Miley Cyrus is a superstar!  But as you probably know things just hit the fan for her brand (see here) and the Marketing Doctor believes she’s got a lot of work to do to recover.  The flap is over a photograph Miley Cyrus had taken by Annie Liebovitz for Vanity Fair –excuse me???  Did someone just say Annie Liebovitz and Vanity Fair in the same breath with Miley Cyrus???  What are these three brands doing together???  Fuggedaboutit!

This was a much better deal for Vanity Fair and Liebovitz than for Cyrus!  A demographic (Miley’s target market) who never even knew about Vanity Fair and even less so about Annie Liebovitz know their brands now!!!  And they’ll sell lots of magazines!!!  A brilliant promotion by Vanity Fair and Liebovitz, but a train wreck for Miley!

If only Miley and her handlers had remembered that the artistic does not compute with the man and woman on the street!  A friend of mine –who knows about such things— once told me: it’s show BUSINESS not show ART!

Folks, the photograph is just a symptom of an emerging problem with her brand that has got to get fixed or else!!!  The emerging problem is a brand that is starting to forget its target market (i.e., what propelled her to such meteoric fame in the first place)!  And, fact is, nobody’s talking about Cyrus’s true target market.  And, no, it’s not just teens: it’s parents too.  Miley Cyrus didn’t become a famous brand because the people reading Vanity Fair or appreciating Liebovitz’s photography made her a star!  Miley Cyrus is a star because she’s a safe harbor for worried parents who are more than happy to trust their teens and tweens to a wholesome role model, a G-rated chaperone who might just help the kids navigate adolescence a little better.  She appeals to kids, but she gets the go ahead from parents.  The parents are the gatekeepers of this brand!!!

People are comparing her to other child stars and the usual train wrecks that happen in these stars lives, but Cyrus is even more dependent than they were on being seen as wholesome and hip at the same time.  And, besides, she is a genuine commercial brand –she has a show, a movie, merchandise, a website and now a memoir!  She’s not just a celebrity, she’s an industry and it’s all being driven by this brand that appeals to parents and kids alike.  Her brand just doesn’t have the freedom to change that much lest she lose her target market.

So what does Cyrus do now?  She started apologizing and she ought to keep doing it until she assures her target market that she’s still the same (i.e., the photo above this post; not the photo in Vanity Fair)!  Disney –whose brand is also on the line— has to help her in this and reassert her brand strengths!  And after the apologizing she has to keep on delivering on her brand in the way her target market has come to expect!

My friend, Bill O’Reilly, even mentioned that she go on Oprah again!  You are correct sir!  More is better when it comes to communicating contrition to the target market!!!  And a big part of this target market is watching Oprah!

Even if she wants to grow past Hannah Montana for the time being Cyrus and the people who handle her brand have got to remember that it wasn’t just her talent that got her where she is!  That talent reached a need in the market for a wholesome, role model who wasn’t going to fall apart!  The Marketing Doctor is betting that Cyrus will get past this one!  Stay tuned.

To see me talk about this on Fox Business, click here.

And, remember, it’s always easier when you keep branding in mind!