Today we looked at the depressing paid-celebrity guest list of The Party King of Scottsdale's Christmas party. Appearance fees galore! Aren't those things bad for a person's rep? Not always, says one commenter. But about whom?

From BaldwinPeriphetes:

Appearance fees are weird and to some extent someone like Snooki will get so much because she asked and others did not. I gave some defamation advice on an ad campaign once where the ad guys wanted to use and/or refer to a bunch of celebs with a reputation for being dumb, in a print campaign to run in magazines. Some played ball. Some quoted too high a price for the budget. Some said no way (it was the ability to refer to or use photos of these latter celebs that I advised on).

What was interesting was that several minor reality-show type of people, the Big Brother type, quoted outrageous fees (and thus did not get used or paid), and some very well known people quoted more reasonable ones (and as a result actually got paid and got their faces on a glossy page again).

One person who the team thought they'd never get and only asked because why not? agreed to appear for a $20k donation to charity and even to have a photo taken especially for the print ad (most others insisted on supplying a publicity shot), but she clearly thought the whole concept was hilarious and didn't need the money anyway.

From memory the category who pretty much all refused to appear at all were sports stars... until the campaign was a success (and the one sportsman who appeared got a lot of credit in the press for having a sense of humor about it), and then suddenly for the next run of the campaign a year later people who wouldn't quote at all were falling over themselves to appear for peanuts, just for the good publicity....

They definitely approached Donald Trump, but I can't recall if he said no or just asked for too much money. I'll ask the guys next time I see them.

So, what was the campaign?