Chris Brown a young up and coming R&B pop star has landed himself in a public relations crises. On the night of February 8th Chris Brown was alleged to be in an domestic abuse altercation with his girlfriend another young popstar named Rihanna. Both have several chart topping songs on the air and several endorsement deals. After the distress call to 911 from Rihanna, Brown turned himself into the Los Angeles police department later that night and was charged with two felony count of assault and criminal threats.
Now Brown has found himself in some major PR hot water. This couldn't have come at a worse time for Brown who had signed a lucrative endorsement deal with Wrigley’s doublemint gum in August. The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company has decided to suspend their current advertising campaign with Brown. The company told the public that they want to wait until the situation is resolved before they start re-airing the commercials. Brown also took his own nomination and invite to the Nickelodeons Kids Choice Awards.
Chris Brown has also gone on to hire a crisis PR firm from Los Angeles called Sitrick & Company to handle his situation. Sitrick is considered an expert in handling these kinds of Cases. Sitrick has dealt with high profile celebrities such as Halle Barry who had a hit and run incident, Mel Gibson’s drunk driving incident, and Rush Limbaugh’s oxy-contin addiction scandal. The Sitrick PR released a statement on Brown’s behalf. Many video news releases with the same statement have been released on many entertainment and news channels. This shows the strategy Sitirick is using by addressing the issue as soon as they were hired they assessed the situation and released a nice concise statement covering what they could. The only problem is they may have been hired to late because much of the public media were upset that he hadn’t release a statement earlier like the day after the altercation occurred. The PR saga still continues with many segments being done on the story along with one I even saw today on Oprah. However, things could be looking up for Chris Brown because on Oprah they showed pictures of the young couple together at a party after the aftermath of the domestic dispute. Many topics about abuse where covered each putting a different spin on the story. Tyra Banks who was a guest on the Oprah special said Brown’s mother was beaten when Brown was a child, which she thought may stem such an outburst of violence from the young singer. This special may help Brown out in the long run. If you were a crisis PR firm how would you handle this situation?
In my opinion if things do blow over for Chris Brown he could always get an endorsement deal with Hawaiian Punch. Sorry, I just had to do that, I have no remorse for abusers and neither should the public! I also think Tyra Banks had the worst show ever and I’m glad its canceled what a lame excuse to hit a woman.
