Good PR vs Bad PR

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

Key Takeaways from PR Disasters

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

Learn more: Examples of PR Disasters

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