Our last blog entry dealt with the imact an ultra-celebrity (President Obama) using a product (beer) in a visual, symbolic and positive limelight. In part duex we explore the relationship between negative celebrity endorsement and limelight. (ed. note: in these cases, it's often best to allow these things to play out on their own. Let's just say no sane PR professional would ever try this at home...)

This particular case involves Auto-Tune, a software package made by Antares Audio Technologies, that has seriously sparked the ire of one of pop culture's most iconoclastic rappers: Jay-Z. The software allows engineers to correct a singer’s pitch, but also has the power to warp voices into bizzare warbling robotic sounds (think Cher’s 1998 hit 'Believe'). However in Jay-Z's recently released single, “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune),” he ain't exactly sing'n praises, so-to-speak. The music video, which was released a month ago, gets straight to the point as Jay-Z repeatedly stabs a verbal knife into Auto-Tune, going so far as to explode a stack of Auto-Tune boxes and calling for its death.

The anti-campaign sparked so much recent interest that it was quickly picked up by The NY Times. However, perhaps the morale of the story is that despite Jay-Z’s best efforts, Antares sales are up:

“The Jay-Z controversy is great,” said Marco Alpert, vice president of marketing at Antares. “We couldn’t buy P.R. like this.”

Although Mr. Alpert declined to give specifics, he did say the company had seen a boost in business amid the flurry of recent attention.

“I think Jay-Z said he saw Auto-Tune used in a Wendy’s commercial, and that pushed him over the edge,” he said, adding that the company was thrilled by the migration of its product into popular culture.

“We make no value judgments on how people use our product,” he said. “It’s a tool to be used by the people who buy it, and we’re happy when consumers find new uses for it.”

And so we close with the age old question: is there really such a thing as bad publicity?

UPDATE: 9.7.09

Auto-Tune Isn’t Dead. It’s Coming to Your iPhone

By Jenna Wortham, The New York Times

Despite Jay-Z’s best efforts, it looks as if Auto-Tune, the software that adjusts the pitch of a singer’s voice, isn’t destined for the graveyard after all.

Instead, it’s headed to the iPhone.

An application called “I Am T-Pain,” after the rapper who most recently popularized the Auto-Tune software with a liberal use of it in his songs, transforms the iPhone into an Auto-Tune microphone. The application was developed as a collaboration between T-Pain, Antares Audio Technologies, the company that produces the software that creates the vocal effect, and Smule, a start-up that develops applications for the iPhone.