Why do so many people fall for the same-old PR trap of giving someone or something publicity just because they say or do something that flies in the face of convention?

But if you have anything to do with Colombia Pictures, the company behind a new film portraying William Shakespeare as a fraud, it’s unlikely that you’ll really care as long as people still keep on doing it.

Anonymous, which stars Rafe Spall and Vanessa Redgrave, presents the case for a conspiracy theory claiming that Shakespeare was in fact illiterate and that it was actually Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who anonymously penned the works that bore his name.

The release of the film has sparked a wave of protests amongst Shakespeare fans, who have launched a campaign to protect his name from what they see as blasphemous and outrageous claims.

And in Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon, the playwright’s name has been temporarily removed from pub and street signs in a bid to remind the public of the importance of the literary maestro to the area.

But as we’ve seen time and time again in the past, the campaign has been completely counter-productive and only served to draw more media attention to the controversial film.

This is exactly what Colombia Pictures would’ve hoped for and expected, with the extensive media coverage generating far more public interest than any advertiser could dream of.

Opponents of the motion picture should therefore have instead kept their mouths shut and treated the film as another piece of fiction just like the works of the famous bard himself.

Unless, of course, the protests are little more than a fraud in themselves and actually the PR machinations of a film company that knew full well what the general media reaction would be.