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Well, the cover-up continues from the Paterno family over the ballyhoo created by Jerry Sandusky's tragic child abuse right under the big ol' schnoz of the entire Penn State athletics department. Take this headline from PennLive.com and Central Pennsylvania's Patriot News: 'Victim lawyer calls Paterno family response a PR gambit.' Of course it is. The family wants to repair its image, tarnished as a result of its patriarch's chronic neck problem. You know? Turning the other way.
The article discusses the investigation commissioned by Penn State and conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh. The scathing — and third-party — report found Paterno, former President Graham Spanier, retired senior vice president Gary Schultz, and on-leave athletic director Tim Curley covered up child abuse allegations against Sandusky. Yet, the Paterno family claims those conclusions were unfounded....
Amid accusations of price gouging, startup Uber started swallowing costs. Uber, a company that makes an app you can use to summon a livery cab, had to deal with an extremely messy situation in New York yesterday.
Now it's having to deal with obnoxious punditry....
To get the drivers to pick up Uber customers, Uber had to start paying them 2X their normal rate.
At first, Uber passed this rate increase onto its customers through a program it calls "surge pricing."
But then customers and reporters started complaining, saying that Uber was "price gouging" in the middle of a disaster....
[Big challenge, bad PR hits small startup ~ Jeff]
Samsung cancels blogger’s airplane ticket on press trip for refusing to write about brand. ...I think the correct place to begin is in understanding and acknowledging that this is a public relations disaster. Samsung and it’s agency were clearly not geared to handle this. The story has become quite popular and Samsung’s competitor Nokia has definitely gained some good PR due to this, by helping the stranded blogger. As you’ll learn thru this article, Samsung isn’t a stranger to such a debacle. This isn’t the first time Samsung has trended up the social media channels for the wrong reasons.
The rest of the post is dedicated to answering two questions:
1. How could this Public Relations nightmare been handled better?
2. How can one avoid such a Public Relations nightmare?...
[This PR fail was easily avoided. Unfortunately, Samsung didn't get it - JD]
A brother’s passion turned into a media maelstrom for Progressive Insurance after a blog post went viral. It all started after Katie Fisher, who was insured by Progressive, was killed in a 2010 car accident. The underinsured driver of the other car ran a red light, killing Katie instantly. For two years, her family fought to receive the full amount of her insurance policy. When Progressive wouldn’t pay, the family was forced to sue the driver to prove negligence, and Progressive allegedly offered legal counsel to the defendant. In effect, defending a client’s killer against the client’s interest. Katie’s brother, Matt, eventually wrote a blog post that was picked up by thousands of Twitter users. What resulted is detailed in the video above. It’s a cautionary tale of how social media and bad public relations can quickly affect the outcome of a case.
Seems like every year is here is some sort of PR fail or chick-fli-al that goes beyond a simple slip up to epic proportions. And... looks like we are approaching Critical Fail with Chick-fil-A ‘s ever expanding controversy over its stance on gay marriage. What started out as a protest against Chick-fil-A giving money to anti gay marriage organizations has blown up to letters from various mayors wanting Chick-fil-A out of there towns and even a reported fake facebook account using a stock photo image. Reminds me somewhat of the Ocean Marketing Fail (although that still ranks far higher in epicness)....
Ferrari, the Italian luxury car maker, is embroiled in not only a crisis of brand image in Asia but government, political and diplomatic problems in China and Singapore. What’s more, Ferrari has become a reviled brand example of the disparity in both countries between the powerful, nouveau riche “one percenters” and the ordinary citizens. First, Ferrari staged a publicity stunt to commemorate the country’s 20th year of selling its super-expensive sports cars in China. A red Ferrari was hoisted atop the ancient, 1,400 year old city wall in Nanjing. Once there, a stunt driver revved the powerful engine and spun the Ferrari repeatedly atop the historic wall, causing burned rubber tire tracks that could not be removed. Ferrari never explained the significance of its stunt, which has resulted in widespread public indignation.... [As usual, marketing screws up and creates a PR problem - JD]
Declaring a matter "closed" doesn't make it so. The University of Pennsylvania may learn that lesson the hard way. On Thursday the Vice Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Penn resigned. Turns out Doug E. Lynch didn't have the PhD he claimed to have from Columbia University. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, a University spokeswoman said on Wednesday that Lynch was "unaware he didn't have the degree." Yeah, it is SO hard to keep track of those things....
Guess what iconographic villain of greed and wretched excess may be seeing the light of day as soon as this August? None other than Prisoner 05A4820 himself! What's that, the number doesn’t ring a bell? Then, try this on for size: Dennis Kozlowski, or ‘Koz’ as his fellow inmates call him, may soon be reentering mainstream society. Next to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling (a.k.a. the Hitler & Goebbels of corporate greed), Dennis Kozlowski was the poster child for living large and milking a company dry. To refresh your memory, Kozlowski was convicted in 2005 of grand larceny, conspiracy and fraud for, as The New York Times put it, ‘…essentially using Tyco as his own piggy bank, replete with outsized bonuses.’ Koz was the guy who reigned supreme from a palatial, 13-room palace at 980 Fifth Avenue that featured a $6,000 shower curtain, a $15,000 umbrella stand and the occasional Monet or Renoir painting. He’s also the dude who feted his wife to a truly bacchanalian, Roman orgy-type of birthday party on a Greek Island (all at company expense, thank you very much).... Assuming this real life Gordon Gekko of greed does see the light of day, how would you help him rehabilitate his tattered image?...
Whenever clients tell me they just don't see the need to invest in a crisis management strategy ahead of potential scandals or even as the scandal is unfolding- I will remind them of this story from Reuters about the expense of digging oneself up and out of a hole inaction and poor decision making created....
The pizza chain became a lightning rod for criticism after it insulted an Asian-American woman, and the incident provides crisis lessons for all PR pros.
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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....
Another PR gaffe from a Fortune 500 company, although this one was handled well by the people involved. A PR error this week forced Dow Chemical to release its third-quarter earnings early. According to Reuters, Dow had planned to announce layoffs today, along with its third-quarter earnings, but it scuttled that plan after a draft copy of the press release about the restructuring was accidentally sent to Bloomberg News on Tuesday night. Instead of a Thursday release, the official layoff announcement and earnings report came late Tuesday evening. Dow did not respond to PR Daily's email, so it’s unclear exactly what took place in the company’s public relations or investor relations departments on Tuesday leading to the errant draft press release. A spokesman for Dow told The New York Times, “We had an inadvertent premature release, and we moved quickly to take care of it.” [Bad PR lesson: sometimes a quick response can turn a scrambled egg into an omelette ~ Jeff]
Bloggers take to Twitter against Samsung, Public opinion turns against the phone maker, after it allegedly left a blogger stranded in Germany, Technology... Did Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd take bloggers from India to Germany with the understanding that they were to cover the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) consumer electronics show in Berlin, only to change their roles from reporters to promoters at the last minute? Or, was it a simple misunderstanding between the bloggers and the Korean electronics maker’s public relations team?... [Samsung could have easily avoided this big PR Fail. It didn't - JD]
The parents of a 10-year-old girl in the U.S. have made public details of the appalling service they got when United Airlines "lost" their daughter midway through her trip from San Francisco to Traverse City, Mich., for summer camp. Annie and Perry Klebahn of San Francisco have made public a complaint letter to the airline detailing how the company lost track of their daughter, Phoebe, on a June 30 flight during a transfer at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. The journey would become a harrowing one for the family involving a byzantine set of phone calls to locate their missing child as well as her luggage. [Not only do they break guitars, United Airlines is not so good at handling child passengers either. Bad PR and poor crisis response -- JD]
Greenpeace, the Yes Lab, and members of the Occupy movement are claiming responsibility for a set of actions that have focused intense attention on Shell's Arctic drilling program. Activists claim responsibility for viral sensation, corporate makeover. Greenpeace, the Yes Lab, and members of the Occupy movement are claiming responsibility for a set of actions that have focused intense attention on Shell's Arctic drilling program.... The centerpiece of the action was a lavish party in the Space Needle, in which a model of an Arctic-bound oil rig "accidentally" spewed liquid in the face of the rig designer's "widow"—actually 84-year-old Occupy activist Dorli Rainey, well-known for having been brutally pepper-sprayed in the face by Seattle Police during Occupy protests last fall....
The head of Spirit Airlines, who makes the ex-CEO of BP look like a PR-genius, has learned the high cost of keeping a dying man's $197 airfare. Ben Baldanza, Spirit's tin-eared boss, had been holding firm that the airline would not refund a dying Marine veteran's airfare. The vet' doctors told him he was too sick to fly. Spirit said: tough -- you should have bought insurance. Baldanza, who has a record of contemptuous actions, even called reporters to make his case that it would be a bad precedent to act like Spirit had a heart. As a result a Facebook campaign took off -- eventually with more that 30,000 people pledging never to fly with Spirit. Fox News skewered the airline in a lengthy story yesterday which included PR experts calling Spirit "the airline from hell."... [Classic PR fail, big reputation hit and no surprise the airline finally caved - JD]
Prominent brand makes a joke out of sexual assault in its advertising... The dateline on this story is not a mistake. The year is 2012, and a prominent brand has made a joke out of sexual assault in its advertising. Belvedere vodka drew an outpouring of derision on social-media websites after it posted an ad on Facebook and Twitter on Friday. The ad showed a young man smiling as he grabs a woman from behind. The woman has a frightened look on her face and appears to be trying to get away. The text of the ad read: “Unlike some people[,] Belvedere always goes down smoothly.”...
In less than a week, political radio host Rush Limbaugh has seen upwards of 30 sponsors flee his radio program. Their migration began in response to an public boycott campaign which has relied heavily on social media. The actions and inactions of Limbaugh and the companies involved provide lessons for marketers in how to respond to crises, buy media and even outflank competitors....
Joe Maturo is a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Well, perhaps that is not the best fast food metaphor but the East Haven, CT Mayor delivered a whopper of a bad interview the other day. While being questioned by WPIX-TV about the arrest of four police officers who were charged with unlawfully targeting Latinos in town for searches and abuse -- the mayor was asked what he was doing for the Latino community. Kind of a broad open question. The Mayor opened his mouth and stuck his foot in it by saying "I might have tacos when I go home." Yeah, that will help....
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This crisis strategy is going sideways fast.