Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

A few years ago, my team and I were launching a leadership development program for a client. Just before we launched the pilot program, the company was hit with a high-profile scandal. A couple of rogue executives were caught playing around with the company’s finances and millions of dollars went missing. The ensuing scandal rocked this once-great company, leaving its reputation in tatters. The executives were charged.

When we kicked off the pilot session a few months later, the scandal quickly became the elephant in the room. It was clear the participants needed a forum to express their personal views on those events. We could feel their deep-seated anger, and we realized we had to bring it out into the open.

Last month, a man named Ken Hoinsky added his project to the [Kickstarter] website. He’s a writer who wanted to publish a book on the art of seduction called Above The Game: A Guide to Getting Awesome with Women. He quickly raised more than $16,000.

But some of the advice Hoinsky has dispensed in the past is controversial. Some critics even called his book a “rape manual.”...

 

Many horrified people contacted Kickstarter and asked them to remove his listing. They didn’t. As the outrage understandably intensified, so too did the company’s crisis.

But when Kickstarter finally responded, they did it perfectly. You’ll find Kickstarter’s full apology below, deconstructed to analyze why each part worked so well. It’s a terrific template for a crisis response.

Carnival Cruise is an example of a company suffering long-term repercussions from a crisis. Not only has it affected the company, but the entire industry.

 

I often mention the differences between a social media crisis and a social media issue. Yesterday, I evaluated how JC Penney handled their recent social media issue like a pro, and how they will suffer no negative consequences as a result – which is what defines it as an issue, rather than a crisis.

 

Today, let’s evaluate the repercussions of a crisis. In doing this, I hope to help you clearly differentiate between a social media crisis and a social media issue....

Abercrombie & Fitch’s two-hour meeting this week with critics of its no-large-sizes strategy, and of CEO Mike Jeffries’ 2006 remarks that it only courts “attractive, cool” kids, prompted a mea culpa from the chain, and a vow to “take concrete steps to demonstrate our commitment to anti-bullying in addition to our ongoing support of diversity and inclusion,” the teen retailer said in a statement.

During the meeting, 18-year old activist Benjamin O’Keefe — whose Change.org petition urged A&F to carry larger sizes – Lyne Grefe, the CEO of the National Eating Disorder Association, among others, urged Abercrombie executives to add bigger clothes to store shelves, feature larger models in their branding efforts, cease hawking hyper sexualized advertising to its teen audience and redefine its warped, harmful notions of cool, O’Keefe told Forbes.com. Although the CEO was not at the meeting, the retailer offered a tacit apology for Jeffries’ remarks seven years ago, which included this gem: “A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes] and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”...

As long as this aspect of our culture remains true, I would argue the problem is really one of society and that we are all complicit to some degree. It is not a coincidence that virtually all fashion and cosmetic companies behave somewhat similarly to Abercrombie & Fitch.

 

Among the mainstream brands, perhaps only Dove, with its real beauty campaign, has ever seriously committed to a marketing campaign with a counter-culture heart. If Jeffries did anything, he figured out his customer’s aspirations and designed advertising that appears to fulfill them. This has, and likely always will be, his job as a marketer. In that sense, he’s perhaps only guilty of being both good at his job and terrible at PR.... 

Mountain Dew might have thought twice about the risk and reward from a deal with someone just as focused on branding as it is.

 

...The company even earned some good press for buying a promoted tweet to publicize its mea culpa. And the top of its website leads with a giant “We Apologize” note. Following these comments, PepsiCo hasn’t put an executive on a public chopping block, and Tyler has declared they loved the idea when it pitched it. Which begs the question of how sincere this apology is. Audiences will probably trust artists more than brands, so PepsiCo cutting their losses must also include a loss of credibility with Tyler’s base....

Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn is gone. But on his way out the door, he described the company’s massive, deliberate fraud on his customers and the environment as an “irregularity.” That’s bullshit.

Here’s what happened: Volkswagen jiggered the software in 11 million of its diesel cars to conceal how much they polluted. “Clean Diesel” is a pillar of Volkswagen’s marketing. (My link is to a cached copy; for some reason, the original Volkswagen “Clean Diesel” page is no longer visible.)

Here’s an English translation of the video statement from Winterkorn, made Tuesday before he resigned under pressure. Bold italic indicates questionable terms and passive voice; the text in brackets is my commentary:...

Filed under: The most WTF thing we've seen in months.

Urban Outfitters, purveyor of clothing and home goods, big-ass floppy hats and occasionally offensive T-shirts, has outdone itself with this product on its website—a "vintage" Kent State University sweatshirt featuring fake blood splatters.

In 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired on a group of unarmed anti-war student protesters at Kent State, killing four and wounding nine others.

The sweatshirt sold out quickly, because there was only one. ("We only have one, so get it or regret it!" said the description.) Now it's listed on eBay by someone who says he/she will "give 50% of the profit to the Southern Poverty Law Center, who protect those who cannot protect themselves, often those who are victims of police brutality."...

...Edward Burkhardt, CEO of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railways waited 5 days before visiting the crash site andmaking a statement to the media. His statement lacks a significant, quotable apology to those affected, while focusing too much on the technical aspects of dealing with insurance, finances and monetary issues. He even begins his statement by defending whether he is a compassionate person.

True, the CEO does not always need to be the spokesperson in every crisis. However, a crisis this big demands an appearance and statement within 24 hours of the onset of the crisis.

True, I believe a CEO should spend more time managing the crisis and running the company than trying to be a spokesperson, but a crisis this big demands at least a few hours to talk with the media and the families who have lost loved ones. News reports indicate that at the time of the news briefing, the CEO had not reached out to families....

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.