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The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 debacle is a master class in how not to handle a crisis. Much will be investigated in the months ahead. But what I find particularly interesting is how Samsung communicated what was happening at each stage of the crisis.
This weekend, the US DOT banned the Galaxy Note 7 on all US flights, categorizing the phones as “forbidden hazardous material.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that. Yet, just a few days earlier, Samsung portrayed the situation as “temporarily adjusting the production schedule to ensure quality and safety matters.”
The gap between “forbidden hazardous material” and “temporarily adjusting the production schedule” is a massive chasm. A few weeks earlier, Samsung similarly described a “global product recall” as an “exchange program.”...
The maker of ‘Watch Dogs’ sent an Australian news publication a safe with a copy of the game inside. When staffers got suspicious, they called the cops.
Half measures rarely work in sports or apologies. The media are reporting that Nike is cutting ties with Livestrong, the cancer-fighting foundation started by Lance Armstrong. Armstrong himself broke away from Livestrong months ago in hopes of minimizing the blow back the charity received from news that the bicyclist finally admitted the long-rumored story that he had used performance enhancing drugs. The New York Times today reminds us that Nike stood by Tiger Woods after his reputation had a collision with a fire hydrant - and it initiate a new endorsement deal with Michael Vick after the quarterback got out of prison where he did time because of his role in dog fighting ring. But Nike is abandoning the Foundation built on Armstrong's reputation....
Owner Samy threatens diner after 90 min wait for pizza" You're about to witness one of the biggest social media meltdowns and PR fails in the short recorded history of the Internet. The big question is was it all a staged publicity stunt? It all happened on the season finale of chef Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.
RBC broke the first rule of public relations, failing to plan for the possibility that employees whose jobs were being outsourced would be upset and take their complaints public, says one PR expert. In February, 45 of the bank's personnel were informed that they would be replaced by outsourced workers after the bank contracted a number of technological services to iGate, a California-based firm that specializes in sending jobs offshore. According to an RBC employee, personnel were given 90 days' notice. At least one of the Canadian employees complained that she was asked to train her own foreign replacement....
JWT India created a series of disturbing ads for the FordFigo, one of which shows former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi flashing a peace sign from the front seat of a car that has three curvaceous women tied up and gagged in the trunk. Ford and JWT have both issued an apology. Ford did not approve the ads; the agency was just publishing some speculative renderings to show off its creative chops. JWT India is Ford's agency for the Figo in that country....
Paypal co-founder/insanely rich guy Elon Musk isn’t afraid to defend his far-out ideas, be they successfully marketing an electric automobile or convincing rich people to move to his future colony on Mars. But can he fight back against what CNBC calls “Tesla’s PR #EpicFail“? His auto company’s latest electric car, the Model S, won Motor Trend‘s car of the year award among a wave of very positive reviews, but The New York Times auto critic John M. Broder‘stest drive didn’t go so well....
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Never ruin an apology with an excuse." – Ben Franklin
In less than 24 hours, two of the biggest stories in the world involved some kind of "apology" for offensive behavior and/or lying. Last night in Charlotte, North Carolina, the notoriously unrepentant Donald Trump shocked observers by expressing "regret" for words that "may have caused personal pain." And this morning Ryan Lochte issued a widely criticized apology for "not being more careful" with how he described an incident in which he lied about being held up at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro.
Neither of them qualified as a true apology since they both offered an excuse for their behavior, failed to give a detailed account of what happened, failed to acknowledge or specify the hurt and damage they’d caused, and didn't take responsibility for the situation.
A proper apology is "an exercise in honesty, accountability, and compassion," says interfaith minister Lauren Bloom, the author of The Art of the Apology. Of course, it's difficult and nerve-wracking and fraught with tension. But it's the right thing to do. So above all, be sincere: "It's the essence of an apology."...
So, you set out to create a website, accessible to the public, aimed at helping your employees budget. You have hopes of helping them out, but let’s be real here, you’re also looking to grab you some good PR in the process. Once you get started, however, you realize that there is no way a typical employee at your organization makes enough to live on, even with a second job, and leaving out minor expenses like food, water, and clothing…because those are luxury items, right?
Most of us would scrap the project on the spot, but not McDonald’s! The company, which has already run into a few stumbling blocks while getting acquainted with how the modern web works, must not have thought it was a problem because they went live. As could be expected, the company took a beating in the media, largely as result of the buzz generated following video, from the activists at Low Pay is Not Okay:
Earlier this week, I posted about the Facebook meltdown and trials and tribulations of Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro in Scottsdale. Arizona (Epic Facebook meltdown, PR fail or publicity ploy?). This un-reality show couldn’t get much stranger. It has more twists, turns and intrigue than a Shakespearean tragedy. Or maybe the Keystone Cops would be more accurate? The bistro was featured in a raucous season finale episode on Kitchen Nightmares featuring explosive celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay. It was an entertaining and highly-charged reality TV episode complete with drama, screaming, yelling, heroes and villains....
Fans dressing up as their favorite movie characters while attending opening weekend film showings is nothing new. However, costumed moviegoers who partnered with Capital 8 Theatres in Missouri to promote the premiere ofIron Man 3 recently caused a panic, for which the theater is now apologizing. Had the cosplayers been dressed as Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, we imagine no one would have been particularly alarmed, but some group members donned S.H.I.E.L.D agent costumes — complete with fake firearms — which, given last year’s tragic shooting at an Aurora, COmovie theater (and the current high-alert mentality when it comes to guns), might not have been the best idea. Moviegoers, understandably frightened by the sight of people dressed in what appeared to be body armor and carrying assault rifles, called the local police. Once the dust settled, the complaints began rolling in and the theater was skewered on social media, some even accusing Capital 8 of intentionally causing the kerfuffle as a publicity stunt. In response, the company issued the following apology...
Full confession: we don’t follow college sports. But of course we haven’t been able to avoid the story ofRutgers coach Mike Rice, who lost his job after starring in a video that should have been labeled “Wow, I’m a jackass”:
When officials in the school’s sports department first saw the video last year, they suspended and fined the coach. But as soon as it hit ESPN, the public registered its discontent and the school found itself in full crisis mode. Rutgers decided to fire Rice, but that was hardly the end of the story: yesterday we learned that the school owed him a cool $100K in severance pay due to the fact that it allowed him to complete the season rather than letting him go in December when the tapes surfaced. Administrators were understandably irritated by this news, and this morning we read that the school has also dismissedathletic director Tim Pernetti, the guy who made the initial decision to keep Rice on.
Pernetti’s resignation letter states that his “first instincts” upon seeing the tape were to fire Rice immediately but that further review found “university policy would not justify dismissal”. Today the school’s president claims that he never saw the tape, which is about as believable as any word that comes out of Lance Armstrong‘s mouth. Pernetti’s starting to look like a bit of a convenient scapegoat, no?...
Poland Spring, American Airlines, Taco Bell and NASCAR all make our list. The year is less than three months old, yet already several brands have made king-sized screwups in social media. Among their crimes: Using a four-letter word to insult a nine-year-old girl. Live-tweeting a mass layoff. And angering Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. Poland Spring, American Airlines, Taco Bell and NASCAR are among the brands who should have known better. All of the following social media fails triggered hundreds or thousands of responses, and made headlines in the regular media as a result....
A note to readers: While most of the PR failures we write about are unfortunate, they are also amusing (on some level). This one, however, cannot be categorized as anything but horrifically insensitive, bordering on cruel. Relatives of the victims of last summer’s movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado recently received invitations from Cinemark USA to attend the reopening of the same theater at which their loved ones lost their lives. The invitations, which were sent just after the holidays, urged recipients to “reserve [their] tickets” for an evening of remembrance and a movie to follow. In response, family members sent a strongly-worded letter to Cinemark in which they expressed anger and outrage at the company’s lack of compassion, calling the invitation “disgusting”. They also noted that Cinemark representatives never reached out to offer their condolences; the company even rebuffed requests to meet with family members without lawyers present. The letter admonishes the reopening celebration as a “thinly veiled publicity ploy” and calls for a boycott of the theater....
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Tom Fishburne's cartoon says it all. PR people need to give advice on how to close the gap between reality and crisis weasel words.