Oops: PR and Marketing Mishaps

Published June - July 2008

In our occasional series we look at some recent examples of PR and marketing mishaps.

1. Big Pharma’s Conceal Financial Ties

National Public Radio in the US recently ran an episode in the radio series The Infinite Mind called "Prozac Nation: Revisited".  The segment featured four prestigious medical experts discussing the controversial link between antidepressants and suicide.  In their opinions, all four said that worries about the drugs have been overblown.

At first glance it appeared credible BUT one detail was not revealed to the audience: all four experts on the show, including Goodwin, have financial ties to the makers of antidepressants.  Also unmentioned were the "unrestricted grants" that The Infinite Mind has received from drug makers, including Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of the antidepressant Prozac. 

See the online debate "Prozac Nation: Revisited" caused.

2. PR Spammers Revealed - The List you don’t want to make

The advent of online PR brings with it more transparency, and that can have a downside for some PR agencies.

As online engagement has blossomed, so too have reports of PR agencies being chastised over spamming bloggers.

The PR Spammers Wiki does something about it!  It lists PR spammers; big multinational PR firms and smaller unknowns, and encourages bloggers to add more names to the list.

(Source: http://prspammers.pbwiki.com/FrontPage)

3. British Airlines Crisis Management needs Management

Recently the British Airways' Terminal 5 descended into chaos at its public opening due to problems with its baggage system. Not only was this negative PR for BA but it got worse! 

BBC viewers watched as BA's PR Richard Goodfellow shut the door to a staff rest room in the face of pursuing journalists after a fraught press briefing in which the director of operations, Gareth Kirkwood, refused to take questions. 

The Guardian reported that Julia Simpson head of BA corporate communications later said:

“Journalists wanted to know what had happened to the baggage system. The blunt truth was at that stage we did not know.  If we had, we would have fixed it.  With events moving so fast, we put up our operations director to make a statement on the situation but not take questions.  Our overriding objective was to say sorry.  But hands up.  We should have taken questions.”

View more commentary on BA's PR disaster.

Network PR, publishers of PR Influences, is the first Australian pr agency to provide online pr, including search engine optimisation. Contact Network PR to find out how you can integrate online pr into your communications mix by starting with an Online Health Assessment.