All Aboard the Palin Express!

Sarah Palin and the media circus that surrounds her most definitely qualifies as a conundrum. It’s as American as say, journalists and soldiers “could and should be”… or something like that.

After reading every word of her 432-page book and viewing the scores of TV interviews coinciding with the Going Rogue media tour (a media tour by PLANE, not bus) I too am left wondering about the millions of other worthy news items pushed to the B and C rolls or no roll at all. [Just an interesting aside: I first learned about all this B and C roll stuff while an exchange student at Fisk University in Nashville, TN - Al Gore was the lecturer of a class aimed at exposing the art of media filtering.]

And so goes the tabloid summary. On one hand, we have a political figure with the gift for gab and an assumed “chip” on her shoulder. On the other, we have a media presumably fascinated by a modern and spunky Molly Brown-type who walks around Manhatten with a handmade hand bag made of moose fur.

Sarah Palin is a conundrum but the media industry’s obsession with her makes a lot of sense. In many ways, the Palin saga is symptomatic of a media industry continuing its struggle to find a place in an environment of tough bottom lines and rapidly emerging technologies. A united front of media execs have articulated through their endless coverage of Sarah Palin that short-term gains continue to dominate editorial decision-making (even NYT’s Maureen Dowd gets this).

Sarah Palin’s “B Team” appears to be more than just simply aware of this reality as they continue to successfully execute what is perhaps one of the best new media rapid response programs developed to-date. For all those new to Grassroots communications, I trade you one Ben Hurr for one million bloggers in their parents’ basements.

Sarah Palin’s Facebook following has reached a total of 1,088,260 supporters and counting. What makes this statistic so unique is that unlike the one-timer who flocks to a Macy’s fan page after seeing a 25% discount advertisement in their “Sponsor” widget, these Facebookers are emotionally engaged brand evangelists with guns cocked and targets eyed. Their route to her FB page is a journey filled with one headline after the next. If Sarah Palin’s position is to call ‘em like she sees ‘em, she is gettin’ all the help she needs from her supporters THANKS to all those Media Elite Liberals (MELS).

What other explanation is there for why she continues to remain a top trending topic one year after the election despite stepping down from the Alaska governorship.

By issuing a reaction to every wacky headline and publishing a Media Maverick’s Iliad, Sarah Palin and her Ice Pick warriors have created a second Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) all the way to Rockefeller Plaza, putting money back into the pockets of (at least) one Alaskan. Sarah Palin’s public relations nightmare is now the media’s problem and her lifeboat: despite being among the ranks of the currently ‘not seeking’, she remains alive and very relevant. While her base is motivated and engaged, it is also growing in influence, creating residual coverage by the download and helping to call out the proverbial bully on Sarah’s playground. 

I’m rubber, you’re glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!

One even begins to wonder if the ‘falafel lady’ and the girl from Homer are really no more than soldiers of Palin’s own battalion, not the Rahm-It-Through brigade as Going Rogue suggests? Nah, couldn’t be.

Has the ongoing coverage of Sarah Palin, whom many in the media call irrelevant (Sorry Stephen Power, Manajordan made me do it!), been too excessive? Yes.

(See manajordan’s comment posted on WSJ’s WashWire blog at 7:25pm, December 6th)

“More and more the Lame Stream Media is relying on people to do little more than read the headline. More and more people are realizing they have to do their own research in order to find out the facts. The LSM has little to no idea they are the ones making themselves irrelevant. The media is supposed to be the watchdog. Instead they’ve become the water carriers for the team they love best. Journalism is dead. WSJ ‘journalists’, you are embarrassing yourselves…please stop it.”

Has she, unlike any major national political candidate who preceded her, received unfair treatment by media outlets? Perhaps.

Is she ill-refined or ill-defined? Depends on who you ask.

…Does it matter? Yes. No. And maybe.

Will she run for President in 2012? Not sure why Oprah, Barbara, Hannity, O’Reilly and friends couldn’t figure that one out. After all, they had a hand in creating her.

Brand Bower Paved the Way for the Modern Leading Lady

Ever since I stumbled upon the “Samantha Grows Up” episode a little over a month ago while surfing YouTube I have been - you might say – a little obsessed with the wildly popular mid-80s to early-90s sitcom, Who’s the Boss?.

Through my own persistence and overwhelming drive to watch the Bridges of Madison County gravel-road-drama of lead characters Tony Micelli and Angela Bower unfold I managed to locate a distributor-of-sorts willing to provide me access to the entire 8-season, 196-episode series for a nominal fee.It took me about 1.5 weeks of late nights and early mornings to get through the DVDs. I watched most of the shows alone, gently plied a couple friends into watching some of the earlier episodes with the help of a home cooked meal, and hooked my niece and nephew on a big chunk of the latter seasons by virtue of their innocence and extreme sense of favorite-aunt-followership.When my second of four sisters – their mother – walked in on the three of us laughing uncontrollably at the TV or laptop she passed by and shook her head. When she overheard her ten-year-old daughter react to a stunt pulled by the actor Katherine Helmond as ”That’s just Mona being Mona,” and later, caught her seven-year-old son practicing Tony’s signature strut uttering the words “eh, oh, oh, eh,” she insisted I had “issues.” Despite the accusations, suspicious grins from co-workers and the obvious silliness of it all the truth is watching the shows was BIG fun. And I know my little sheppards had fun as well… deny it as they may… even some of my early recruits have mentioned an interest in getting their hands on a few more episodes.

Not for nothing, between the slapstick, spectacles, and shoulder pads something truly miraculous and unexpected happened during the course of Who’s the Boss?. Something beyond my wildest conservative 80s sitcom dreams. Packaged within all those hundreds of yards of tape transferred onto 17 DVDs by [name not to be mentioned] was the making of one of the most powerful brands in TV land history and an experience so relevant to the lives of the modern woman, and my own I might add, it cannot be measured by a laugh-o-meter.

Angela Bower, the divorced, single parent and high-powered FEMALE advertising executive paved the way for the modern leading lady. As CEO of her own agency and a well-placed Connecticut household this out-of-the-bottle blonde (unafraid of a jab at her own dark roots) successfully mediated a complex reality where she was in fact confidently in control of her own empire, comfortable delegating and making room for a live-in male housekeeper and his manhood, and yet unabashedly blunt about the social obstacles that surrounded her as a woman in charge.

Angela Bower was a real woman with real emotions who knew her place but didn’t care or at least never let on to her viewing audience. Her role as comedienne was all apparent but to be clear she wasn’t escaping anything and there were no excuses embedded therein. Just juxtapose this magnanimous Brand Bower with some of her leading lady and mass media successors who swung the glass bat and struck out hit foul balls: Ellen, Hillary C., Rosie, Nancy P. to name a few. And while Roseanne and Murphy Brown also advocated a strong sense of self their characters were nowhere near as developed as the indomitable Brand Bower. She came at a time least expected and still today shines as one of few women able to conquer the plight of our own glass ceiling.

Check out this clip of A Well Kept Housekeeper and I’ll rest my case.

Howdy, Partner

Oh, how those words just roll off the tongue. It was a movie in 1920, but the greeting came first and has enjoyed the spotlight far longer. So, this is in fact stale enough to be my first post and I thought I would break the ice with cliché rather than discuss the weather.

I am a PR professional by trade, but that should not dissuade you from returning. I could have just as easily been a cultural anthropologist, behavioral psychologist or actor. I’ve skipped over a few others…

I have already broken a sacred rule of mine by invoking the letter “I” at the beginning of four consecutive sentences. I will do this frequently – that is, confidently rally behind an idea and then abandon it w/o care or concern when a better idea comes along. Some call this a character flaw. I’d like to call it simply, character.

Brandzane is a word I created, first. It describes a person like me who is totally obsessed with the story behind the muckamuck – whether that muckamuck is a person or a thing it is usually a brand. I will use the blog as a vehicle to express my “expert” (c’mon, I used quotes!) opinions on just about anything that concerns a brand, and more specifically, the public stories that shape a brand throughout its life-cycle. The latter part is what I’m really zany about! As an avid consumer of news, culture and artificial sweeteners I constantly find myself analyzing the composition of what I digest. Perhaps you do as well? I hope so – I mean – how boring would this be to just have a conversation with myself, right?