We're Sorry
Often in Communications, a major company will experience a calamity or public crisis. Perhaps a serious technical issue or perhaps an important figure in the organization makes a verbal misstep or societal gaffe. Sometimes the way a company perceives an advertising campaign is interpreted completely different by the audience it was intended for and not for the better. In these cases, it's of utmost importance to deal with the crisis swiftly, and with empathy and honesty.
On July 8, 2022, the Canadian telecom company, Rogers Communications, accidentally shut off its customers’ cell phone, Wi-Fi, and cable service for 16 hours, resulting in a PR crisis. They did not communicate directly to the public for 24 hrs. Instead, they opted to send out social media updates using Twitter Tweets; which most of their customers could not access during the outage.
Creating an example of audiences, key messages, and an apology statement for this particular crisis may have been handled better is easier to do when you're on the other side of it. However I do agree that Rogers response time and dissemination of information was poor.
Rogers Communications
Unilever
There have been concerns in the past regarding conflicting body image advertising for 2 of Unilever’s products, Axe and Dove.
Specifically, some people were offended that the same company could portray bikini-clad attractive women throwing themselves at a young attractive man on a beach with a fantasy shower scene and then advertise a Dove commercial with a focus on women's perception of themselves (often not as flattering) and what others think (more positive) and then showing the results back to women.
Some people would not necessarily take offence to the Axe commercial's attempt at humour, and some were offended by a perceived "double-standard" regarding gender in advertising.
In situations such as this, a company would not want to offend a large percent of it's product audience.
Review the example apology statement.
