Fumble: Bruni ignores economic realities

We’ve talked a lot so far in 2009 about the new economic reality and the twist that puts on communicating through words or deeds. Almost every day you see a communications play of some sort, from car company CEOs flying in private jets to ask for bailout money to Wall Street financial firms taking lavish retreats in Arizona on the heels of a taxpayer bailout. Any public figure or company that acts without some sensitivity to the very real economic pain people are feeling risks their wrath. So it has come to pass in France that first lady Carla Bruni, the model and singer, has come to be referred to as “Marie Antoinette.” France is amidst a crippling recession. Yet Bruni and her husband, President Nicolas Sarkozy, are vacationing at El Tamarindo Beach and Golf Resort on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, in what media describe as “a lavish beachfront villa that costs $5,500 a night” and comes complete with a private pool, outdoor Jacuzzi and the service of a butler, personal chef and maid. Further, media report that “the former model showed up at a Mexican state dinner on Monday night clad in a dazzling array of diamonds. The irony? Her husband was in Mexico City to discuss the world recession with his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon.” As one media outlet noted, Sarkozy has an “affinity for wearing a Rolex Oyster watch, Ray-Bans and gold jewelry. Marie Antoinette - we mean Carla - typically wears both Dior and John Galliano.” Meanwhile, more than 2 million people are unemployed in France and 15 per cent of the workforce is making minimum wage. “Sarko and Carla are back to acting like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette again,” a reader wrote to a French newspaper. “They have no appreciation of what ordinary people are going through.” Yet another example of the communications pitfalls of certain types of behavior in this economy.