Top Public Relations Blunders

Since 1995, San Francisco's Fineman Public Relations agency has published its annual "Top Ten PR Blunders" list via the PR Newswire service. As a disclaimer, the agency stated that the list's purpose has been to educate rather than degrade or defame the companies or individuals listed. With that said, some of these so-called "PR Blunders" can be hilarious, idiotic, or outrageous. And, in some instances, the listed party's blunder may have only created a temporary setback; case in point, the Dixie Chicks.

Dixie Chicks

Fineman's 2003 list included the Dixie Chicks after lead singer Natalie Maines publicly criticized the Iraq War and the Bush Administration. Granted, their record sales then plummeted for a couple of years, and some have said that Maines' remarks cost them their country music fanbase; but their "blunder" was not a blunder in the long run.

In 2007, their no-regrets song "Note Ready to Make Nice" won Best Song of the Year and Best Country Album at the Grammy Awards of that year. With the growing public dissatisfaction with the Iraq War, the Dixie Chicks wound up building a new fanbase beyond the genre of country music.

The Hilarious

On a hot summer day in 2005, the beverage company Snapple erected a 25-feet-tall, 17 ½ ton kiwi-strawberry-flavored "popsicle" in New York's Union Square. When the sculpture melted, the "popsicle's" gooey mess flooded Union Square and caused bicyclists to slip and fall. The New York City fire department was called in to clean up the mess.

In 2003, Fox News sued liberal satirist Al Franken and his publisher to prevent them from using Fox's catchphrase "fair and balanced" for the title of Franken's book, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." The book was published despite Fox's threats, and the adverse publicity wound up causing book sales to spike.

The Outrageous

In 2005, Harvard University president Larry Summers made the list after he stated that gender differences was the reason why women don't excel in math and science. This soon led to his ouster, and some say that his remark wound up causing damage to Harvard's recruitment of women into its science programs.

In 2003, tobacco company giant Phillip Morris conducted a study in the Czech Republic. The study concluded that smoking deaths were good for the Czech Republic because the deaths saved the government $147 million per year in healthcare costs. It's believed that the adverse reaction to the study's conclusions was one of the main reasons why the Phillip Morris Company changed its name to Altria.

The Idiotic

In 1998, the National Basketball Association made Fineman's list when over 100 games were cancelled because of a salary dispute between team owners and players. The lockout, as it was called, lasted 191 days, foreshortening the season and costing both teams and players millions.

SOURCES:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/12-16-2003/0002076488&EDATE=

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/12/28/212417.shtml

"KPFA turns to PR company", Charles Burress, San Francisco Chronicle, URL: (http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/07/23/MN25177.DTL)

http://www.mywire.com/pubs/PRNewswire/2005/12/12/1112472?&pbl=11

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-03-2002/0001641228&EDATE=

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8321110/
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=955