183) Brand Revolution

On Wednesday, infamously scathing celebrity blogger Perez Hilton posted the above video on Perezhilton.com (sigh...yes, I read Perez Hilton). In it, an emotional but determined Hilton explains that to help combat the rash of bullying-induced suicides of late, he will be changing his ways and will be less of a bully himself. The video caught my attention because it's a great example of what I'm calling brand revolution.

Hilton has earned his fame by being the acidic, name-calling, downright nasty blogger we love to hate. Say what you will about him, but his personality, style and writing have catapulted him into his own celebdom, complete with red carpet appearances at the biggest pop culture events, radio shows, and a growing roster of sub-brand sites: CocoPerez.com for fashion, TeddyHilton.com for animal lovers, and the recently launched FitPerez.com for health and wellness.

So he's built a brand for himself and diversified under the Perez umbrella. But to do the right thing, Hilton says he will stop the name-calling and cease his mean girl act in his celebrity coverage. He challenges himself to be smarter, more clever and funnier in his analysis of current events. All in all, a noble goal.

(Mini aside - Ta-dah! The half way mark. 182.5 of 365 days of The Plan completed. Thanks for following along!)

But he also says he won't sanitize what he does. That he still wants to be Perez Hilton in all his sassiness. Herein lies the dilemma. Can a brand built on and defined by one thing (in this case, a shape tongue) abandon said one thing without diluting the brand? Can it evolve into something else entirely?

Hilton admits in the video that he risks losing readership if he tones things down. But to him, that's a price to be paid for doing the right thing. A quick perusal of YouTube comments on the above video, show people highly split. Some applaud his announcement. Some are skeptical of actual change taking place. Some make death threats. Some claim that Hilton's meanness was the only thing that kept them from reading, and that they would now give him a chance. And some lament the self-censorship of their favorite celebrity blogger.

It'll be interesting to monitor site traffic over the next few months, to see if this reformed Perez Hilton has any positive or negative effect on the numbers.

(Mini aside #2 - My good friend Kina commented that I still have my time stamp set to PST. I had changed it to EST, but realized that it messed up the dates of my previous posts, making it look like I was inconsistent with posting. So to keep things in order, I'm keeping blog time on the west coast.)