When Brand Protection Turns Depraved

The "Kardashians of Christ."

A lot can be said about the Duggar Family and their fall from grace. These “Kardashions of Krist,” so to speak (yes, I know I misspelled “Christ”) were the right wing media darlings for years, since their first TV special on TLC back in 2008 that eventually lead to a reality tv series deal called 17 Kids and Counting, that later evolved into 18 Kids and Counting, and 19 Kids and Counting. You get the picture. However, if you don’t, let me elaborate. Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar are a wealthy family living in Arkansas. They seem to adhere to some quasi-Baptist and Evangelical form of Christianity that is known as “Quiverfull,” essentially your basic far-right wing fanatical version of conservative Christianity that also promotes extreme procreation, having as many an offspring as possible. The Duggars were extremely fortunate that a huge chunk of their progeny were twins, which is a rather efficient and quicker way to procreate. Due to the novelty of having so many children, the Duggars ended up with a reality show deal which made them even wealthier, while their religious andleanings made them the darlings of the Right-Wing media. The family have rubbed elbows with such Right-Wing “icons” as Mike Huckabee, Rush Limbaugh, Rick Santorum, Glenn Beck, and the ilk. They were proud supporters of Huckabee’s presidential campaign and Michelle Duggar, contrary to the biblical teachings of women keeping silent, has done a lot of political lobbying withinArkansas to strip GLTBQ members of any semblance of human rights and respect, but I digress…

Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar, the reality tv darlings of
Right-Wing Christian media.

19 Kids and Counting was a gigantic hit for TLC. With most overt political and religious views of the family edited out for broadcast, the show presented Duggars as a wholesome, eccentric, fun, and loving family. Their merchandise deals went through the roof, there were talks of spin-offs chronicling their older children’s own marriage and families, but then lightening struck. In May of 2015, someone leaked an old police report that revealed thattheir oldest son, Josh, repeatedly molested three of his sisters when he was fifteen (they were around five and seven) and their babysitter while they slept over an unknown period between 2002-2003. The media erupted into chaos; it was a case of schaudenfraude run amuck, with everyone virtually forgetting the victims and gloating that a member of this righteous and wholesome family that shoved their “traditional values” down everyone’s throats was essentially a sex offender, covered up and enabled by his parents. Before this, Josh Duggar was a beacon to the right wing movement. He was offered a high paying position of the far-right religious group “Family Research Counsel” and was a huge political lobbyist, endorsing many politicians and actively campaigning to end civil right progress for LGTBQ citizens, as well trample all over marriage equality, but now he was exposed as a fraud. He, who constantly lamented about the disintegration of traditional values and families being disintegrated, turned out to be a pervert. Josh had to resign from his high ranking position with the FRC and he publicly confessed to what he did. Oddly enough, theymaintained some strong support from the Christian community, many of who dismissed Josh’s actions as a “teenager’s whimsy.”

Until May of 2015, the Duggar brand was
going strong, selling many books,
t-shirts, and the ilk.

Nonetheless, the Duggar brand crumbled. TLC suspended the show before canceling it all together and the Duggars went into damage control overdrive, giving interviewson the right leaning Fox News, having their daughters stand up for Josh on live television, and heavily promoting the more "innocent" aspects of their family, like the older daughters' marriages and pregnancies. Some hope remained to revive their television income with a series of spin-offs and they still had sales from their merchandise, but in August of the same year as the molestation allegations, another bomb dropped.

Joshua James Duggar, the man who
eventually toppled the Duggar Brand.

On August 20th, 2015, the online hook-up site for married couples, Ashley Madison, got hacked and the perpetrators leaked over 38 million subscriber names online, one of which was, wait for it, Joshua James Duggar himself. Another fall out ensued, this time putting the final nail in the Duggar brand of a wholesome Christian family. The leak unravelled even more dirt on Josh, detailing him cheating on his wife and having a secret Facebook account he used to contact strippers and prostitutes. This time, no damage control can help the Duggars.

Now, you may wonder, what is the point of this diatribe if my blog concerns mostly entertainment related news and events? Well, you see, I don't see the story of the Rise and Fall of the Duggar Family as just a tale of self righteous hypocrisy, humility, and religious controversy. Sure, it's all there, but looking at it from a more practical (and some may say cynical) perspective, this is a classic tale of not protecting your brand. This is as much TLC's fault as it is the Duggars. When you design a franchise, like 19 Kids and Counting, make sure you scrubbed and found any dirt on your subject that could risk the quality of your brand. If TLC's producers dug deeper, they would've found out about the police report and that some years earlier, Oprah Winfrey cancelled the Duggars' appearance on her show because her fact checks discovered about Josh's past. Josh Duggar should never have been promoted as a wholesome family man with so much dirt, the show needed to focus on other members of the family without the dark past, or

the family themselves shouldn't have been offered a contract and turned into right-wing celebrities, since their sordid sexual secrets were the antithesis to what they were marketing. The lesson here is, essentially, very bad market research and brand protection. TLC created their Duggar brand without any prior research and watched it go up in flames. It's not the first time this happened, if any of us can recall the Honey Boo Boo scandal. Now they need to cut their financial losses once and move to the next freak show that would create a good reality show, hopefully without any creepy sexual scandal in tow. Fool me once, TLC, fool me twice... Someone on their development team needs to get fired.

~Evgueni Mlodik