Thursday, February 12, 2009

Media Disasters - Elvis Has Left The Building

Last night along with some 4.7 million viewers we watched in horror as actor Joaquin Phoenix imploded on the David Letterman Show. Clearly suffering from metal illness and or chemical abuse Phoenix stumbled through his interview like a homeless person. Letterman, sensing blood in the water, parried with quips about his unkempt appearance and the Unibomber. Letterman is a skillful master of the game and kept this "dead man walking" three ring circus going for as long as he could.

So, what does this have to do with shark diving? As a commercial shark diving operation your brand, your identity, and your credibility is tied into the media, like it or not. Yesterdays debacle by
Phoenix serves as a reminder to the dangers of failing to pay attention to every aspect of your media output.

For Phoenix his star power will inevitably lead to a "come back". For shark diving operations that follow the same path, the "come back" is not so easy:

4 comments:

DaShark said...

Hmmmmmmm - too good to be true...

Betcha that they'll eventually reveal that it was an act by Joaquin & Letterman - but otherwise, I fully agree with your other reflections!

Horizon Charters Guadalupe Cage Diving said...

Thought on that - JP is well known for immersion action this may well be a roll for Ted Kazinsky after all.

Great acting.

Anonymous said...

He faked the whole thing!

Anonymous said...

Yup, totally an act to get attention it will backfire on him though poor venue choice to act like an ass.