Balloon Boy's Dad and His Self-Inflicted PR Disaster - Richard Heene's "15 Minutes of Lame" and What NOT to Do

If the media frenzy created by Richard Heene, the father of 6-year-old, Falcon Heene (who will probably forever be known as “balloon boy” thanks to his father’s quest for personal gain) was in fact a hoax, it was dumbest publicity stunt ever executed.

Unfortunately, it shouldn’t be a surprise given the number of people out there looking to gain or extend their 15 minutes of fame. Not in the Twitter-crazed, Facebook-age, YouTube-obsessed, reality TV “I’m famous for being famous – or a rich housewife with nothing better to do,” “look at me, look at me, look at me” society we live in.

But how far is too far? THIS is too far. And we have no idea what the long-term effects on young Falcon and his siblings will be. Frazier Moore of The Associated Press said it perfectly in his piece on the story (Oct. 19):

“When 6-year-old Falcon Heene threw up twice while being interviewed about his role in last week’s balloon ordeal, he summed things up for millions of onlookers. Sickening.”


Frazier Moore is right. It was and is sickening. It’s appalling.

On a personal level, as a father of a 6-year-old boy, my heart was beating out of my chest thinking about the pure terror a little boy must have experienced while flying uncontrollably 7,500 feet above the ground in a super-sized Jiffy Pop balloon. There is NOTHING funny about this. You’re talking about a child’s life potentially hanging in the balance.

On a professional level, here is my advice to anyone thinking about garnering publicity through what they may think is a good idea (but ultimately is an outrageous stunt that can go terribly awry):

1. DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME.
Call a professional. Spend the time and the money necessary to secure the right public relations team to build a strong strategy behind what you’re doing to help you achieve the desired results. You need to find true PR experts, with experience. Look, we do this for a living with celebrities and athletes, creating, refining or rebuilding their images. If everyone could do it, everyone would. Just because you “think” you understand how it works, “think” you have a good idea, and “think” you know what you’re doing, doesn’t necessarily mean you do. Believe me, getting a public relations expert involved is as important as having experts in any area of your business and life. Don’t live to regret it.

2. STRATEGY – GET ON IT AND STAY ON IT.
Work with that team to build a strong strategy to help you achieve your goals. True PR pros focus on strategy – not tactical publicity maneuvers. There is a difference and it’s what separates the good ones from the flashes in the pan. Using tactics that are not tied to an overall strategy is a recipe for disaster. I’m all for stunts designed to create awareness and draw interest in your story, product or cause. But only when it is done in a professional manner, and in a way designed to benefit the client, the intended audience, and media, as well as add value to the public conversation. But you cannot develop your strategy in a vacuum. Work with a competent team of PR pros and go from there.
Heene’s stunt was designed to pull a fast one on the public at large, advance his own personal agenda, and ultimately wasted the time and jeopardized the lives of rescue personnel involved in the search.

3. KNOW THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING MEDIA TRAINED AND GET TRAINED BY A PRO – BEFORE YOU DO ANY INTERVIEWS.
If you are not media trained and do not have experience dealing with media, be it on a local, regional, national, global or social level, you run the risk of flailing miserably or, at best, doing a “fair to decent” job in interviews. But will your points get across? Will anyone care? Will you make an impact or a difference? Will you be successful?

Heene is a media train wreck. His mistakes were many. But thinking he could put his son and family on national television was foolish. You cannot media train a 6-year-old child to be authentic and tell the truth, stay on message, etc., when your story is fabricated. THIS, my friends, is called “spin” and that is NOT what we do as true PR pros. We engage our clients with media to help them tell their story and present their perspective or position in an effort to balance whatever is being reported or how it is being positioned.

Children are the most honest people in the world. They have limited understanding of filtering their responses. When asked a question, they tend to tell the truth. When they lie about something, they are VISIBLY uncomfortable and look to their parents to make sure they are saying the “right” thing. Or, in this case, they throw up on national television.

Falcon Heene was probably scared out of his mind trying to protect his dad, keep “the show” secret and say the right thing – all the while trying to understand what in the world was going on. He knows one thing – he doesn’t want to disappoint his father and he doesn’t want to get in trouble.

4. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHO IS IN YOUR CAMP – THE IMPORTANCE OF THE “INNER CIRCLE”
Whether you’re pitching a show, launching a brand, securing sponsorship, etc., you must be sure about the team around you and the individuals that are close to your business. I’m not saying be paranoid, but do pay close attention to this.
Given Heene’s outrageous publicity stunt and selfish desires, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that one man close to Richard Heene exposed the entire thing on www.gawker.com for the right dollar amount.

That’s it for now. Start with these four steps and you are on your way to success.
Follow Heene’s model and you’re more or less guaranteed to spin out of control – much like that gigantic aluminum foil, 1950’s Area 51 UFO-esque craft did high above Colorado.