Dealing With It
I hesitate to write this post because I don’t enjoy “piling on” when my competitors are having a bad day. And yet, I was among the most vocal when Edelman made some bad stumbles last year, so I’d be less than honest if I didn’t mention this episode.
For background on the gaffe in question, I point you to this Valleywag post. In short, an employee at Racepoint Group impersonated “Fake Steve Jobs” (a.k.a. FORBES editor Dan Lyons) in defense of the agency’s client, One Laptop Per Child. You can read the string – including a public apology by one of the agency’s senior execs – here.
Apologizing in the comments section of the post was a good idea, of course. But after being outed in the Valleywag post (which sparked a few other posts by other bloggers), should Racepoint have done anything else?
I can totally empathize with the fervent desire to see this gaffe disappear slowly into the murk of cyberspace. In fact, I was not going to write anything about this issue… until I did a Google search on Racepoint, and saw that the Valleywag post was in the Top 10 results.
As an agency owner myself, that would scare the bejeezus out of me. Given the top-10 prominence of this search result, if it were me I think I’d publish a special post at the Racepoint blog along the lines of, “what went wrong, how we addressed it, and gosh, we are sorry … one of many lessons learned in this new era.”
Short, sweet, painful – but at least an official public acknowledgement. That way, anyone googling the agency’s name may still see the gaffe on-display at Valleywag, but, they’d also be likely to catch the apology at the Racepoint blog.
That’s just PR 101 in the Age of Google, in which our mistakes live online forever.
The truth is that mistakes are gonna happen (follow those links for a reminder of some of our own past challenges). I have no doubt at all that – despite our near-daily in-house conversations about Blogger Relations – someday, someone at SHIFT will make a mistake of this nature. Then it’ll be my butt with the bull’s-eye on it.
When (not if) that happens, all I can promise is that I’ll acknowledge it here, ASAP, and share the lessons learned.
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Yes, in fact a “Lessons Learned–Let Our Dumb Mistakes Be Your Guide”, perhaps comical and self-deprecating, “…then genius here (that would be me) had the bright idea to…and it backfired…and we looked stupid and exploitive, but…” type post.
Put yourself down. Understate your greatness. Laugh at your errors and blunders.
Instead of “gee, we’re so sorry” which always sounds contrived and forced, try saying “gee, you’re not this dumb are you?” in a self-mocking “what were we thinking?” tone that will make people laugh and maybe even feel sorry for you because they can relate.
Edelman Trust Barometer is very helpful in assessing how much credibility any group has. PR and advertising, not so good.
:^)
Yes, I think you are right on. The reality about the generous web is that it’s only generous if you are accountable, open and honest. That includes owning mistakes, and making amends for them. Publicly.
Robert Scoble — like him or not — is a master of the public blog apology (see yesterday’s .NET incident).
Hi Todd:
Thanks for watching our back!
I’m George Snell and work at Racepoint Group where I help spearhead media relations for OLPC (we’re all volunteers on that account).
I think you captured the essence of the situation in your post, but I’d like to point you and your readers to our RaceTalk blog.
We have, indeed, posted about it:
http://racetalk.wordpress.com/2007/10/05/a-lesson-learned/
Thanks,
George
George, thanks for taking my post today in the spirit with which it was intended. Your own post at the RP blog does the job.
Great post Todd, and well framed too.
I’m equally impressed with George’s response, both above and on the RaceTalk blog. Sounds like a lesson learned indeed.
This is a great case study on transparency. On the same theme, I attended a panel discussion yesterday where David Jones (of Fleishman-Hillard) talked about the importance of being transparent online – “…you WILL get found out.”
100% true.
Even with all this discussion about transparency in the blogosphere, I STILL get crazy requests from clients where they want to pitch their product in a less than transparent way. Good thing that I am used to repeating myself over and over again (I’m a parent!).
It’s important to have integrity, speak the truth and be “on brand” or these situations will occur. Blogging is a powerful medium and search engines enjoy blog posts, so you need to be careful what you write about.
Speaking of mistakes, check out this “cringer” by LifeScan’s agency:
http://www.diabetesmine.com/2007/10/lifescan-market.html
Another suggestion (in addition to posting apology on own blog) is looking into posting a Google comment on the piece. That way, someone who Googles RP (and finds “scandal” in top 10 results) would also see their official comment appear next to those pieces. I hear it’s a great crisis management tool.