Is all publicity good publicity?

I was sent this sad and brilliant story from the Reuters bureau in Boogata which provoked deliberation. I have worked in the entertainment industry for many years and my mantra’s has always been, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity!”

Sometimes I have a tough time defending that “All publicity is good publicity” as an absolute, but when I read the following report I chuckled at the response to a peculiar crisis at a travelling circus.

(REUTERS) Two clowns were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman during their performance at a travelling circus in the eastern Colombian town of Cucuta, police said Wednesday.

The gunman burst into the Circo del Sol de Cali Monday night and shot the clowns in front of an audience of 20 to 50 people, local police Chief Jose Humberto Henao told Reuters. One of the clowns was killed instantly and the second died the next day in hospital.”

“The killings had nothing to do with the show the victims were performing at the time of the incident,” Henao said in a telephone interview. “We are investigating the motive.”

With an entrance fee of under 50 U.S. cents, Circo del Sol de Cali attracts mostly poor Colombians. It pitched it tents in Cucuta, near the border with Venezuela, earlier this month.
I applaud the chutzpah of the PR department of Circo del Sol de Cali. They prove that there is always a marketing opportunity inside a crisis. Even when two key performers have been lost to a violent homicide Henao ensures the show is protected and the brand is promoted.