In the News–Social Media
PR Nightmares: United Fiasco Among Worst Corporate Gaffes
Christopher Palmeri and Jeff Green, Bloomberg, April 11, 2017
When it comes to bad public relations, it’s pretty tough to top the sight of a United Airlines passenger being dragged, bloodied and screaming, from a flight.
The incident, including two attempts at apology by Chief Executive Officer Oscar Munoz, has been airing on cable TV and raging on social media for days. But the fiasco is hardly the first self-inflicted corporate blunder. Munoz can take comfort that it’s happened to others, and in many cases the bosses didn’t lose their jobs, as our PR Tales From Hell illustrate.
Over Easter week in 2009, two Domino’s Pizza employees in North Carolina posted a video on YouTube showing one sticking cheese up his nose and pretending to sneeze on a customer’s sandwich. With the clip reaching one million views, management fired the employees, sanitized the store and produced its own video with a formal apology from President Patrick Doyle.
The company’s response was to show outrage and take action, said Davia Temin, head of the New York-based crisis-management firm Temin & Co. CEO David Brandon kept his job and now runs Toys “R” Us Inc. Doyle succeeded him. […read more]
Crisis of the Week: Hacked Twitter Account Gives McDonald’s Indigestion
Ben DiPietro, The Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal, March 27, 2017
The crisis magnifying lens puts it focus on McDonald’s Corp. after a message was sent on the company’s Twitter account calling President Donald Trump “a disgusting excuse of a President” and trolling him by saying he has “tiny hands.” The White House did not comment, but some supporters of the president called for a boycott of the burger chain.
McDonald’s said it was notified by Twitter that its account was hacked. McDonald’s deleted the tweet, secured its account and said an internal investigation found the account had been hacked by “an external source.” The company put out a statement apologizing that “this tweet was sent through our corporate McDonald’s account.”
The experts evaluate how well McDonald’s handled this crisis.
“The fake tweet sent from McDonalds’ Twitter account on March 16 that disparaged President Donald Trump catapulted the company into the land of alt-tweetdom,” said Davia Temin. “Today, as companies and individuals alike struggle to delineate truth from fiction in public discourse, McDonalds had an immediate imperative to let the public know it had not officially sent the insulting tweet. It had to act quickly to set the record straight, before it even knew what really had happened. It couldn’t let a lie stand. It did an excellent job.” […read more]
Four Years of Living Dangerously: CEOs Brace for the Trump Era
Matt Townsend, Bloomberg Technology, December 19, 2016
As president-elect, Donald Trump is pro-business and a champion of corporate tax cuts. And anti-free trade and a big-company bully.
That’s a disorienting mix for chief executive officers trying to suss out whether Trump in the White House will be a blessing or bad luck. Planning ahead’s no easy task when the next commander in chief is a guy with a hair-trigger Twitter finger who touts policies that could both help and hurt U.S. companies.
“It will be a fascinating experience to see how things that have worked inside global organizations translate to the political arena,” said Davia Temin, founder of the crisis-management company Temin & Co.
For all that, the victim of a Twitter pounce must be careful, she said. “Never start a press war with someone who can outgun you.” […read more]
Donald Trump just tweeted about you — what do you do?
Cory Schouten, CBS MoneyWatch, December 9, 2016
A high-profile dustup this week between Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and President-elect Donald Trump has left corporate board members and CEOs on edge.
Shortly after news emerged that Muilenburg had questioned Trump’s stance on trade in a speech in Chicago, the president-elect fired back with tweets threatening to cancel the company’s contract to build two new Air Force One jets. Boeing’s stock fell but eventually recovered after the CEO and Mr. Trump made nice on a phone call. (Boeing also pledged $1 million toward the inauguration festivities.)
The exchange was a cautionary tale for business leaders who are accustomed to a certain way of interacting with political leaders, said Davia B. Temin, president and CEO of a boutique management consultancy focusing on crisis and reputation management.
Temin, who advises several industrial, biotech and financial firms, including Fortune 500 companies, talked with CBS MoneyWatch about the implications of the Trump-Muilenburg exchange. […read more]
Crisis of the Week: Tesla Slams the Brakes on Seat Belt Problem
Ben DiPietro, The Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal, November 30, 2015
The crisis this week deals with Tesla Motor’s decision to recall all Model S cars—about 90,000 of them—because of a problem reported with a seat belt in one of the vehicles. The company said even though the car in question wasn’t involved in an accident, and no one was hurt—and the problem wasn’t found on 3,000 other vehicles it inspected—it decided to proceed with a full recall nonetheless. “We have decided to conduct a voluntary recall as a proactive and precautionary measure to inspect all front Model S seat belts and make absolutely sure that they are properly connected,” the company said in a letter sent to every Model S owner.
Using only the public statements made by the company, or the comments it sent to owners, we asked the experts to evaluate whether the company is doing the right thing with a total recall, or overreacting to a minor problem in one vehicle. Is there more to the company’s response than just dealing with a seat belt issue?
Davia Temin, chief executive, Temin and Co. says: “In this highly unstable world of social media–where anything can catch fire or be totally ignored–Tesla has wisely understood that overreaction can keep problems from going ballistic. Throw every wise solution you have at an incipient problem, especially if human life is at stake, and no one will ever doubt your trustworthy intent.” […read more]
The CEO apology, in 14 tweets
Jena McGregor, The Washington Post, November 21, 2014
When Uber CEO Travis Kalanick rattled off a series of 14 tweets Tuesday afternoon, most of the attention was on what he said rather than how he said it. While Kalanick may have intended to apologize for the controversy that erupted after one of Uber’s executives suggested digging into the personal lives of journalists, he was chided for the sorry-not-sorry nature of his remarks.
Yet his decision to issue that apology via a “tweetstorm” — a series of tweets on a single subject — was also a head scratcher. Using a series of tweets, rather than a single one that links to a blog post or press release for more information, has become an increasingly popular vehicle for corporate communications. But that might be misguided.
Davia Temin says she generally likes the idea of executives using a tweetstorm: It has a feel of spontaneity and authenticity, and the flood of comments can prompt greater visibility for the CEO’s remarks. If an executive is using it to lay out a position or discuss an industry issue, it can be “a brilliant use of the medium,” she says. “People report on a tweetstorm more than a blog.” […read more]
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