PR Tuesday: #Fail (Best of the Worst)

All of us, in our professional or personal lives, have seen a “hashtag fail.”  I thought this week, I’d change things up a little bit and share some recent examples of failures, whether PR blunders or social media slip-ups, or a hacking. It’s PR Tuesday: #Fail (Best of the Worst)…

Eco-Friendliness Stops Suicide?

This #fail comes to us out of Europe, where Hyundai’s ad agency ran a commercial where a man is trying to end his life using a hose stuck in the tailpipe of his Hyundai iX35. The kicker? The iX35 has 100 per cent water emissions, meaning there’s no carbon monoxide emitted and thus, the poor man’s attempt is futile.

Hyundai’s response, once the ad was condemned?

“We understand that some people may have found the iX35 video offensive. We are very sorry if we have offended anyone. We have taken the video down and have no intention of using it in any of our advertising or marketing.”

Some people may have found the ad offensive? How about any human being with any sense of compassion or dignity? It’s a wonderful thing that you’ve created an eco-friendly vehicle, with 100 per cent water emissions. How about, you know, show a pristine lake? A forest? Connect technology with the natural world, working together in harmony? No, instead, you use suicide? Shameful. While their response was swift, it was half-hearted. This ad should have been fully and completely condemned and Hyundai ought to fire its European ad agency.

Toronto Star fact checking goes on holiday

Last Tuesday, the Toronto Star ran an article about Scarborough Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) Margarett Best, who is on medical leave from the Legislature, being on vacation in Mexico. The intent of the article, of course, was to shame Ms. Best for taking a holiday while she was purportedly unable to fulfill her duties in the legislature. How did the Star find out Ms. Best was in Mexico? The ever-reliable approach of looking at a Facebook profile photo. What’s wrong with that, you ask? First, go and try to read the original article here. I’ll wait…

You’re back? So you saw the “this article has been removed for legal reasons” post? Why is that? Well, because the Star was wrong in their reporting. So wrong, that they were forced to run a front page apology explaining their lack of judgment.

How did it all happen? According to the Star:

Brennan [Toronto Star Queen’s Park reporter Richard Brennan], a Facebook friend of Best, was looking into her absence from Queen’s Park when he came upon the photo of her and her daughter in Acapulco. Though he tried to contact Best through her constituency office, and sent her a message through Facebook, at no time did he give the MPP any indication he was writing a story that would report she was on vacation while on medical leave. Nor did his messages say anything about her Facebook photo.

Essentially, it appears Brennan made the assumption by looking at a photo – and not the date included with the photo. As said in their apology, he did not indicate to Ms. Best or her staff that this was the angle the Star would take in the story. A lack of understanding, perhaps, of social media leaves one of Canada’s largest newspapers with a lot of egg on its face.

Hack has economic impact

Late last week, the Associated Press’ Twitter account was hacked. The fake tweet reported that there had been an explosion at the White House and that President Barack Obama was injured. A horrifying thing to read, especially following heightened worries after events in Boston. Not only did the tweet cause horror for those who saw it, it also had an economic impact: the stock market, following the issuing of the tweet, plunged 130 points.

What is the over-arching theme?

There’s a couple lessons to be taken from these three incidents:

1. Don’t create advertising based on issues that are bound to offend; suicide is far from a laughing matter. While controversy can generate sales and publicity, there’s a very delicate tight-rope walk to go through. Clearly, Hyundai’s ad agency failed and one hopes they are fired in a spectacular fashion.
2. This is perhaps the most important one: verify anything you see on social media with other credible sources. The Toronto Star, in my opinion, has the biggest fail of all three of these stories. Why? Because their damaging, false article impacts the career of a public official. Had they been able to verify MPP Best taking a vacation during sick leave, then it is a legitimate story. A Facebook profile photo tells very little.
3. Protect your accounts. There’s not much more I can say here; it’s the standard stuff: use multiple passwords for your accounts (IE: your Twitter password should be separate from your Facebook password). When it comes to corporate accounts, don’t store your passwords on a shared server. Document and control who has access to your accounts, to help prevent hacking.

There you have it: another Tuesday, another instalment of PR Tuesday. As always, thanks for reading: and if you have seen a bigger fail, please share it by commenting or by posting it to the Facebook page!