#(bc the main reason they kept him around that long was to pander to the fans but that's another story)

[ardentpoop]

ok lol

[annashipper]

Showsie Submission

Hey Anna! Just thought I'd submit on recent events. Although I have not been vocal lately, I have still been paying attention to the land of shamwow. So...Ben goes to a concert in NYC? We get some pics of him solo, and a delightful lack of fuckery to accompany them. We also get some nice, high quality pics of IW filming...accompanied by some Fail articles that focus on his work, sans any fetch attempts from she who shall remain fetchless. I have to say, I find these recent events encouraging...not from any shamwow point of view...but from a good PR point of view. I'm with Ballsy...cookies where they are deserved, really. Granted...I've become so inured to the previous poor efforts of team BC in this respect that the bar of my expectations in this matter has been set quite low as a result...but kudos are given for this week's efforts regardless. I think I'm finally seeing the result of some sensible and grown-up PR strategy here, and I really hope it continues. I also wanted to address JT Anon's comments on the nan factor as pertains to PR strategy. I do think that you find groups like the nans in any fandom...they just happen to be more vehement and vocal in this one. I do believe that pandering to such a group is not a particularly good idea when it comes to a risk/benefit analysis, and that no effective or capable PR would do so, if they could possibly avoid it. But, I don't think that a capable PR is what we have here, given previous form. I think they use the nans for clicks, but without any thought as to the consequences. I've also seen people mentioning the Beatlemania type promo that was used in that Hollywood Reporter article in 2014. In my opinion...that was poor form. I'm sure the nans saw it as validation for their behaviour, but I just saw it as mocking, disrespectful and not good at all. Which brings me to my main point...I've often said that Ben's team have failed to understand his fandom. Let me clarify this point for you now (just in case the intern that is tasked with reading these blogs is paying attention). If I were in charge of Ben's image from the start...I would have aggressively marketed him as the 'thinking women's crumpet' from the start. Because I think my job as PR would have been to determine what demographic my client was most likely to appeal to, and to build a business plan in that direction. I think they had made some good steps in that direction...up until mid 2014...and then the wheels came off that particular train, for whatever reason (which I'm sure we'll never know the truth of), and we ended up with the mish-mash of contradictory messages we have now. Team BC have failed to appreciate the demographic they should have been aiming for. Ben was never going to be the classical Hollywood heartthrob material. He doesn't have the right look for that. Don't get me wrong...I still think he is pretty, in a striking and unusual way, but he's not got the archetypal good looks for such a thing. Instead of the Internet's Boyfriend with a bunch of squealing fans designed to appeal to the barely post-pubescent, they should have been aiming for slightly more mature woman as their target audience for this man. This is the audience I think a man like Ben would appeal to. Someone who isn't about the hype, and is looking for substance over style. And it would have had the added bonus of being directly aimed at where the money is. Because people forget...free thinking and more mature women are more likely to be professionals, established in their careers, with a considerable amount of disposable income to spend on movie tickets and the like. And such women don't require hearing awkward shoehorning and stuttering (and, quite frankly, unconvincing) affirmations about a personal life that should have been kept private, to spend money on their fave. They would have been more impressed by someone showing enough respect for their wife and children to not put it up for sale to the highest bidder in an attempt at generating cheap publicity. This is a vast and untapped market that they have failed to capitalise on, had they recognised it earlier. But...I do feel they have finally cottoned on to this, because we are now seeing a strategy from Team BC that accommodates this view of celebrity. Let's hope they continue their current good form and that they won't disappoint us in the future. Fingers crossed! Hugs to you, Anna

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Ben is definitely standing his ground, I’ll give him that.  And yes, I’m quite optimistic about where this seems to be going.  Cookies for PR though?  I’m withholding those until after Wimbledon (and I think everyone reading this blog knows the reasons why)

As far as Ben’s image is concerned, that’s something I’ve found fascinating since before I even became a fan of his.

I still remember reading through Empire and seeing he’d gotten their Sexiest Man Alive title for 2013 which, I have to be honest, baffled me at the time (but in my defence I hadn’t watched a single episode of Sherlock yet).  

I remember reading article upon article about him back then, all of them talking about legions of Cumberbitches, about him being the thinking woman’s crumpet and definitely seeing the potential for him to make it big in the industry.

When I finally watched Sherlock and couldn’t shut up about this magnificent actor everyone around me had to see in action, one of my colleagues even had a mug made for me that read “Proud Cumberbitch” with a screenshot of Sherlock in the sheet at Buckingham Palace, which I thought was hilarious and kept using at the office (because apparently I have no shame).

So yeah, as long as Ben was being adorable on red carpets, verbose and funny in interviews and wasn’t playing the same game everyone in Hollywood seems to be playing, I had no problem with the Cumberbitch title.  It was just a silly thing that I could find humour in.

Fast forward to the fall of 2014: There was certainly a shift in the way he was portrayed in the press during TIG promo, and they seemed to want to hold on to both aspects of his image at that point.  Having him give long winded interviews about Alan Turing and the way he was slighted by the system, while also having him do that cringe worthy photoshoot for Hollywood Reporter.  

To make matters worse, they kept jabbing at his fans with not only Beatlemania references, but also building him up like this bigger than life movie star who couldn’t run fast enough away from his screaming fans, as well as the paparazzi.

That would have been all fine and dandy, had Ben accustomed the world at large to such behaviour.  BUT, although anyone paying attention knew that lots of his fans were overly enthusiastic (a great number of them willing to go to great lengths to breathe the same air as he does for 5 seconds) and ready to throw themselves into battle to defend him against his critics, they also knew that he was a man who’d been in the industry for close to 20 years already and had managed to always guard his private life.

Therefore, when he kept talking about how fiercely private he was while obviously doing staged pap walks ... globally, he started looking disingenuous.  Something that was amplified by the fact that he kept talking about being happy to find love with Sophie Hunter, a woman who 9 out of 10 people think trapped him into marriage with a pregnancy, while he started looking more and more frustrated around her, the more we saw them together.

Let’s get one thing straight:  No one likes a liar.  No one thinks a liar is the thinking woman’s crumpet.  No one thinks a liar is adorable.

In order for Ben to turn his image around and go back to presenting himself the way that he has worked so long and hard to be regarded, I believe he has to stop lying.  Because let’s face it, he may be a gifted actor, but the poor guy can’t lie his way out of a paper bag.  Not about anything that matters at least...

When he stops lying, I’m prepared to bake heaps of cookies for everyone.  His PR, the poor intern who has to keep reading our ramblings to report back to Karon who then reports back to Ben, the people in Ben’s life who’ve stood by him through all of this adversity, the Skeptics, the Nans, even random people in the streets.  The only people not getting cookies will be the trolls who are posing as skeptics, as well as Shitty and her friends.  And let me tell you Ms Showsie, I make a mean cookie  :P