Even in this tough economic climate, there always seems to be a situation or crisis in which public relations professionals are asked to help restore a corporation’s image or to mimize the reputational damage of the key players in the case. There were several PR nightmare issues that came about this week, and one in particular stood out for me for crisis communications and reputation management. The case that I am referring to is the DDB Brazil and WWF. This is a case where there was an advertisement titled “Tsunami” with the WWF logo where it shows a picture of New York City and the copy of the advertisement read: “The Tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it.” WWF released a press release about the situation on their web site and issued a statement:
“WWF strongly condemns this offensive and tasteless ad and did not authorize its production or publication. It is our understanding that it was a concept offered by an outside advertising agency in Brazil. The concept was summarily rejected by WWF and should never have seen the light of day. It is an unauthorized use of our logo and we are aggressively pursuing action to have it removed from websites where it is being currently featured. We strongly condemn the messages and the images portrayed in this ad. On behalf of WWF, here in the US and around the world, we can promise you this ad does not in any way reflect the thoughts and feelings of the people of our organization.”
Of course, WWF actively denied that it created the ad and released several statments expressing their displeasure with DDB Brazil for using their logo inappropriately. However, it was recently published that DDB Brazil in fact created an ad and submitted it to the Cannes Film Festival. The media has taken this story and it has become a global public relations and crisis communication situation for the organization. With this new information surfacing, WWF is appearing more negatively and not as transparent – one has to question if they had thought that this information was not going to be published and if they had a plan in place if it did. This incident alone shows that the WWF organization is not being open and honest with who they are as an organization, and what their brand stands for. Plus, this situation was brought up by individuals using social media – which does show how the new form of technology is creating an outlet for people to share and discuss issues that are relevant to them.
The strategic implications of this case study for public relations professionals is that corporations have to be aware if they actively deny their involvement in a sensitive situation impacting their corporate reputation negatively, they have to be willing to stand up to those statements. In the case of WWF and the 9/11 ad, the organization was denying their involvement with the ad, but they actually did. Corporations need to be upfront and honest about their actions to their key stakeholders in both non-crisis and crisis situations. Plus, they have to be aware that they can’t control the messages about themselves online – people are communicating on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. – and they are doing it fast and effectively.
This is another case where PR professionals have to be aware that they have to monitor not only news coverage, but issues and trends that individuals in their key stakeholder groups are deeming to be salient to them. By knowing what these issues and trends are, PR professionals can proactively plan their strategies and tactics to address them for future campaigns.
Hope you all are having a great day.
Best Wishes,
Karen
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