19 Jan Why PR Has to Chill Out and Accept Online Criticism
PR is essentially about reputation management. Which makes us all, ever-so-slightly, control freaks. We like to be in charge of our brands and what people say about them. We like to steer the conversation. And we like to be able to positively influence what people think of them. That was all lovely and wonderful until recently. And then along came blogging. And Twitter. And Trip Adviser. And Facebook. And numerous other social channels where people could say what they like, when they like, how they like. And as PRs, we don’t like that. At all.
Gap and Starbucks have both recently come under fire in social media circles for having the audacity to alter their own, hard-earned brand equity and unveil new logos to their devoted fans. With the former, Gap in fact reversed its decision and stuck with its old/current logo. By why? Why did marketers and brand managers allow a spate of online criticism to completely change corporate strategy and waste (probably) tens of thousands of pounds? Did they seriously believe the Gap brand would be damaged by simply changing their logo, and that people would stop shopping with them as a result? In my view, backing down made things far, far worse. It made Gap look indecisive and stupid, rather than responsive.
From a PR perspective, we’re used to jumping on criticism and addressing it before it becomes a ‘crisis’. It’s all part of the job. But when it comes to online criticism, we can easily spend our entire working lives running around like headless chickens getting all worked up about the latest social media disapproval if we don’t just chill the hell out! What some forget (or perhaps don’t understand) is that it takes seconds to tweet something negative or post a comment on Facebook, and even less to click the Like button. It’s so easy a monkey could do it. But do the dissenting clicks of a few hundred monkeys really mean anything or hold any weight?
I’m all for crowd-sourcing; involving online communities in creative decisions at an early stage and gaining their input. But once a decision has been taken and announced, then surely we have to relax and expect some criticism. I’m not talking about being complacent and I totally advocate listening to what’s being said and acknowledging people’s feelings. Hell, apologise if appropriate. But people don’t like change and some will rise up against anything, especially when it comes to creative input. What’s more important is the big picture: does it really impact someone’s life that Starbucks changes its logo? Of course it doesn’t! People like Starbucks because of the coffee, not the logo! So Starbucks was right to stand firm, take the abuse and move on. Good for them.
For everyone working in PR and marketing, how about we learn to take a deep breath, sit back and really evaluate things before jumping in online? By all means involve your communities in the decision making process, listen to them and thank them. But once you decide on a course of action, stick with it and don’t get freaked out just because not everyone likes it. You’ll never please all of the people all of the time. Fact.
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