Top 2010 PR blunders!
Some PR slip-ups are spur-of-the-moment, while others are planned events gone wrong. A few days after one of their wells in the Gulf of Mexico began spewing crude into the sea, BP started making some PR maneuvers that haven’t exactly been successful. It is my opinion that their handling of the spill worsened by the day through their PR. This PR debacle from BP got me thinking about other PR mistakes that have been made this year. I’ve compiled a list of my worst PR moves this year (so far) and I am sure when the experts finally sit down at the end of the year to take stock, many of these will make the list.
No. 1 - Tony Hayward CEO BP.
It is hardly surprising that he takes this place, especially that this piece was sparked off by his poor handling of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This rather smart and nice looking gentleman kept making PR mistakes, one after the other, one would wonder who his PR advisors were. The lowest for me is when he insinuated that the whole ‘oil spill’ affair had taken away too much of his life and he ‘wanted it back’. This was absolutely insensitive to the families and friends of those who had lost loved ones in the disaster, not to mention those whose livelihoods had been affected.
No. 2 – Ladies Man Tiger Woods
I am not a follower of Golf and I don’t really know about what goes on between the holes! For years however, I followed the success of Tiger Woods as one of my own. All I could imagine was Tiger holding a golf club, winning title after title and going down as one of the greatest ever to play the game. Little did I know that when he teed off from the public eye, he went putting on wrong courses. After his car struck a tree as he fled from the family home in Orlando, I was among those who began questioning, “what’s up with Tiger?” My man’s reaction to all the publicity surrounding his very poor effort at re-enacting the stunts of ‘Top Gear’ was to go mute and to be the only one in the world not talking about what had happened. By the time his PR people decided that it was time for the champion to come out, so much reputation and image had been destroyed it will take him ages to rebuild it.
No. 3 – Kag’s AK 47 stunt at Bududa
I was in Accra, when the unfortunate events of Bududa unfolded. Naturally, a disaster in Africa was not a news item to be dismissed by most editors all over the world. While watching TV with a group of friends and trying to feel for the souls that had perished in the mudslides, pictures of my President were beamed over the television, AK 47 slung around his chest. For a moment, I thought I was the only one who had seen this peculiar posture - that was before questions about our security started flying my way. My explanations that my President was a man of the people and he would not normally do such a thing where people are in suffering fell on deaf ears. And I was not to hear the last of it, recently while in Nairobi another friend of mine brought up the subject of Uganda’s No.1 citizen visiting a mudslide hit village with an AK 47. I was not in the country when this happened but I think the President’s PR people owe us an explanation.
N0.4 - John Terry’s attempted mutiny in SA
Any keen FA Premiership follower knows how media savvy JT is. His reaction to the allegations that he had a fling with a teammate’s girl friend was impeccable. In fact many of us who knew about the situation of Tiger Woods, suggested that the Golfer could do with some lessons from the man who turns out for Abramovich’s side. I don’t know if it was us who were wrong, or our man eventually became over confident with the way he deals with media. Using his strengths in this area, he (completely oblivious of the fact that he was no longer team captain) convened a press conference and declared how there was going to be some straight talking between the Manager and the England team. This was in the wake of England’s awful performance against Algeria and his bawl was unsurprisingly picked up and carried by all news outlets. All we know is that ‘the straight talk meeting’ never took place and the next time the England team walked out of the tunnel to play against Slovenia, JT wings had been trimmed. He walked like a dog with a tail between its legs and that’s the last we heard of him.
Definitely open to different opinions and debate, I would love to hear your comments and thoughts.
No. 1 - Tony Hayward CEO BP.
It is hardly surprising that he takes this place, especially that this piece was sparked off by his poor handling of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This rather smart and nice looking gentleman kept making PR mistakes, one after the other, one would wonder who his PR advisors were. The lowest for me is when he insinuated that the whole ‘oil spill’ affair had taken away too much of his life and he ‘wanted it back’. This was absolutely insensitive to the families and friends of those who had lost loved ones in the disaster, not to mention those whose livelihoods had been affected.
No. 2 – Ladies Man Tiger Woods
I am not a follower of Golf and I don’t really know about what goes on between the holes! For years however, I followed the success of Tiger Woods as one of my own. All I could imagine was Tiger holding a golf club, winning title after title and going down as one of the greatest ever to play the game. Little did I know that when he teed off from the public eye, he went putting on wrong courses. After his car struck a tree as he fled from the family home in Orlando, I was among those who began questioning, “what’s up with Tiger?” My man’s reaction to all the publicity surrounding his very poor effort at re-enacting the stunts of ‘Top Gear’ was to go mute and to be the only one in the world not talking about what had happened. By the time his PR people decided that it was time for the champion to come out, so much reputation and image had been destroyed it will take him ages to rebuild it.
No. 3 – Kag’s AK 47 stunt at Bududa
I was in Accra, when the unfortunate events of Bududa unfolded. Naturally, a disaster in Africa was not a news item to be dismissed by most editors all over the world. While watching TV with a group of friends and trying to feel for the souls that had perished in the mudslides, pictures of my President were beamed over the television, AK 47 slung around his chest. For a moment, I thought I was the only one who had seen this peculiar posture - that was before questions about our security started flying my way. My explanations that my President was a man of the people and he would not normally do such a thing where people are in suffering fell on deaf ears. And I was not to hear the last of it, recently while in Nairobi another friend of mine brought up the subject of Uganda’s No.1 citizen visiting a mudslide hit village with an AK 47. I was not in the country when this happened but I think the President’s PR people owe us an explanation.
N0.4 - John Terry’s attempted mutiny in SA
Any keen FA Premiership follower knows how media savvy JT is. His reaction to the allegations that he had a fling with a teammate’s girl friend was impeccable. In fact many of us who knew about the situation of Tiger Woods, suggested that the Golfer could do with some lessons from the man who turns out for Abramovich’s side. I don’t know if it was us who were wrong, or our man eventually became over confident with the way he deals with media. Using his strengths in this area, he (completely oblivious of the fact that he was no longer team captain) convened a press conference and declared how there was going to be some straight talking between the Manager and the England team. This was in the wake of England’s awful performance against Algeria and his bawl was unsurprisingly picked up and carried by all news outlets. All we know is that ‘the straight talk meeting’ never took place and the next time the England team walked out of the tunnel to play against Slovenia, JT wings had been trimmed. He walked like a dog with a tail between its legs and that’s the last we heard of him.
Definitely open to different opinions and debate, I would love to hear your comments and thoughts.
Comments