Is Paris Hilton Hurting the Hilton Brand?
June 4, 2007 by Susan Gunelius
Filed under Marketing
Hilton Hotels (NYSE: HLT) has been around for a long time, and through the years, the company has built a solid brand with an upscale image. The question is will the recent behavior of heiress, Paris Hilton, affect the corporate Hilton brand? 
After years of partying and public embarrassments, Paris Hilton reported to jail today as a result of violating her probation related to previous DUI and driving with a suspended license incidents. Through all this negative publicity surrounding a key member of the Hilton family, the Hilton Hotel brand has seemed to survive without any cuts or bruises.
In fact, even Paris’ personal brand has grown more popular with each new negative event in her life. Will her jail sentence change all that? Will the Hilton brand suffer? I doubt it. What do you think?
I actually think going to jail is going to make her even more popular.
Ginene, I think you’re right. Thanks for visiting!
You know I don’t think most people even connect the two. I know that I don’t. Even though I obviously know that she is a Hilton, the brand stands for something else. I think she is far enough removed.
For me, her antics separate her from the rest of her family. She’s so wacko that she puts herself in her own universe…
I’d still stay at a Hilton, I don’t think she’s devalued the brand at all. It’s not like she’s the CEO…yet
She hurt the brand from the start with all her antics, but this just crosses the line. At the same time it is generating publicity, whether negative or positive, it’s still getting her out there in the media.
I think she is an embarrasment to the brand, but the Hotels have never been very good anyway.
I have noticed that lately Paris seems to see the need to do some damage control. She must be aware of the need to mitigate some of the negative press she received. Sincere or not, we cannot be sure, but recently she has changed her tune from one of defiance to one of humility and fear. I think she gets it — she has shamed her family and their brand, and even if it is just for show, she realizes she has to clean up her act a bit.
I think the brand will hurt now in light of exercising her “get out of jail free” card. I don’t think house arrest in her Hollywood Hills mansion is going to have the same effect as serving true jail time. I will no longer support any Hilton brand.
She is a brat and no one questions that, so what she does has no effect and publicity is always good. What will hurt the brand is the court’s decision to free her because she is sick and all the talk of special privileges in jail. It is how she can get away from the law that will have the potential customer base furious.
I personally have re-thought staying in a Hilton hotel because of Paris’s family ties. I think she and her family are quite rich enough and don’t need my small contribution to fuel their crazy lives!!
Now that Paris is close to her release date, it will be interesting to see if her new claims of being changed by her time in prison will hold true once she’s free. I have to agree that the preferential treatment she has received is probably more hurtful to the Hilton brand than anything else so far.
I don’t think the Hilton brand will suffer at all. I mean, if huge television networks such as nbc, or television shows will pay her millions of dollars for her to speak about being in jail, you can’t help but to see her as a complete and individual entity, seperate from anyone else or group in America and the rest of the world. She’s gossip Royalty and anything she does will further her celebrity. Paris is her own brand, and I think we all are a little entertained by her…however irritating she might be.
I would NEVER choose a Hilton hotel!!! If that is the kind of girl her family raised, even with all the money they had at their disposal…I don’t want to line their pockets any more than they already are…there are more deserving businesses out there.
SHE HAS EMBARRESED HER NAME. THEIR HAVE BEEN MANY HILTONS BEFORE HER THAT HAVE RESPECTED THEIR NAME. I WOULD NEVER STAY AT A HILTON EVER. ICAN’T BELIEVE I’M WASTING MY TIME!