Big PR Disasters of 2011
Bill Gates once was quoted as saying, “If I was down to my last dollar, I'd spend it on public relations.” But if you’re spending money on bad PR, you’re in serious trouble. 2011 was filled with companies and PR professionals making huge mistakes that hurt the bottom line. Hopefully companies in the years to come will learn from these 2011 public relations disasters and never make the same poor decisions.
Ocean Marketing
In the final days of 2011, gamers and social media professionals alike were up in arms over the actions of Ocean Marketing’s Paul Christoforo. When a customer reached out to Christoforo to inquire about when his video game controller would ship, Christoforo was rude, unhelpful, and just plain insulting. The email exchange between the two men was brought to the attention of the creative team behind “Penny Arcade,” a popular webcomic about video game culture.
From there, Twitter and Reddit took the story and ran with it, with outraged gamers eventually discovering that Christoforo allegedly plagiarized content on his own website, and then impersonated former clients by hijacking their email accounts. With a few emails, Christoforo essentially ensured he’d never work in PR again by alienating his current and past clients. You know you’ve really failed at PR when you become the focus of internet memes and YouTube parody videos within 24 hours of the onset of the ordeal.
Lowe’s
Lowe's also faced a great deal of bad press during December of 2011, brought on after the company pulled its advertising from the reality-television show "All American Muslim." The company decided to pull their spots after a conservative Christian organization known as the Florida Family Association complained that the show humanized Muslims and sugarcoated the fact that there are Muslim extremists who do not like America.
The company’s move was scorned by many, and was even lampooned on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” Seen as bigoted by many, Lowe’s further incensed people by refusing to comment on the issue beyond a single Facebook post, which stated "Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lighting rod for many of those views. As a result, we did pull our advertising on this program."
Rupert Murdoch and News Corp.
They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but Rupert Murdoch proved to be the exception to this old adage. The News of The World hacking scandal shook confidence in Murdoch’s entire news empire, leading to a public outcry, police investigations, and costly settlements. With low customer faith and such a public defrocking, Murdoch’s empire seems poised to collapse.
Bank of America
In a year where the Occupy Wall Street movement made headlines and consumers were still reeling from government bailouts for big banks, Bank of America made the mistake of angering their already agitated customer base. When the bank announced it would start charging a $5 monthly fee for account holders to access their checking account with a debit card, consumers were very vocal about their feelings. Using Twitter, B of A customers organized a “move your money day” for current customers of the bank to move their money to local credit unions. Less than two months later, Bank of America announced they were suspending that $5 fee, but the damage was already done. The company’s stock sunk to its lowest numbers since 2009.
