NEGATIVE PUBLICITY
Ironically, negative publicity is considered as the adverse publicity which normally an organization or firm incurred due to some specific reasons, and it is obvious that the results of negative publicity give disastrous consequences in terms of customer loss, less profit, fewer sales and many other. Furthermore, an organization’s reputation is badly tarnished among its customers and associated competitors. This is why businesses often create and implement negative publicity management strategies, which are essential to assess and mitigate risks regarding negative publicity, which could happen in an organization’s future business operations (Veiga, 2005). In order to explain this scenario in detail, we consider a case study on public relations, publicity and corporate advertisement in which we shall explore the key focus area of involvement of social media in creation and fighting of negative publicity. For this purpose, we take examples of some companies, partnership businesses, etc. which incurred negative publicity in their business operations. As we know, social media plays a significant role in the business world; it helps businesses spread their words to millions of people around the world within a second. Earlier, newspapers, TV, Radio were famous mediums through which organizations used to do promotions, advertisements, etc. Now, these mediums are completely replaced by social media because businesses need an instant response from customers when they launch a new product and not able to wait for long in order to get customer feedback so that they would be able to make improvements in their products or service.
As far as certain examples are concerned, Whisky Distilled Makers Mark was tried to reduce their alcohol level from 45 to 42 percent; they thought that it would not create such difference for those who are potential customers, it was negative publicity happened which was not in favor of the company due to which they reversed the actions and informed customers about maintaining the same amount of alcohol 45% in whiskey. Likewise, G. Komen’s Foundation announced that they dissolve their partnership with planned parenthood (Ahluwalia, 2000). It was more than seven years partnership which had dissolved by the Komen’s foundation due to which they lost their supporters and did not get as much funding as they used to receive while in the partnership of planned parenthood, negative publicity incurred by Komen’s foundation which resulted in the resignation of G. Komen as a Vice President of the foundation. Another big example when Nike announced that it would dissolve partnership with Livestrong foundation, which did not give Nike a positive response from its customers and Livestrong supporters who used to support Livestrong foundation to treat cancer patients and spend millions on cancer research effectively and efficiently. There were thousands of pages containing documents released in which no one supported Nike’s decision. Nike said that it dissolved its partnership with Livestrong Foundation, but it would continue to help them by the company itself. During this partnership, they brought more than $500 million to spend on cancer research, which was huge and spent on the effective treatment of cancer patients. This was a big example of negative publicity incurred by Nike by leaving partnership with the Livestrong foundation. Sometimes, it is not necessary to make decisions that awe think is in favor of the company’s business. There are thousands of customers attached to the brand just because of its long-time partnership with the foundation, just like Livestrong.
References
Ahluwalia, R. (2000). Consumer Response to Negative Publicity: The Moderating Role of Commitment. Journal of Marketing Research.
Veiga, R. T. (2005). How to Deal with Negative Publicity: The Important of Consumer Involvement. Brazilian Administration Review.