Brand Protection "Situation"

Protecting brands has risen to a new level...or maybe I should say fallen.

Abercrombie & Fitch is paying Michael "The Situation" of Jersey Shore to NOT wear their branded clothes.

Is it real outrage - or just PR? We used to say that all PR was good PR, but sometimes doesn't it just seem like trash is trash? What'cha think?

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/08/18/exp.am.abercrombie.hanft.cnn?iref=allsearch

How tarnished is Donald's golden crown?

Surfing channels this weekend, I ran into the Seth Meyers White House Correspondents' Associate dinner speech and was drawn in to the event. What an example of the basic communication lesson that body language can "trump" words anytime!

Most folks nervously giggled at the mini-roasting of themselves or their associates. And it was clear that our President was quite comfortable getting ribbed...not a lot of squirming there.

But, what really caught my eye was Mr. Trump's reaction. Or a better description was lack of reaction. He sat so amazingly stone-faced that he looked like a statue. In contrast to the rest of the crowd, he appeared eerily unreal - no feelings - no emotion. Except perhaps anger attempting to be disguised as uncaring.

Trump has spent decades and countless dollars building and honing his brand. He would be well served by seeking some PR help - pros who would undoubtably advise him to stop taking himself so seriously.