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Hello, and welcome to this month’s Reputation Digest, where Fire on the Hill delivers a run-down of the latest stories making waves in the communications sector. This month, Taylor Swift releases her latest album, a German firm takes advantage of the Louvre heist, and Prince Andrew is back in the news.
Swift releases her latest hit… or is it a miss?
Whether you think it’s a hit or a major miss, there’s no question that Taylor Swift’s latest album has got everyone talking. From her poetic tribute to Shakespeare, “The Fate of Ophelia,” to her apparent Charlie XCX diss track “Actually Romantic,” Taylor’s latest work has inspired some intense opinions across the internet.
Overall, the reception has been surprisingly frosty. Critics have accused Swift of being lazy, self-indulgent, and worst of all, ‘cringey’. Lines such as “Did you girlboss too close to the sun” and “Every joke’s just trolling and memes” have not gone down well. Some commentators have even joked that the lyrics may have been written by Taylor Swift’s fiancé, Travis Kelce. With Swift’s reputation as a brilliant songwriter and self-adopted ‘English-teacher’ moniker, it’s no wonder that many listeners were disappointed.
One of the biggest talking points that emerged from the album is Swift’s attack on fellow female pop star XCX. The track is a supposed response to Charlie’s “Sympathy is a Knife,” and for many listeners, Swift is not only punching down, but also failing to understand the nuance of a track that discusses the toxicity of the music industry, the difficulty of being a woman under any sort of spotlight and Charlie’s own feelings of inferiority when directly compared to Swift.
Despite the less-than-ideal reaction from critics and fans alike, Taylor saw record sales in the first week of the album’s release. The Life of a Showgirl sold 3.475 million copies across digital downloads and a wide variety of physical formats, from CD to vinyl and even cassette in the US. That’s more than every other album by any artist’s current sales combined. In week two, the record held on at the top of the Billboard 200, with 338,000 equivalent album units.
Is this the peak of a career that can only go downhill? Or is it yet another triumph to add to the star’s bejeweled list of successes?
Louvre robbery brings new opportunity
A tragic burglary has brought an unexpected character into the spotlight…. Böcker Maschinenwerke’s Agilo vehicle-mounted lift.
In a scene that sounds like something out of a James Bond blockbuster, on October 19th, thieves entered the Louvre Museum’s Apollo Gallery and stole eight of France’s most valuable and historic heirlooms. The robbery lasted less than seven minutes and took place shortly after the museum opened to visitors.
Significant critique has been levelled at the Louvre for its failure to take necessary security measures. The museum’s director told French senators this week that the only camera monitoring the exterior wall of the Louvre where they broke in was pointing away from the first-floor balcony that led to the gallery.
However, in the hours following the heist, video emerged of the alleged thieves escaping on German company Böcker Maschinenwerke’s mechanical ladder after stealing the jewels worth a total of over €88 million.
For some companies, being involved in an event like this would be a PR nightmare – exactly the kind of negative press you would usually like to avoid. But for Blocker, this was a chance to showcase their product’s capabilities. They took to Instagram with a screenshot of the video, captioned “When you need to move fast, the Böcker Agilo transports your treasures weighing up to 400kg at 42m/min – quiet as a whisper.”
Reaction to the campaign has been enthusiastic, with responses on social media praising the campaign’s marketing genius. “Your messaging takes the crown,” one commenter added.
This kind of clever PR is a great way to turn disaster into opportunity and bring an otherwise unknown product into public consciousness.
Prince Andrew returns to national headlines
Earlier this month, Prince Andrew was back in the news as he relinquished his royal titles, including the Duke of York. This comes as a new memoir published posthumously by Virginia Giuffre alleges that Andrew asked a royal close protection officer to “dig up dirt” on Ms Giuffre in 2021.
Worse was to follow, with now Andrew Mountbatten Windsor stripped of his title as ‘Prince’ today.
It would be a fair question to ask why this is of any interest from a reputational standpoint. Andrew’s public image has been in tatters for decades, and his role has diminished to the point that it is practically non-existent. But the recent news coverage demonstrates that the reputational impact of the scandal has far-reaching implications for the royal family, the Metropolitan Police, and even for parliament.
Questions around how much the royal household knew about his involvement with disgraced financer Jeffery Epstein have been ongoing for many years; however, these new leaks raise further suspicion. In particular, doubts remain over how he funds his estimated £3 million-per-year security bill and whether the peppercorn lease for the Royal Lodge – his current residence, worth over £30 million – is truly as ironclad as royal sources are suggesting.
The British public may never know the full story, but with Andrew asked out move out of the Royal Lodge earlier, the story seemingly has a way to run yet. When it comes to allegations of abuse, inaction speaks a thousand words, and the reputational impact goes far beyond those directly involved in the case.
