What We Learned From 2019’s Worst PR Disasters
Think you had a bad year? These five cringeworthy moments (plus two honorable mentions) might make you feel a little better about your decision-making skills.
Yikes.
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As a public relations professor, I know a few of my fellow professionals can be counted on to do things that keep my students’ jaws dropping in class each week — and, like 2018, this year was no exception. Here are the five decisions that beat out stiff competition to rank as the worst corporate PR moves of 2019:
1. Dennis Muilenburg’s week of silence after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March. As crisis guru Helio Fred Garcia once wrote, “incremental delays in showing that an organization cares can lead to greater-than-incremental harm.” Even if Muilenburg, Boeing Co.’s now-former chief executive officer, didn’t initially have all the answers about his company’s role in the disaster, he should have immediately expressed sympathy for the victims and their loved ones, then pledged to provide the public with more information as soon as possible. Every PR executive worth their paycheck knows that, during a crisis, it’s critical to say something during what Garcia calls the “golden hour.” Just as a patient having a heart attack is much more likely to survive if they are brought to the hospital in the first hour, an organization is more likely to survive a crisis with its reputation intact if it immediately speaks for itself rather than allowing others to speculate about its motives and behavior.