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Google’s Fight Ebola Campaign

The outbreak of Ebola virus in 2014 was critical as it was spread among many countries and
took many lives. Google, to help the people in need and to build up a positive brand image,
started a donation campaign where it pledged to give $2 for every $1 donated to the cause
through its website.
The public relations strategy attracted the media attention and resulted to be a huge success
as Google raised $7.5 million.
Google announced it would pledge $2 for every dollar donated through its website. They set
up a specific URL, onetoday.google.com/fightebola, to explain this social initiative and
invite people across the world to contribute. After the launch, when typing “Google ebola
campaign” into a search engine, over 22 million results were returned, including news,
articles, and mentions of the fundraising campaign, which raised over $7 million to fight
Ebola.
 SOCIAL MEDIA MESSAGING

Facebook Paris Support Profile Pictures

In response to tragic shooting in Paris in 2015 where at least
129 people died, Facebook added a France flag filter which
the users could apply to their profile pictures to support
France. Millions of people applied this filter and appreciated
this effort by Facebook.
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Are In-House PR Leaders Using Twitter Enough? by Aarti Shah

Only 40% of the Influence 100 are active on Twitter — and the most active users tend to be men.
This year, we took a deeper look at the social footprint of the Influence 100— the Holmes Report's listing of the
most powerful in-house communicators from around the globe. Somewhat surprisingly, we found that only 40%
of the Influence 100 are active Twitter users. Yet just last week, WPP founder/CEO Martin Sorrell
 told the Holmes Report, "Twitter itself, you could argue that has been the single most important force that has
helped the PR industry. It’s very powerful." 

So, what is driving communications leaders to use — or not use — Twitter? For one, Twitter usage doesn't appear
to be influenced by whether an organization's CEO is on the platform. We looked at the top 10 most active
Twitter users on the Influence 100 and only three work for organizations where the CEO uses Twitter: Unilever,
Microsoft and (not surprisingly) Twitter. All 10, however, work for organizations that heavily use Twitter to
engage with various audiences. 
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 BAD PR

 
Bad Swim England, the national governing body for swimming
in England, has been the bearer of bad PR this week, after
uploading an article onto its website offering advice to women
wanting to look slimmer in their swimwear.
The blog entry – headlined ‘Choosing swimwear for women’
focused on how to pick the right swimwear for your body type.
Trouble is, it included lines such as: “Bikinis totally expose a
jiggly belly and trying to squeeze it into a one-piece will not
slim your stomach, only emphasise it.” So, you can imagine
how that went down (*spoiler alert*… like a lead balloon).
Cosmopolitan’s recent PR crisis revolved around a tweet and
article headline, “How This Woman Lost 44 Pounds without
*ANY* Exercise.” The woman was able to lose the weight as
a result of a rare cancer. Readers were extremely disturbed
and attacked Cosmo, which eventually changed the headline
to “A Serious Health Scare Helped Me Love My Body More
than Ever.”

Neither Cosmo or Hearst Communications (the company that

owns the magazine) have owned up to this tactless mistake. I
believe Cosmo should have issued an apology for its
insensitivity – the public will remember that it didn’t. Cosmo
and Hearst will move on from this, but Cosmo’s brand
reputation has been smeared by it. The general public spent
days anticipating – and posting about – an apology that was
never made.
Adidas made a tone-deaf move by sending out an email to
Boston Marathon participants with the subject line,
“Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!” the day
after this year's marathon – just four years after the
bombings at the 2013 marathon. The backlash was
immediate, and Adidas spokeswoman Maria Culp quickly
issued a public apology the same day saying, “We are
incredibly sorry. There was no thought given to the
insensitive email subject line we sent Tuesday. We deeply
apologize for our mistake.”

Clearly, Adidas’ email marketing team made a mistake.

But the company's immediate, heartfelt public apology
was the right move because it prevented the incident from
receiving bad press for an extended amount of time and
turning into a negative three- to five-day story.
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