Teen queens handle potential disasters differently

By SAMANTHA ETTUS
Scripps Howard News Service
04-NOV-04

While the country is recovering from the grueling election, we are happily distracted by three teen queens this week. Britney Spears is intentionally shunning the spotlight, Ashlee Simpson is reluctantly front and center and Lindsay Lohan successfully navigated a potential tabloid pothole with pizzazz.

Ashlee Simpson

Simpson has increased her name recognition _ to say the least. Her name was splashed across the news after an embarrassing gaffe on "Saturday Night Live," of all places. She was accused of lip-synching to her own songs, a crime that reminds us of the infamous Milli Vanilli, one of the most widely mocked groups to ever hit the industry. The lip-synching fiasco occurred when the band began playing a song, and Simpson's voice could be heard before she started singing.

She extended the embarrassment by doing an improvised "hoedown" dance and running off the stage. Not only did word of the incident spread quickly in the media, but "SNL" parodied the incident the following week.

Fans quickly began criticizing her on her Web site for letting them down, and her team responded fast, but erratically. While Simpson first blamed the incident on her band, she soon backtracked, apologized and pointed to her weak vocal chords as the culprit.

Then, her father-manager, Joe Simpson, failed to toe the party line and blamed it on her acid reflux. Too much information!

Finally, her drummer said it was his fault. Clearly, this was not a banner moment for Simpson's brand.

Although it has proven difficult for singers to escape the lip-synching label once it sticks, Simpson should recover quickly _ as long as it doesn't happen again. Fans and critics will be watching.

However, she and her management team must learn a critical lesson from this debacle: In the future, her entire team must make certain to disseminate a consistent message. Otherwise, the public will feel like she is trying to fool them all over again.

Ashlee Simpson's brand A$$ets

Britney Spears

In the last year, Spears has shocked us with a 24-hour marriage, her transition from not-that-innocent school girl to straight-out vamp and, most recently, her nuptials after just five months to Kevin Federline, a man with two children and no career to speak of.

Yet more recently, she has won praise for her actions. After a brief and hopefully fleeting episode of poor behavior in which she spilled her drinks on waiting paparazzi, Spears has kept her new marriage relatively low-profile, with a modest wedding at a friend's home and a honeymoon in Fiji, where she has steered clear of the media's watchful eyes. On her Web site, Spears told fans that she needs to relax and enjoy life, and she seems to be sticking to her word, prompting us to believe that this romance could be the real thing.

Britney Spears's brand A$$$ets

Lindsay Lohan

Lohan has impressed us this week by exhibiting a flawlessly managed brand against all odds. In the last week, Lohan fell ill, prompting a domino effect on her entire slate of fall activity. Filming was pushed back on her new project, "Herbie Fully Loaded," resulting in Lohan's next movie, "Lady Luck," being pushed back to January. In turn, this delayed by a week her anticipated guest spot on boyfriend Wilmer Valderama's hit TV series "That 70s Show."

Yet despite her recent hospitalization for, according to her publicist, a high fever and headache, Lohan escaped tabloid scrutiny, avoiding a descent into the rumor whirlwind of the type that befell Mary Kate Olsen in a similar situation.

Additionally, the teen star, who has been plagued by a hostile relationship between her estranged parents, received two unwelcome hospital visits from her father, who never made it past security.

Despite these events, Lohan was never captured in a tornado of scandal, a result of proactive communication with the media. Lindsay and her team have handled this entire episode with flair and seamlessly escaped what could have been a brand disaster.

Lindsay Lohan's brand A$$$$ets

Remember: The most dependable road to the top is to treat your brand as your greatest asset.

(Samantha Ettus is the author of "The Experts' Guide to 100 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do" (Random House). Send comments and questions to Samantha(at)celebrityassets.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com)