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Good PR vs Bad PR

Only PR problems can be fixed with PR.

Jerry Silfwer
by Jerry Silfwer

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

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What is good PR vs bad PR?

What con­sti­tutes good pub­lic rela­tions doesn’t have to be complicated.

Here we go:

Good PR vs Bad PR

In pub­lic rela­tions, say­ing the right things will not be enough if you do the wrong things.

Doing the wrong things + say­ing the wrong things = bad PR

Doing the wrong things + say­ing the right things = bad PR

Doing the right things + say­ing the wrong things = bad PR

Doing the right things + say­ing the right things = good PR

What does this mean?

Every now and then, I have to point out that some organ­isa­tion­al prob­lems aren’t PR prob­lems; they’re organ­isa­tion­al problems.

With PR activ­it­ies, you can fix pub­lic rela­tions prob­lems but can’t fix organ­isa­tion­al prob­lems (harm­ful products or ser­vices, uneth­ic­al prac­tices, illeg­al prac­tices, etc.).

Learn more: Good PR vs Bad PR

Examples of PR Disasters

Here are some major PR fail­ures where organ­isa­tions badly mis­man­aged their pub­lic rela­tions, worsen­ing the situ­ation instead of con­tain­ing the damage.

Ford Pinto Scandal (1970s)

Ford’s rush to com­pete in the small car mar­ket led to the Pinto, a mod­el with a fatal design flaw: its fuel tank was prone to explod­ing in rear-end col­li­sions. Even worse, Ford exec­ut­ives knew about the issue but decided that law­suits would be cheap­er than a recall. The pub­lic was out­raged when intern­al memos expos­ing this cal­cu­la­tion were leaked.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Putting profits over safety. Ford pri­or­it­ized cost-cut­ting over human lives.
  • Ethical fail­ure. The rev­el­a­tion that Ford delib­er­ately avoided fix­ing a deadly flaw was a PR nightmare.
  • Government back­lash. The scan­dal led to new auto safety reg­u­la­tions and last­ing dis­trust in Ford.

Nestlé’s Baby Formula Scandal (1970s-80s)

Nestlé aggress­ively mar­keted infant for­mula in devel­op­ing coun­tries, encour­aging moth­ers to use it instead of breast­feed­ing. However, many fam­il­ies lacked access to clean water, lead­ing to mal­nour­ished and sick babies. Protests and boy­cotts erup­ted world­wide, dam­aging Nestlé’s repu­ta­tion for decades.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Misleading mar­ket­ing. Nestlé’s aggress­ive tac­tics con­vinced moth­ers to switch from breast­feed­ing to for­mula without con­sid­er­ing health risks.
  • Failure to acknow­ledge the issue. Nestlé dis­missed con­cerns and res­isted change for years.
  • Global back­lash. Activist groups and NGOs organ­ized one of the longest-run­ning con­sumer boy­cotts in history.

Coca-Cola’s “New Coke” Fiasco (1985)

To mod­ern­ise its brand, Coca-Cola replaced its clas­sic for­mula with “New Coke.” The decision sparked out­rage, as loy­al cus­tom­ers saw it as an unne­ces­sary change. The back­lash was so intense that Coca-Cola rein­tro­duced the ori­gin­al for­mula as “Coca-Cola Classic” just 79 days later.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Ignoring cus­tom­er attach­ment. Coca-Cola failed to real­ize how much people loved the ori­gin­al product.
  • No con­tin­gency plan. When the back­lash began, the com­pany had no strategy for man­aging the outrage.
  • Brand con­fu­sion. The hasty rein­tro­duc­tion of “Coca-Cola Classic” made the com­pany look indecisive.

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (1989)

When the Exxon Valdez tanker ran aground in Alaska, spill­ing 11 mil­lion gal­lons of oil, Exxon’s response worsened the dis­aster. CEO Lawrence Rawl remained silent for a week, and Exxon down­played the envir­on­ment­al dam­age. Their slow and evas­ive com­mu­nic­a­tion caused immense backlash.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Failure to respond quickly. Exxon’s lead­er­ship was absent in the early days of the crisis.
  • Downplaying the dis­aster. The com­pany tried to shift blame and min­im­ise the spill’s impact.
  • Long-term repu­ta­tion dam­age. Exxon spent over $2 bil­lion on clean-up and $1 bil­lion in set­tle­ments, but its repu­ta­tion nev­er fully recovered.

McDonald’s “Hot Coffee” Lawsuit (1992)

McDonald’s became the face of cor­por­ate greed when an eld­erly woman, Stella Liebeck, sued after spill­ing scald­ing hot cof­fee on her­self. Fueled by McDonald’s PR efforts, the media framed it as a frivol­ous law­suit. However, it later emerged that McDonald’s served cof­fee 30 – 40°F hot­ter than com­pet­it­ors, and Liebeck had suffered third-degree burns requir­ing skin grafts.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Dismissing a ser­i­ous issue. McDonald’s tried to make Liebeck seem greedy rather than address­ing the dan­ger­ously high tem­per­at­ure of their coffee.
  • Mishandling pub­lic per­cep­tion. The nar­rat­ive spun out of con­trol, mak­ing McDonald’s appear callous.
  • Reputation hit. The case sym­bol­ised cor­por­ate indif­fer­ence, and McDonald’s had to adjust policies to avoid fur­ther lawsuits.

Toyota’s Acceleration Recall (2009−2010)

Toyota faced a massive crisis when reports sur­faced that some of its vehicles were accel­er­at­ing uncon­trol­lably. Multiple fatal acci­dents were linked, and Toyota ini­tially blamed driver error. However, invest­ig­a­tions revealed that faulty accel­er­at­or ped­als and stuck floor mats were real prob­lems, lead­ing to a recall of over 9 mil­lion vehicles.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Blaming cus­tom­ers. Toyota’s first instinct was to deny respons­ib­il­ity, which worsened pub­lic outrage.
  • Delayed response. The com­pany took too long to acknow­ledge the safety con­cerns, erod­ing trust.
  • Regulatory and leg­al back­lash. Toyota paid over $1.2 bil­lion in set­tle­ments and suffered long-term brand damage.

BP’s Response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (2010)

After the worst oil spill in his­tory, BP CEO Tony Hayward made things worse by saying:

“I’d like my life back.”

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Tone-deaf response. Insensitive CEO remarks while 11 people had died and the envir­on­ment suffered.
  • Underestimating pub­lic anger. BP ran ads about its cleanup efforts while oil was still spilling.
  • Social media mock­ery. Twitter users hijacked the BP hasht­ag to mock the com­pany relentlessly.

McDonald’s #McDStories Twitter Disaster (2012)

McDonald’s launched a Twitter cam­paign (#McDStories) to share feel-good cus­tom­er exper­i­ences. Instead, it was hijacked by users tweet­ing hor­ror stor­ies about food pois­on­ing, poor ser­vice, and unhealthy meals.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Lack of crisis foresight. They didn’t anti­cip­ate how eas­ily neg­at­ive sen­ti­ment spreads online.
  • Failure to con­trol the nar­rat­ive. McDonald’s had no backup plan when things turned ugly.
  • Quick shut­down, but too late. The dam­age was done, and the hasht­ag became a meme.

SeaWorld’s #AskSeaWorld Twitter Disaster (2015)

Following the back­lash from the doc­u­ment­ary Blackfish, which exposed anim­al cruelty at SeaWorld, the com­pany launched the #AskSeaWorld cam­paign on Twitter to improve its image. Instead, crit­ics hijacked the hasht­ag, flood­ing it with accus­a­tions of mis­treat­ment and uneth­ic­al practices.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Ignoring neg­at­ive sen­ti­ment. SeaWorld under­es­tim­ated pub­lic anger, lead­ing to a pre­dict­able social media hijack.
  • No crisis pre­par­a­tion. There was no strategy to address chal­len­ging ques­tions or man­age hos­tile responses.
  • Brand trust eroded. Attendance and rev­en­ue con­tin­ued to decline as the con­tro­versy gained momentum.

Volkswagen’s Dieselgate Scandal (2015)

VW was caught cheat­ing emis­sions tests, falsely claim­ing their dies­el cars were “clean” when they were  40 times over the leg­al pol­lu­tion limit.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Blatant decep­tion. VW knew they were lying for years.
  • Weak CEO response. Initially deny­ing wrong­do­ing, the CEO resigned without accountability.
  • Massive fin­an­cial hit. VW faced $30 bil­lion in fines and lawsuits.

Samsung’s Exploding Galaxy Note 7 Scandal (2016)

Due to bat­tery defects, the Galaxy Note 7 kept catch­ing fire. Instead of imme­di­ately recall­ing the devices, Samsung quietly fixed the issue, but replace­ment phones also exploded.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Slow response and deni­al. Samsung ini­tially down­played the issue.
  • Botched recall. They recalled the phone but rushed the replace­ments with faulty batteries.
  • Trust des­troyed. The FAA banned the Note 7 from flights, and Samsung had to can­cel the entire product line.

Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner Protest Ad (2017)

Pepsi launched an ad fea­tur­ing Kendall Jenner dif­fus­ing a tense protest by hand­ing a police officer a can of Pepsi. The attempt to cap­it­al­ise on social justice move­ments (e.g., Black Lives Matter) back­fired hor­ribly, as it was seen as trivi­al­ising real-world activism.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Tone-deaf mes­saging. Made protests look like a Pepsi-sponsored street party.
  • Misuse of celebrity influ­ence. Kendall Jenner had no per­son­al link to activism.
  • Failure to test audi­ence reac­tion. Social media imme­di­ately roas­ted Pepsi, for­cing a quick pull of the ad.

United Airlines’ “Re-Accommodating” a Passenger (2017)

A video went vir­al show­ing a pas­sen­ger (Dr. David Dao) being viol­ently dragged off a United Airlines flight after he refused to give up his seat due to overbooking.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Poor first response. The airline’s CEO first defen­ded the action, call­ing it “re-accom­mod­a­tion” rather than an assault.
  • Delayed, weak response. United only apo­lo­gised after days of pub­lic outrage.
  • Massive back­lash. Stocks plummeted by $1 bil­lion overnight.

Uber’s “Delete Uber” Crisis (2017)

During Trump’s “Muslim ban”, taxi drivers in NYC went on strike in protest. Uber con­tin­ued ser­vice and removed surge pri­cing, lead­ing to accus­a­tions of strike-break­ing. The hasht­ag #DeleteUber went viral.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Misreading pub­lic sen­ti­ment. The move was seen as tak­ing advant­age of a social justice protest.
  • Mixed mes­sages. CEO Travis Kalanick made things worse by join­ing (and leav­ing) Trump’s advis­ory board.
  • Long-term dam­age. Uber’s repu­ta­tion suffered, and 2 mil­lion people deleted their accounts.

Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica Scandal (2018)

It was revealed that Cambridge Analytica har­ves­ted data from 87 mil­lion Facebook users without con­sent to influ­ence elections.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Delayed response. Mark Zuckerberg was silent for days while the scan­dal grew.
  • Weak apo­logy. His tone was robot­ic and cor­por­ate when he finally responded.
  • Repeated scan­dals. Facebook kept get­ting caught mis­hand­ling user data, worsen­ing pub­lic distrust.

Tesla’s Elon Musk “Pedo Guy” Tweet (2018)

After a British diver helped res­cue a Thai soc­cer team trapped in a cave, Elon Musk, frus­trated that his pro­posed sub­mar­ine wasn’t used, called the diver a “pedo guy” on Twitter. The diver sued for defam­a­tion, and Musk later won the case, but the incid­ent dam­aged Tesla’s brand.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Personal attacks from lead­er­ship. Musk’s impuls­ive reac­tion escal­ated a non-issue into a major scandal.
  • Legal and fin­an­cial risks. Tesla was indir­ectly dragged into a law­suit due to its CEO’s pub­lic behavior.
  • Stock volat­il­ity. Investors feared Musk’s errat­ic beha­vi­or could harm Tesla’s repu­ta­tion and valuation.

Dolce & Gabbana’s China Insult (2018)

D&G released a racist ad cam­paign fea­tur­ing an Asian mod­el strug­gling to eat Italian food with chop­sticks. When back­lash erup­ted, D&G’s co-founder called China “a coun­try of sh*t” in leaked messages.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Cultural insens­it­iv­ity. The ad per­petu­ates offens­ive stereotypes.
  • Disastrous reac­tion. Instead of apo­lo­gising, D&G first denied the authen­ti­city of the messages.
  • Economic fal­lout. D&G lost China’s lux­ury mar­ket as retail­ers pulled their products.

Peloton’s Tone-Deaf Christmas Ad (2019)

Peloton released an ad show­ing a woman receiv­ing a Peloton bike as a gift from her hus­band and doc­u­ment­ing her fit­ness jour­ney. Many saw it as sex­ist, imply­ing the hus­band wanted his wife to lose weight.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Misjudging audi­ence reac­tion. Viewers inter­preted it as a “wife con­trol” ad, not an empower­ment story.
  • Stock crash. Peloton lost $1.5 bil­lion in value in two days.
  • No dam­age con­trol. They didn’t pull the ad or issue a bet­ter response.

Balenciaga’s Child Exploitation Scandal (2022)

Luxury brand Balenciaga released an ad cam­paign fea­tur­ing chil­dren hold­ing teddy bears dressed in bond­age gear. A second cam­paign included leg­al doc­u­ments related to child por­no­graphy laws. Public back­lash was swift, with accus­a­tions that the brand was nor­mal­iz­ing exploitation.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Severe over­sight. The cam­paign should have been scru­tin­ised before launch.
  • Blaming extern­al parties. Balenciaga sued the pro­duc­tion com­pany instead of tak­ing full respons­ib­il­ity, worsen­ing the backlash.
  • Celebrity fal­lout. Major brand ambas­sad­ors, includ­ing Kim Kardashian, pub­licly dis­tanced them­selves from Balenciaga.

Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney Controversy (2023)

Bud Light partnered with trans­gender influ­en­cer Dylan Mulvaney, send­ing her a per­son­al­ized can to cel­eb­rate her trans­ition. The cam­paign sparked massive back­lash, with con­ser­vat­ives call­ing for a boy­cott and LGBTQ+ advoc­ates cri­ti­ciz­ing the com­pany for fail­ing to stand by Mulvaney when the con­tro­versy escalated.

Here’s some of what went wrong:

  • Failure to anti­cip­ate back­lash. The cam­paign launched without pre­par­ing for polit­ic­al and cul­tur­al sensitivities.
  • Inconsistent mes­saging. Bud Light ini­tially defen­ded the part­ner­ship but later dis­tanced itself, ali­en­at­ing both sides.
  • Severe brand dam­age. Sales plummeted, with Bud Light los­ing its pos­i­tion as America’s top-selling beer.

Key Takeaways from PR Disasters

Every situ­ation is dif­fer­ent, but there are some key takeaways from dam­aging PR disasters.

  • Never under­es­tim­ate pub­lic intel­li­gence. Corporate lies often get exposed eventually.
  • Timing mat­ters. Delayed responses can turn minor issues into full-blown crises.
  • Apologies must be genu­ine. Insincere or robot­ic responses fuel anger.
  • Understand social move­ments. Tone-deaf cam­paigns (e.g., Pepsi, Uber, Peloton) backfire.
  • Crisis plan­ning is essen­tial. Organisations that pre­pare (vs. react) handle dis­asters better.

Learn more: Examples of PR Disasters

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Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at Spin Factory and KIX Communication Index. Before that, he worked at Whispr Group NYC, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

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