Mistakes can and will happen, and while they do, PR blunders will continue to haunt the people involved and tickle the people who weren’t.
Top of the list for 2009 has to be the happy-go-lucky “aw shucks” past president of the Good Ol’ United States Of America. What a great leader of the free world George W Bush has been. Terrorism came to the shores of America. Thousands were left homeless in New Orleans. Hundreds died fighting in Iraq. And a financial crisis to rival the Great Depression was visited upon the world. Or as George W said in his final press conference: “It’s been a lot of fun”. Eight years being the most powerful man in the world? Or a few ill-chosen words at a press conference. Which of these will he be remembered for?
Closely followed by our own first family whose sole purpose is to fulfil their duty to Great Britain, this jewel set in a silver sea. Burdened by the responsibilities of royal duty, is it any wonder that they make strenuous efforts to show that they are only human? Step forward then Prince Harry whose hilarious comments on video show that he is just like the rest of the population – completely oblivious to the damaging effect of ill-chosen words which will almost certainly be published.
But let’s not forget the motor industry bosses in 2008 who rushed cap in hand to Washington to ask for a multi-billion dollar bailout, but were silenced by one question. “Which of you plans to give up your executive jet.” Er…silence…tumbleweed. Goodbye guys. Come back when you have a plan.
2009 will be a tough year. Those who thrive will be those we trust. Honesty, clarity, confidence can only be conveyed by knowing your audience and communicating with sincerity. Don’t leave it to chance. With media mentor on your side, you can be the one who keeps his head, while all around are losing theirs.
1. British Airway’s Terminal 5 fiasco -
In April we saw the long-awaited, highly expensive, extremely disastrous opening of Terminal 5 at Heathrow airport.
From start to finish the whole opening was extremely disorganised and all over the place.
Chief Executive, Willie Walsh chose to downplay the problem by claiming the opening was experiencing some ‘teething problems. Never a good idea to downplay such a disaster and to deprive the members of the public involved with an explanation.
Things got a lot worse after BA officials were approached by the press and they thought it best to simply turn on their heels and run away. Oh dear.
2. Barack ‘Osama’ –
Running for president is challenging enough at the best of times. But the last thing any presidential candidate needs is for his press chairman, Dean Singleton, passing a question over to ‘Barack Osama’ – what a difference mere letter makes.
The mere fact that if he wins he will be America’s first Black president is obviously huge – he doesn’t need his press chairman of all people calling him the name of the FBI’s most wanted terrorist.
3. Prince William’s Royal PR blunder –
Up until recently Prince William was fondly thought of as the sensible, ‘nice’, older brother of boozy Prince Harry. Well, not anymore.
After Harry spent ten weeks fighting in Afghanistan William thought it harmless to commission military helicopters over to a stag party on the Isle of Wight and over to Kate Middleton’s house.
On reflection, clearly Prince William or his PR advisor realised they would need to remedy his extremely irresponsible and insensitive behaviour by sending him on a three-hour flight over Afghanistan.
Obviously as soon as the press got a hold of this they deemed it a ‘PR stunt’ instantly. Honestly William…
4. Prime Minister appears on American Idol –
The clue is in the title folks. Yes, earlier in the year Prime Minister Gordon Brown appeared on American reality TV show, American Idol. The somewhat debatable purpose of his appearance on the show was to discuss Britain’s successes towards the fight against Malaria. He went on to say he was proud Britain was leading the way by supplying the funds for 20 million bed nets.
When the press got wind of this an article on SkyNews saw user comments such as:
• “He thinks swanning around with celebs like George Clooney and appearing on US trash TV shows can somehow adhere us to him. It’s not working!”
• “Blair was much more media savvy than Brown.”
• “He can’t increase pensions for our elderly or get our NHS in shape, but he sure has bottomless pockets for Africa.”
• “Pillock? I think James was being charitable.”
Get the message Prime Minister?
5. Mars bars no longer vegetarian –
Most people, vegetarian or not, enjoy a chocolate bar now and again. So, when Masterfoods announced they would be using animal products in their chocolate bars such as Mars Bar, Bounty, Snickers, Twix and Milky Way, you can only imagine the vegetarian community’s uproar!
6. Ant and Dec award set-up –
For many years Ant and Dec have been the faces of Saturday night television, well that was until we found out that at the 2005 Comedy Awards the award they supposedly won they in fact, didn’t.
Embarrassingly, ITV had asked Robbie Williams to present the People’s Choice Award to which he agreed on the condition that Ant and Dec won rather than the Catherine Tate show.
When this came to light Ant and Dec were forced to hand the award back and once again ITV were left red-faced.
7. Mary Kate Olsen refuses to talk about Ledger’s death –
Heath Ledger’s death was a big deal when the press first got wind of it.
He was an A-list star in movies such as Dark Knight, Brokeback Mountain and 10 Things I Hate About You among many others.
When the media released information relating his death to drugs it sparked a lot of speculation, especially when we found out that Mary Kate Olsen’s security man was one of the first at the scene.
Then we found out that in fact it was a sleeping-pill overdose Ledger died of and this seemed to extinguish any doubts the media may have had against Olsen – until she announced she would not be answering any questions about his death until she was granted immunity.
This implied guilt from Olsen when the media and the public had laid their suspicions to rest – not a good idea.
8. Care Home stays silent in the face of media scorn -
It should be a given when a company is accused of something, especially when the accusations aren’t true, to accept the opportunity to be interviewed and set the record straight.
But when a Scottish care home for the elderly came to the attention of BBC Investigative Reporter Mark Daly, they were advised by their PR consultancy to keep well away from the cameras and microphones. Daly, who shot to national fame when his undercover film “The Secret Policeman” exposed racism in the police, gave the care home management ample opportunity to be interviewed. Instead, they issued a statement. By e-mail.
Surprise surprise, Daly’s report broadcast on Good Morning Scotland, Reporting Scotland and Newsnight highlighted on several occasions the fact that they had refused to be interviewed - and the way he described it left listeners and viewers in no doubt that they must have had something to hide.
9. British Gas and their impeccable timing –
How could we forget British Gas’ major timing blunder; on the day they announced record profits of £571 millions they also announced that they would be raising their tariffs by 15%.
When they announced their profits and tariff increases, unsurprisingly there was a public outcry and Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison said: “British Gas should hang their heads in shame knowing that many people, including families, pensioners and the disabled, are too scared to heat their homes adequately this winter, because of the huge bills that follow.”
Oh dear.
10. Max Mosley whips up a storm of protest –
Max Mosley’s video-captured orgy with five prostitutes speaking in ze vairy bad German accent was a huge disaster for his reputation as Director of Formula One motor racing.
Not only did Mosley severely upset two major German clients, Mercedes and BMW, but he also understandably outraged various Jewish groups and anti-racism campaigners.
Mosley won his case against the News Of The World - but will his reputation ever recover from the, er…caning it received? We don’t think so. Achtung! Make sure you are not mentioned on any ‘PR Blunder’ lists – call Media Mentor on 0800 032 1127.
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Do you do blogroll exchanging? If you want to exchange links let me know.
Email me back if you’re interested.
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:20 am
[...] http://www.media-mentor.co.uk/news/experience/top-10-pr-blunders/ [...]
August 26th, 2008 at 3:10 am
You may wish to edit item 10 to as Mosley won his libel case against News of the World:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7523034.stm
… unless you want to add yourself to the list of course, should Mosley’s lawyers discover this site. :)
August 26th, 2008 at 7:30 am
Yes but he won a privacy case against the News of the World. All we are doing is stating that his reputation has been tarnished due to his actions.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Can the media be trusted?
Media blunders caused by “beat the competition to news headlines” are numerous. For example, after Arvid Saunaitis presented a breakthrough dental appliance made out of chromium cobalt metal and denture teeth to NBC, and they did the story, a few opportunistic dentists presented an all plastic appliance to other news networks and by distorting the facts persuaded them to cover their story instead. After Arvid warned the reporters that their all plastic replica will not work as they claim, they ignored his expert advice and caused numerous patients to be scammed out of large sums of money. More on the story can be found at http://tometalk-erudite.blogspot.com
In another example, after the researchers at the University of Pennsylvania published a narrow test tube study in the journal of Science and the lead researcher of the study, Dr. Ian Blair asked the press, “For God’s sake don’t say vitamin C causes cancer,” many reporters proceed to do exactly that. Dr. John Hathcock, vice president for the Council for Responsible Nutrition also commented, “The media should do its homework and put new scientific findings in their proper context. That kind of responsible journalism would help consumers, rather than cause confusion.”
Unfortunately the media will never stop deceiving the public and will continue to push their political agendas until the public has had enough and begin looking for alternative news sources.
Cybercorrespondent
http://cybercorrespondent.blogspot.com
October 28th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
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