Company PR Blunders in Incorporating Diversity and Awareness

Over the past few years a number of companies have made PR blunders that expose how much work there is still to do in building our capacity to manage our efforts to effectively engage diversity and inclusion, and to communicate about these issues strategically. Often when these events happen, I feel personally frustrated - as our readings from this lesson week explain - it is not only difficult, but almost impossible to extract ourselves from situations that promote inequity, and we cannot expect our customers, staff, clients, publics or audiences to separate themselves from our communications either.
For this week's discussion post, choose one of the examples from the list below (or choose another example that you are familiar with), describe the controversy facing the company/organization, and then use what you have learned this week, and throughout this course, to describe how you think the organization could have handled their public messaging more effectively.
I welcome you to share any of your own personal reflection - and if you know of a case example that is more personally relevant for you, please feel free to choose that example for your post. You'll notice that I have tried to share examples that are little bit removed from our "immediate situation" - so that you might have a chance to create a new reflection or idea.
However, especially if you have an example from an international context, or another situation - feel free to share! Be sure to include a link, image or other relevant details so that we can understand the situation. And be sure to reference at least one course material in making your case for how the organization should have reacted/responded.
Here are some case options to choose from:
1) A Major Fashion Mishap: H&M’s “Coolest Monkey In The Jungle”
H&M released a poorly thought-out ad of one of their products which ignited a press and social media sandstorm. The clothing-retail company featured a young black boy wearing a hoodie which read “Coolest monkey in the jungle”. Many people found it to be racist, inappropriate and negligent. The company reacted by sending out their first apology a day after the image was noticed. Neither the CEO nor the chairman’s names were associated with this crisis and no names of any higher-ups in the company were found in the apology post.(https://www(dot)standard(dot)co(dot)uk/news/uk/h-m-apologises-after-coming-under-fire-over-racist-hoodie-a3734291.html)
2) A Total Fashion Disaster: Gucci’s Blackface Sweater
The $890, black turtleneck was removed from its website after people said that the sweater resembled a black face. Many twitter users were outraged that Gucci would release such a garment during Black History Month and demanded the product was removed from sale. The company did so and took to Twitter to release a statement: “Gucci deeply apologizes for the offense caused by the wool balaclava jumper. We consider diversity to be a fundamental value to be fully upheld, respected, and at the forefront of every decision we make’’. Angry social media users expressed that if more people of color worked at the fashion house, this insensitive garment may have been flagged as inappropriate and racist before being sold and would have definitely saved them making this serious fashion error.(https://www(dot)theguardian(dot)com/fashion/2019/feb/07/gucci-withdraws-jumper-blackface-balaclava)
3) A Beauty Blunder: Sephora Closes For Diversity Training
The company faced backlash when singer, SZA blasted on social media about her experience at a Sephora store in Calabasas, California where she was followed by security after an employee accused her of shoplifting. The company reacted well on social media for taking forceful action by holding “inclusivity” workshops after the incident of racial profiling with their immediate response to SZA’s tweet saying, “You are a part of the Sephora family, and we are committed to ensuring every member of our community feels welcome and included at our stores”. Unfortunately, their response wasn’t quite so well received when it came to light that the training was a pre-planned initiative that actually had nothing to do with the SZA incident – in fact, they just lied to make it seem as though it was. (https://www(dot)independent(dot)co(dot)uk/life-style/fashion/sephora-stores-closing-diversity-training-sza-racial-profiling-incident-a8941521.html)
4) Burger Backlash: Burger Kings Veganuary Mess-Up
Adopting a vegan diet has become pretty popular in the UK over the past few years for various reasons and has left quite a lot of restaurants and food brands in a position where they’ve needed to move with the times. Many fast food restaurants including Greggs, KFC and McDonalds have launched products suitable for vegan consumers to their menus and have been praised for doing so. Burger King chose to do the same and during Veganuary launched a plant-based burger, which in theory sounds great if you’re a vegan. Wrong. The product actually isn’t suitable for vegans! The Soy based burger is cooked on the same grill as the meat burgers and therefore can’t be eaten by vegans – which sort of defeats the point of it being a vegan burger. Of course, this was picked up by the press and spoken about on social media. Burger King responded by saying that ‘the burger was for flexitarians and designed for people who want to cut down on their meat consumption, not cut out meat completely.’ Using an awareness month as a hook to launch a product that isn’t actually suitable for your audience isn’t such a great idea.(https://www(dot)bbc(dot)com/news/business-51005974)
Reading:
Communication practitioners are more effective when they embrace, support and understand the value of diversity and diverse perspectives. These readings and the video for this lesson week, calls for you to explore how multicultural experiences and perspectives shape our identities, audiences and message design.
The reading from the Institute from Public Relations for this lesson week is a little longer than some of our other readings for this class; you do not need to read this in its entirety or try to commit it to memory. The goal of including this piece, and the final PRSA pieces is to give you an opportunity to gain an understanding of the how deep and rich this body of conversation is in the field.
1. Read Sisneros, Stakeman, Joyner, & Schmitz. (2008) Self-awareness, Critical Reflectivity, and Identity (Chapter 2). In Critical Multicultural Social Work, Lyceum Books (attached).
2. Read Patrick Coffee's "8 Tips for Engaging Multicultural Audiences." (attached). This article reflects one type of work that communications professionals have taken up in the past decade as we work to develop inclusive messaging for our audiences. It is a great summary of strategies you should consider in your own approaches.
3. Read "How to Avoid Just 'Checking the Box' on Disability Inclusivity in the Workplace" from AdWeek. (attached). This piece is part of a recent AdWeek series and includes responses from interviews with top advertising and marketing professionals about this important topic that highlights a consideration for us as communication professionals. The key here is to recognize that our work happens both with the messaging we do outside to audiences and inside, within our workspaces.
4. Read "What Does Healthy Masculinity Have to Do with Advertising?" by Jason Rosario (attached). This is another AdWeek piece by one of the most prominent execs in the industry describing his take on what professionals need to be doing to advance the work.
There are so, so many ways to discussion issues of inclusion - these are just a few topics that should be on your awareness radar and part of your professional consideration in your work.
Also review Diversity & Public Relations Practice by E. Toth (2009) published by the Institute for Public Relations. This is considered one of the significant pieces in our field. This is the piece that you should review to have a sense of what competencies are expected for communication professionals, and the nature of the work in our field. (https://instituteforpr(dot)org/diversity-and-pr-practice/)