Reputation Management: How to Handle a PR Disaster

Yesterday, I happened across a marketing stumble made by a local restaurant. Stobie’s Pizza is a local pizzeria located in downtown London. They are a family-owned business in operation since 1997, and one of their daily promotions involves a giveaway related to the day’s selected names. Anyone with the chosen names can go to the store to receive a free slice of pizza that day.

No strings attached.

I have seen plenty of people share Stobie’s posts with friends who happen to have the magical name that day. It is a feel-good promotion that everyone loves. It obviously works too, as they have over 11.4 k followers on Twitter and more than 17 k followers on Facebook. Those are some impressive numbers!

A Lesson in PR Disasters

The problem was, yesterday they decided to honour the untimely passing of NBA star Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna—Kobe and Gianna were the names of the day. Many people were touched by this. But there were others who were not. They cried shame at the company for trying to hone in on a tragedy. That was not their intent, but the backlash was swift.

Fortunately, the company is well aware that social media marketing is a tricky thing to maneuver and requires constant vigilance and monitoring. They quickly wrote a post which they shared on their social feeds apologizing to anyone who may have been inadvertently offended. I believe they handled the potential gaffe in an appropriate way and should be commended by their swift response.

Reputation Management

The world of social media can be a hard place to work in. We live in an age where people respond immediately and sometimes unpredictably to everything and anything posted online. As a business, you need to be constantly vigilant to prevent PR disasters, like this one could have been. By ignoring it, word could have spread further, damaging their reputation. By responding to individuals, they could have become embroiled in a shouting match that again could have ended poorly. Instead, they acknowledged that people were upset, explained their reasoning, and apologized. A perfect response. They also proved they listen to their audience, as today they are using the names of the other passengers who lost their lives on the flight in their daily giveaway. Bravo.

I consider this a timely lesson in the importance of reputation management: in monitoring your accounts and knowing how to handle missteps when they arise. Always address issues directly and professionally. And remember that you are dealing with people. We are a fickle and diverse bunch. You can’t please everyone all of the time, but you need to be forthright and honest in your dealing with everyone regardless.

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Good job Stobie’s. You earned my respect yesterday.

Oh, and if your name happens to be John, Kerri, Alyssa, Christina, Sarah, Payton, or Ara, head over to 484 Richmond St today to get your free slice.