The PR world is crazy, fast and unpredictable. Some companies have their branding and PR perfected, others not so much. Since beginning the CCPR program, I have noticed PR in everything. Even sitting here writing at Starbucks, I am surrounded by this empire of amazing PR and branding that the company has worked relentlessly on.
Oh, and this mocha (light) frapp is fantastic, if you are wondering.
I am starting this blog segment called "#PRdisasters" to point out what happens when PR plans go horribly wrong. It will also help me (and my followers) along this journey into the workforce to not make the same mistakes. I will try to post at the end of every month, because we know there's going to be at least one terrible decision made by a PR newbies. This post will sum up January and February of 2014. Without further ado, here are the top 5 PR disasters of 2014 (so far)!
5. Sochi vs. the American media:
What a mess. For spending $51 billion on these Olympic Games, Russia really didn't consider the fact that global reputation and perception of these games is highly dependent on the international media and their experience. In particular, North American media can be absolutely ruthless. In the media's defense, Sochi kicked off with a bang, with many areas unfinished or barely so, and the media was not impressed.The accommodations situation was anything less than pleasant, at times disgusting, as seen below:
Oh, and this mocha (light) frapp is fantastic, if you are wondering.
I am starting this blog segment called "#PRdisasters" to point out what happens when PR plans go horribly wrong. It will also help me (and my followers) along this journey into the workforce to not make the same mistakes. I will try to post at the end of every month, because we know there's going to be at least one terrible decision made by a PR newbies. This post will sum up January and February of 2014. Without further ado, here are the top 5 PR disasters of 2014 (so far)!
5. Sochi vs. the American media:
What a mess. For spending $51 billion on these Olympic Games, Russia really didn't consider the fact that global reputation and perception of these games is highly dependent on the international media and their experience. In particular, North American media can be absolutely ruthless. In the media's defense, Sochi kicked off with a bang, with many areas unfinished or barely so, and the media was not impressed.The accommodations situation was anything less than pleasant, at times disgusting, as seen below:
Russia shouldn't have expected anything less, especially for an event this size. You can't invite American media, who are generally known for complaining on foreign trips and are used to American-worthy accommodations, and give them the worst built hotels ever and not expected Twitter to be informed immediately. The switch from first world to whatever Russia is was shocking for some of them. The best was when they were in a panic that the beloved men's hockey teams had to sleep on single beds throughout. God forbid these millionaires sleep on anything less than a cloud for a week and a half.
But seriously though, what a nightmare for the organizers of Sochi, which turned out to be a great Olympics with a really bumpy start.
PR LESSONS LEARNED: Make sure everything is done on time, and pleasing the media is critical; they can make or break you!
4. Coca-Cola vs. America's racists and grammar failures:
Oh, Amuuricans. Known for their obnoxious patriotism and love of football. Coca-Cola felt their wrath during the battle between the Seahawks and the Broncos when they aired their multilingual "America, the Beautiful" Super Bowl commercial. Here is the commercial below: #AmericaIsBeautiful
But seriously though, what a nightmare for the organizers of Sochi, which turned out to be a great Olympics with a really bumpy start.
PR LESSONS LEARNED: Make sure everything is done on time, and pleasing the media is critical; they can make or break you!
4. Coca-Cola vs. America's racists and grammar failures:
Oh, Amuuricans. Known for their obnoxious patriotism and love of football. Coca-Cola felt their wrath during the battle between the Seahawks and the Broncos when they aired their multilingual "America, the Beautiful" Super Bowl commercial. Here is the commercial below: #AmericaIsBeautiful
Personally, I am on #TeamCocaCola on this one. I think the commercial is beautiful and truly embraces multiculturalism. That being said, I am Canadian and feel this type of commercial would have been more acceptable in our country than the US. The Twitter reaction was unbelievable, many saying extremely racist things and threatening to boycott the product because the song was not completely in English. (Please note, half of the tweets were not completely in English. They really need to start emphasizing the difference between "your" and "you're" in schools.) In many cases, the English language was also referred to as "American." Take a look:
Do you ever read things and just have a permanent facepalm? Poor Coca-Cola, trying to make a beautiful commercial about equality and diversity, getting completely slammed by the worst type of people. I tweeted in support of Coca-Cola about the reaction. "@sv_labrie: American freakout over Coke commercial is embarrassing. "I'm not racists, but I am. Read: http://publicshaming.tumblr.com/post/75447787843/speak-english-racist-revolt-as-coca-cola-airs"
Seriously. Read that post. It made me speechless, and there are tweets there that I don't even want to touch my blog. Luckily, the media was quick to point out all the racism and bigotry of the American people, but that was a PR campaign that completely backfired on them.
PR LESSONS LEARNED: Understand your audience, and don't mess with Americans when their football team is losing terribly in the Superbowl.
3. MasterCard/the BRIT Awards vs. the British media:
This is really embarrassing. HousePR, a PR firm in the UK that manages MasterCard, attempted to force journalists, including Tim Walker, into tweeting about the event and promoting MasterCard in return for BRIT Award accreditation. Treating a journalist, who is going to give you media coverage through print, social media and other avenues, like a hot promo girl in a tight black dress is a recipe for disaster. Tim Walker called MasterCard and HousePR out on Twitter and immediately sent the Twitterverse into a frenzy, with many other journalists supporting his decision to decline.
PR LESSONS LEARNED: Journalists are friends, not food. You insult their intelligence and career by forcing them to do such a long list of chores for you without even establishing a relationship with them. Come on.
Seriously. Read that post. It made me speechless, and there are tweets there that I don't even want to touch my blog. Luckily, the media was quick to point out all the racism and bigotry of the American people, but that was a PR campaign that completely backfired on them.
PR LESSONS LEARNED: Understand your audience, and don't mess with Americans when their football team is losing terribly in the Superbowl.
3. MasterCard/the BRIT Awards vs. the British media:
This is really embarrassing. HousePR, a PR firm in the UK that manages MasterCard, attempted to force journalists, including Tim Walker, into tweeting about the event and promoting MasterCard in return for BRIT Award accreditation. Treating a journalist, who is going to give you media coverage through print, social media and other avenues, like a hot promo girl in a tight black dress is a recipe for disaster. Tim Walker called MasterCard and HousePR out on Twitter and immediately sent the Twitterverse into a frenzy, with many other journalists supporting his decision to decline.
PR LESSONS LEARNED: Journalists are friends, not food. You insult their intelligence and career by forcing them to do such a long list of chores for you without even establishing a relationship with them. Come on.
2. Michael Bay vs. himself:
This was actually painful to watch. Where were his PR people and why did no one prepare him enough? He is one of the biggest movie directors on the planet and he couldn't even fake his way out of talking about a TV. You know, the things people watch his movies on. The teleprompter stopped working, and he basically quit at life and walked off the stage. There are so many lessons here about presentation skills and product endorsement, I can't even begin to outline them (it would take an entire new blog post).
Samsung, who paid for Bay's appearance, seemed to be lucky and get the easier side of the reaction, with people feeling sorry that the company wasted all that money on such a terrible press event. Here is the embarrassing moment:
This was actually painful to watch. Where were his PR people and why did no one prepare him enough? He is one of the biggest movie directors on the planet and he couldn't even fake his way out of talking about a TV. You know, the things people watch his movies on. The teleprompter stopped working, and he basically quit at life and walked off the stage. There are so many lessons here about presentation skills and product endorsement, I can't even begin to outline them (it would take an entire new blog post).
Samsung, who paid for Bay's appearance, seemed to be lucky and get the easier side of the reaction, with people feeling sorry that the company wasted all that money on such a terrible press event. Here is the embarrassing moment:
PR LESSONS LEARNED: Practice and prepare for the worst! Technology fails us all the time, and as a presenter, you need to know the material enough that you could "fake it until you make it". Also, learn to laugh off these things. If Bay had laughed and said "well, all my notes are gone, so now I'm really gonna have to tell you the honest truth *insert hearty chuckle here*" and continued to go with the flow rather than storm off, he could have saved himself, his PR team, Samsung and their PR team a lot of embarrassment and money.
1. Snapchat/Skype vs. hackers vs. manners:
This might take the cake for the worst PR disaster in a while. On New Years Eve, Snapchat, an app that allows users to send images and photos for a few seconds before disappearing "forever", was hacked and 4.6 million users names and phone numbers were leaked. Also known as, a PR nightmare.
The worst part of all this was that Snapchat decided not to apologize for a week, even though the CEO was on the Today Show between this time, and the short blog apology itself was less than satisfying at that point. There is no logical reason why Snapchat did not send out an immediate response or apology. For a company built off privacy, this was a poor move on their part. 4.6 million people is massive, and for companies watching as potential investors, this was not smart.
A similar situation happened this year with Skype. All of Skype's social media accounts were hacked and Skype didn't react for hours. It was kind of painful to watch.
1. Snapchat/Skype vs. hackers vs. manners:
This might take the cake for the worst PR disaster in a while. On New Years Eve, Snapchat, an app that allows users to send images and photos for a few seconds before disappearing "forever", was hacked and 4.6 million users names and phone numbers were leaked. Also known as, a PR nightmare.
The worst part of all this was that Snapchat decided not to apologize for a week, even though the CEO was on the Today Show between this time, and the short blog apology itself was less than satisfying at that point. There is no logical reason why Snapchat did not send out an immediate response or apology. For a company built off privacy, this was a poor move on their part. 4.6 million people is massive, and for companies watching as potential investors, this was not smart.
A similar situation happened this year with Skype. All of Skype's social media accounts were hacked and Skype didn't react for hours. It was kind of painful to watch.
PR LESSONS LEARNED: Your customers are your number one. When you breach their trust, it's hard to regain it. I wonder how many customers deleted Snapchat and Skype after that.
Thanks for reading! Looking forward to 2014 and all the messes companies get into, because, honestly, it's so entertaining.
Follow me on Twitter for more things La Blog! @sv_labrie
Thanks for reading! Looking forward to 2014 and all the messes companies get into, because, honestly, it's so entertaining.
Follow me on Twitter for more things La Blog! @sv_labrie