What started out as a customer service “don’t” for FedEx has turned into a PR “do.”
We’ve all watched—all 9 million of us!—the YouTube video of the FedEx employee carelessly tossing a computer monitor over a gate and onto the lawn of his customer. In case you haven’t, here it is:
By now you’ve likely read about the negative press Best Buy has been receiving, and you may have even read the CEO’s blog response to the coverage. This response has been receiving the predictable praise and pans from various circles of the blogosphere…and with good reason. There are some things the response managed to achieve very successful, and in my opinion there are some things Best Buy could have done better.
As a PR practitioner, I’ve long recoiled at hearing the term “spin” being applied to my profession. I don’t think of myself as a “spin artist,” nor do I advocate that companies and executives master the art of “spin” when dealing with the media and constituents. Rather, I prefer they speak in plain English. Audiences are people, too, after all.
Be prepared in order to avoid mistakes… and be prepared to manage when you make them anyway.
Politics, paparazzi princesses, professional athletes…anyone who is a position to present themselves to their communities needs to be prepared to manage their perception like any company manages a brand.
During last week’s republican debate, Texas Governor Rick Perry initiated a media frenzy with an embarrassing flub of forgetting a major portion of his political platform—an agency he would choose to remove from government.
It is a classic and relevant example of someone getting out in front of the story. Suh could’ve very well left well enough alone, allowing the reputation to fester and living with the consequences. But a negative public perception was affecting his ability to be successful on the field (and likely in the endorsement arena—the rest of the “business” associated with professional sports), so he took action to correct it.
