THE NEGATIVE PUBLICITY ENIGMA
Robert Walker wrote an article recently in the New York Times Magazine section entitled Good News, Bad News, about the negative publicity the GAP received over its attempt to change its iconic logo; and, in general, the fallout or lack thereof that can be expected from negative attacks.
He’s got a point. The old adage that any publicity, negative or positive, is good publicity is certainly not always true. But some forms of negative publicity don’t always do harm. Such is the case with the GAP logo fiasco.
What forms of negative publicity can hurt an organization? Clearly, reports of poor goods and/or services can be harmful. Reports of Johnson & Johnson’s tainted products over the last year have not helped its image. Reports of poor airline service have the effect of customers shopping for alternatives. A hotel devastated by a hurricane or earthquake or a terrorist incident has the same effect.
Stories about poor management will also turn customers off. Look at the banking and investment banking industry. All of these kinds of negative publicity have the effect of creating a crisis, and require skilled crisis management to counter the effects. The crisis management needed has to tackle two fronts: operationally to truly “fix” the problem and crisis communication to inform the public.
But there are other forms of negative publicity that don’t affect products, services or management, such as the GAP logo situation. True, some people were offended or reacted poorly to the proposed change, but what of it? It would take an extraordinarily sensitive GAP shopper or potential GAP shopper to boycott GAP because of this event.
A business crisis is one that effects a company’s reputation or bottom line. Did an unpopular proposed logo change genuinely affect GAP’s reputation? Did it affect the company’s bottom line? I think not. If it did, it was very short-lived and very ineffective. In fact, most stories about the incident stressed the many attributes about the business, its clothing products and its branding success. While GAP would most likely have opted for no publicity over its logo, no harm was done.
The moral of the story? Manage well. Provide excellent products and services. You may still be unable to avoid negative publicity or a crisis that is beyond your control but if your base is solid you will weather the storm.
Tags: benefits of negative publicity, Communication failures, crisis management, damage from negative publicity, Dealing With The Public, Rhodell Group, self inflicted business crises