Search firm Yahoo is in the middle of a reputational storm right now, and there are some things that it could have done to mitigate the situation.

The situation

May 3rd: A Yahoo shareholder (Daniel Loeb) wants a seat on the board and is having a hard time being listened to. After some investigative work he claims to have discovered that Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson, who was reported to have a computer science undergraduate degree, actually did not. He had a business administration and accounting degree only. What’s more, he claims that the Yahoo board member who headed the committee that recommended Thompson as CEO also had an issue with her degree – saying that she had a degree in marketing and economics when it was really in business administration.

On May 3rd Loeb wrote to the board calling for an investigation and swift removal of the board member and CEO if his claims were proved to be true.

Brand Response

By May 4th the press had begun to report on the matter heavily, and Yahoo’s initial response to journalists was to brush off the allegations, leading to headlines declaring that Yahoo cited an ‘inadvertent error’ and remove the educational details from their site.

However, Kara Swisher of All Things Digital posted a recording of a 2009 interview with Scott Thompson where he didn’t deny that he had a computer science degree – which kind of undermines that argument. Other media outlets started to turn to legal experts for opinion on whether or not the CEO would be able to survive.

The Yahoo board met on May 7th to discuss the internal review, and Thompson issued a memo to employees, seeming to apologise more for causing delays in the company moving forward than for anything he may (or may not) have fudged in his CV.

Press Response

Yahoo released the memo to the press, which produced more articles with headlines citing his ‘bogus college degree’ and in the case of USA Today noting that ‘[he was] not remorseful enough to heed calls for him to resign’. Meanwhile the media mulled over the possibility of Yahoo firing another CEO.

Social Media

Industry leaders began to respond to journalists, with Richard Rosenblatt (CEO of Demand Media) tweeting Kara Swisher that if it were him, he would resign for the good of the Yahoo employees.

While other tweeters mentioned that if it had been any other worker the likelihood is they would have been fired by now.

Former board members even took to Twitter to have their say:

Meanwhile, over on the Yahoo Facebook page, it was business as usual as Yahoo continued to post the latest celebrity news along with more provocative questions, such as this one from May 6th:

Which prompted a bit of a political argument and an apt reference to CEOs:

YouTube videos are also proving a popular method to ridicule the brand.

How could Yahoo have handled things differently?

Well, let’s skip over the whole – you know – checking your new hire’s CVs before you hire them thing, and head straight to what the brand could have done once the news broke.

- Don’t speak until you’re sure of the facts

- Realise the motivation of the ‘attacker’ is irrelevant if what they say is true

- Don’t issue a half-hearted mea culpa – apologise in full or simply say that you take the matter seriously and are investigating

This isn’t the most pressing problem that Yahoo is facing right now, and some people may not see a shareholder v boardroom spat over a line on a CV as that important. After all, no one was injured or killed, and the CEO must be able to do the job otherwise he wouldn’t have lasted a week in the post. The apparent lack of a computer science degree doesn’t mean he can’t turn Yahoo around.

Yet, reputational damage is being done. The longer this plays out in the media and the more experts come on board with their analysis of the situation, the more negative coverage is generated about the brand.

You would think that common sense and decency would kick in here and that no brand would even dream of using a national disaster or traumatic event of any kind to promote its product – especially if said product was completely useless when it comes to responding to the problem at hand. However, you would be wrong.

On April 11th an 8.6 magnitude earthquake occurred under the Indian Ocean – around the same location as the 2004 earthquake that spawned the Boxing Day Tsunami. It was feared that there would be another tsunami, and Thailand, Malaysia and India carried out precautionary evacuations.

It was during the evacuation that someone at KFC Thailand decided to post a supportive message on Facebook which read: “Let’s hurry home and follow the earthquake news. And don’t forget to order your favourite KFC menu.” Yes – because if there’s one thing you think of in the middle of a potentially life threatening situation it’s your craving for fast food.

The brand started to receive hundreds of critical comments on its Facebook page, but it didn’t remove the post, or apologise, until the next day.

Social media presences don’t operate from 9 to 5. A mistake made at 5:30pm will be seen, screen grabbed, tweeted and blogged about hundreds of times before the office opens the next day. Brands need to ensure that social presences are monitored and a crisis team is in place to deal with any out of office hours issues as and when they happen. (The Red Cross is a brilliant example of a brand handling this well.)

Brands born during the social media age have an advantage when it comes to understanding the impact that social media can have on brand image and reputation. Often, these brands have found that social channels have helped them gain a following and create positive brand awareness that they couldn’t have afforded otherwise. But they also realise that social can be used against them. That it’s a way for people to force them to listen and take action.

Procedure processes and internal regulations written in the age of snail mail just aren’t fit for the rapid fire world of social media. A crisis is happening. The brand is coming under fire; its reputation is being damaged. What’s needed is a fast, well thought-out, appropriate response tailored for all effected communications channels. This can only happen if there is a clear strategy in place already, and that can only happen if the brand takes the time to prepare for a crisis when everything is going according to plan. Time to update that crisis training.

One thing that we try to emphasis in our social media crisis training is that brands cannot isolate offline events from spreading to the virtual realm. It just takes one funny picture, one careless sentence in an interview or one bad business decision – soon they’ll be uploaded and shared around social media channels. Before you know it that one small mistake made in one small area of the world is trending on Twitter and it seems like everyone is attacking your brand.

All brands, no matter how much they use social, should ensure that they have a team of people who are ready to respond quickly and appropriately should the brand come under attack.

In March, Australian food retailer Coles committed the now classic faux pas of daring to ask Twitter followers to “Finish this sentence”. These things never end well – especially when you already have people campaigning against the brand. Coles, for example, is at the centre of a protest about the prices the brand offers to farmers. Of course people are going to take this chance to stick it to the brand that they have a beef with.

There were enough funny responses to create a storify page, which included attacks about the brands policy on other issues.

But it’s okay, because Coles was quick to respond. After an hour it tweeted:

It took one hour for Coles to make itself look monumentally out of touch with its customers and their concerns – the brands response did nothing to repair the damage that had been done.

Which takes us to the Canadian bust bus.

Yes, you read that right.

Pity the poor electoral candidate whose campaign team failed to “proof” the all-important campaign bus. Okay, so they spelt her name right, but surely someone on the team has a juvenile sense of humour?

Now, I’m not claiming that this is a major crisis, but if you were running for election would you want your news cycle dominated by people virtually laughing at your bus design? Someone snapped a picture of the bus, which made its way to Twitter, and eventually the major news channels:

If there’s one thing about political campaigns it’s that they respond quickly to this kind of thing. The team emphasised how unimportant this kind of thing was, but said that it was distracting from their issues and it would be changed. (That didn’t stop Leno having some fun with it though – so you could argue that the candidate got some excellent free publicity!)

Meanwhile over the border, another electoral candidate has been facing ridicule as a result of a comment made by a senior aid during a television interview.  Mitt Romney handed his rivals the following perfect quote for their campaign ads:

Interviewer: “Is there a concern that Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election?”

Eric Fehrnstrom: “Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”

This inspired many a social parody regarding how he’ll completely change his opinion on major issues in the Fall – video, photo, Twitter, protests and much more. It also earned him the nickname of the “Etch-a-Sketch candidate”. Rival candidates Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich were even seen handing out Etch-a Sketches at campaign stops. Even protestors started showing up with them.

It has, however, not been too bad for Etch-a-Sketch sales figures – which have gone through the roof.

When President Obama ran for office many credited the campaigns use of social media as a major factor in his victory. Politicians cannot ignore social media, especially during a campaign. Okay, so a funny video or a tweet isn’t going to make a Democrat vote Republican, or visa-versa, but a social media trend of mocking a candidate could help shift the perception of Republican voters trying to choose which candidate they want to run for President.

Another brand that has felt the wrath of social this March was Red Bull. It decided that it would be a fun, creative idea to make an amusing advert about Jesus. It started its on air run on the 14th in South Africa.

The ad was a (supposedly) humorous take on the tale of Jesus walking on water – you see, it wasn’t because he was the son of God and able to perform miracles and such, but because Red Bull gave him wings.

The next day the ad was unceremoniously yanked from air in response to calls from the Church, criticism made via social media and complaints to the South African ASA (who ruled in favour of the complainants and ordered Red Bull to screen the ruling which would be run in place of the original ad).

Red Bull’s response was to say that it “It is never our intention to hurt anyone’s feelings,” and that its adverts were always about “well-known themes.” This is one of those incidents where a brand created the problem all by itself, by showing a lack of culture and religious awareness. Perhaps its target audience wouldn’t find the advert offensive, but TV ads don’t just reach a brands target audience. Any one taking the time to consider the theme of the advert should have come to the conclusion that it would prove offensive to some people – but they aired it anyway.

My personal “favourite” fail of the month originates right here in the UK. It all begins with a pair of sexist trousers.

Unfortunately for men’s clothing retailer Madhouse, a pair of their sexist chinos ended up in the hands of the very un-amused Digital Media Editor of The Telegraph, who tweeted the picture and then reported on it.

The #sexisttrousers hashtag did the rounds on Twitter as people debated if it was or was not funny or sexist (or both or neither). People argued and it wasn’t pretty – at one point sticks were accused of being up certain people’s backsides…

Yes. Heaven forfend someone call the brand up on their sexist washing instructions. Anyway, I digress. The brand responded to the growing #sexisttrousers trend by saying that it had been unaware of its existence and then took to Twitter and said it was meant to be a joke – although obviously not one designed by them to get free PR. No sir ree.

If it was intentional – and if the brand says it wasn’t then who are we to argue – it’s a risky move. Okay, some of their potential customer base will find it funny – but it runs the risk of alienating more people than it wins over. If it wasn’t intentional then one would think that the brand would get rid of the toxic stock asap and apologise for stocking something so stupid.

One common trend when mistakes start to trend on social media is those that claim that the brand, politician, celebrity etc deliberately did whatever they did as a PR stunt – they wanted to generate controversy, to get air time on Leno or mentioned in the Telegraph. It could be true – lord knows there are some balmy people out there – but any PRO worth their salt would advise a client that truckloads of coverage isn’t much use to you if it’s making you look like an idiot.

Several brands had issues that played out over social media in February, but two stood out for all the right reasons.

Kellogg’s Krave had a big problem when someone from the brand posted an outlandish video on the brands Facebook page.

You may feel that a YouTube video of a man standing on a railway line playing chicken with an approaching train doesn’t quite feel like the right way to promote a kids breakfast cereal – you’d be right of course. At the start of the month someone from Kellogg’s Krave posted just such a video on Facebook – around the time that teenage railway deaths had been in the news.

Although frankly inexcusable, the brand did respond quickly by pulling the video and apologising, as well as tweeting the blog that published the story and posting a further apology in the comment section of the post.

Kellogg’s is very active on social media, with the @KelloggsUK Twitter account talking to people throughout the day – it’s not surprising that they were quick to pick up the blog post. The brands rapid response, apology and action meant that it was able to limit the reputational damage and move on.

The next social media crisis shows what could have happened to Kellogg’s it had been a little slower off the mark.

Children’s retailer Kiddicare were selling a range of babygro’s with the slogan “Help I’m being kidnapped these are not my real parents” written across the front. This was noticed by a journalist who called child abduction campaigner @findbenneedham for a response and they tweeted the story. The complaints started to build up on Twitter until two hours after the initial tweet when the brand responded by apologising and withdrawing the item from sale.

Although two hours isn’t a massive delay in responding, it’s two hours when people are tweeting about the brand and campaigning to get the product withdrawn. The absence of an official response during this time is very noticeable and can result in those complaining becoming even more frustrated with the brand for its lack of response.

However, when Kiddicare did respond, it didn’t send out a generic, “we are listening to your views and thinking about our next steps” kind of reply, it apologised and pulled the product from sale. In short, the brand didn’t just say that it was listening to customer feedback, it showed that it was.

This resulted in the company getting positive feedback from Twitter users.

Both Kellogg’s and Kiddicare demonstrated that, although mistakes can happen and brands cannot control people’s response to this mistake, it can ease the situation by responding in the right way. Kellogg’s through close reputation monitoring along with a rapid response, and Kiddicare by just being great at customer service.

Any brand can make a mistake. It’s the response that it will be remembered for.

You read a lot about the bad things said about PR, sadly, often from journalists complaining about spin, badly-written copy, failing to deliver results and so on.

But if start-ups value PR, there must be a good reason. Why does a growing business, for whom cash flow is probably the most important day to day management issue, spend (often their own) money on PR?

Firstly, I think when you’re dealing with a business in its early stages, there’s much more opportunity for the PR team to really support the company’s business objectives. You tend to be involved with the person who’s directly forking out the cash to pay for your time, which focuses the team on the end goal, not the next press cutting. (And you’re more likely to know what that end goal is.) A smaller company can be more agile, signing off copy and responding quickly to media requests, for example. And they’re  less likely to want clearance through 18 layers of corporate communications for a quote, or an interview – all of which can get in the way of good PR, and I know frustrates many PR practitioners.

But the thing I find the most interesting is that the goals are so transparent. Typically, those goals will be one or more of the following:

1)    “I want to attract investment.”
2)    “I want to sell more, and grow to £xx.”
3)     “I want to sell in three to five years,” or, “I want to sell to XX company in three years.”

And often the strategy to achieve these things is very simple:

1)    “I want to get my company’s name out there, so we get on tender lists.”
2)    “I want to punch above my weight, to attract enterprise customers.”
3)    “I want XX company to notice me, so we become an attractive acquisition option.”

These are all things at which PR – done well, and in its widest sense – can really excel. PR isn’t just about media relations (although of course media can be hugely important in developing reputations). It can, and should, be about using all communications channels to reach a target audience – both direct and indirect – and creating content that that audience wants to receive.

By applying thoughtful advice, creativity and sound implementation, PR can make an enormous difference to the growth of a business. And there’s nothing more exciting than being at the start of a company’s journey to becoming a brand, or to being part of a team that helps it achieve such clearly measurable goals.