Even the marketing fraternity are talking about the Brand/Ross debacle and, although we may be accused of ‘jumping on the bandwagon’, we would like to have our say before the media frenzy dies down.

Russell Brand isn’t the only brand being talked about here. There is undoubtedly a lesson to be learnt from what is happening to Brand BBC. For a start, all good marketers know that when a crisis hits, you should deal with it quickly and efficiently for maximum damage limitation. So that was a big mistake on the part of the Beeb. A swift response could well have prevented BBC Radio 2’s chief Lesley Douglas resigning.

But there’s quite a list of those profiting from the whole fiasco - newspapers, magazines, TV and radio programmes - who’ve had nearly a week’s worth of headlines to drawn in more listeners/viewers and sell more copies.

Also profiting, more specifically is, reportedly, Channel 4 which is seeing show ratings up for Russell Brand’s show Ponderland, and sales of Fawlty Towers DVDs have also increased. And Brand himself seems to be coming out of the whole thing very much intact as sales of any DVDs he stars in are also on the rise, implying that ‘no publicity is bad publicity’.

It remains to be seen whether the other protagonist in the affair, Jonathan Ross, will suffer brand damage. No doubt he will be back on his TV and radio slots in three months time pretty much unscathed, although he has stepped down from presenting the British Comedy Awards. Of course, ITV will also profit from the publicity in announcing a new presenter for the show.

Apart from Andrew Sachs, it seems that only the BBC is likely to feel any knock-on effect from the incident, although it’s difficult to know how this may manifest itself. So, there are a couple of points here. In a crisis, don’t procrastinate, admit you are wrong (if you are) and quickly and publicly show how you are putting things right and your brand is more likely to weather the storm.

On the other hand - it seems far more are benefiting than losing out of this particular crisis and what we are asking is - is it profiteering when one man’s downfall is another man’s gain?

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