The Five Worst PR Disasters of 2020
In a year of crises, the biggest public relations flops were self-inflicted.
A swing and a miss.
Photographer: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images2020 will be remembered as a year of crises. Many of the corporate variety were self-inflicted. As in years past, executives often failed to apply the most basic principles of crisis and reputation management. With no shortage of contenders, here are the top corporate PR blunders of the year:
1. AstraZeneca Plc’s omission of key details in its vaccine announcement: When the company and the University of Oxford released preliminary results on their Covid-19 vaccine, they didn't mention the error that caused some trial participants to get half doses — which inexplicably turned out to be more effective — nor that the most promising results excluded data from older people. Predictably, Astra is now widely perceived as secretive and untrustworthy, which will make it much harder to drum up faith in any vaccine it later releases. It’s especially jaw-dropping that the company wasn’t better advised on one of the most-awaited announcements of the year.