down. Not surprisingly, given my wife’s genius, her gut-level reactions were usually right on. Those trailers she deemed bad equalled a bad movie 100 percent of the time.

Over the years I have seen this same thing work with a variety of people across any number of media channels. Sitting with friends, a commercial for a new TV series is given judge and jury immediately. Shortly thereafter, the series is cancelled.

I do not think that my wife or people I know have any special insight into modern popular culture. Rather, everyone has developed such a finely tuned b.s. monitor. The pace (and chaos) of life causes us to dial out anything that stinks. Bad movies bomb, horrible TV shows disappear, and garbage music ends up in the garbage.

Given this phenomenon, though, a lot of crap still gets through. I wonder about this all the time. Even though everyone and their brother knew Kevin Federline’s CD would bomb, he still got to make it. Lindsay Lohan is a horrible actress and obviously supremely messed up in real life, but studios still hire her. Certain NASCAR drivers have no chance of winning each week and serve as little more than moving obstacles, yet they get to show up each week.

This is a perplexing situation. We know what is no good, but cannot seem to really escape what is being pushed at us. I wonder if there is a correlation with the way companies use marketing and public relations? Is there a way to flip the two-way communication model so that we on the communicatins side tap into the consumer b.s. monitor before spending time/money/effort on doomed campaigns?

Current attempts, such as focus groups and online surveys, are not the answer, we all know that. But, is there another means to getting at this crucial information? I think this is an area in which corporate communicators and academics could examine together, if willing to share resources and information.

What do you think?