It seems that celebrities and companies do a lot of stupid things, and the internet is always there nowadays to point it out to us. How else would the world have heard about (and been outraged by) this?
But, thankfully, they can always resort to the online world and social media to address the issue directly and say sorry. Over the past few days i’ve seen two big apologies for marketing gone wrong that were posted and discussed online.
Woolworths was forced to apologise for a line of apparel that was described as “divisive” and “racist.” Read here.
And Bono took to Facebook to apologise for forcing U2’s new album upon all iTunes users. Read here.
While we all probably would have heard about the U2 debacle (and been personally victimised by Bono in the process), I would never have known that Woolworths had released racist singlets without the spread of the scandal throughout social media and the online world.
You may think these actions by celebrities or organisations would come to your attention organically, however social media sometimes demands that we have an opinion on something that we may have missed in the first place. I myself don’t watch Family Feud, however I read an article via Facebook that wanted to know what I thought about the show.
Do you think it was sexist, or innocent enough? Let us know on our Facebook page
So what do you think, does social media make it easier to say sorry in the digital world? Or is social media the reason for saying sorry?
– Todd
mymarketingtoddyssey 
Good questions, Todd. I always feel that the “proactive” use of social media for PR is so much more effective than the “reactive” approach. Rather than waiting for the negative word-of-mouth, maybe companies can get in first, and apologise before the storm hits?
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Exactly! I feel as though some of them are just hoping that the storm will pass and no one will notice, but you can’t always guarantee that. Better to be proactive I think, especially if you see that people are talking about it.
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A bit of both! An apology on social media isn’t difficult to make but probably wouldn’t have been required in the first place had the issue not been cross-published on social media platforms a zillion times. So I guess they sort of counteract each other!
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