San Francisco PR Firm Unveils Annual List of Ten Worst PR Blunders in 2005
(12/14): A celebrity without a center, religious
fundamentalism U.S. style, organized labor taking on the Marines and a not so beneficent
employee benefits company, all highlight this year's list of public relations blunders
compiled annually by San Francisco's
Fineman PR.
The list, Fineman’s 11th annual offering, is a collection of
some of the year's worst public relations gaffes. The "winners" for 2005:
1. CRUISE,
OUT-OF-CONTROL
Tom Cruise's "War of the Worlds" press tour
blew up on the "Today" show after he got on his Scientology soap box and lit into host
Matt Lauer. Cruise's diatribe against psychiatry included criticizing
Brooke Shields for the medication she received during her
post-pregnancy depression. The press jumped all over Cruise, and so did Shields. In a
New York Times op-ed, Shields called his remarks "a disservice to mothers everywhere."
Cruise's other bizarre antics in '05, including Oprah
Winfrey's sofa jumping escapade to show his love for actress Katie
Holmes, also earned him public ridicule. "Sure they're in Love—with Publicity,"
headlined the Boston Globe. PR Week said, "The more you jump up and down
about it, the less people believe it's the real thing."
2. PAT ROBERTSON'S
DIPLOMACY
Uncle Sam's relations with oil rich Venezuela worsened after televangelist Pat
Robertson suggested the U.S. 'take out' its president Hugo Chavez.
The rather un-Christian comments ignited fire and brimstone from the world's press and lent
credibility to Chavez' contention that President Bush, somewhat of
an evangelical in his own right, is out to get him. "He is that rare preacher who has
invited the nation not to pray together, but to prey together," wrote Tom Teepen
in the San Jose Mercury News.
3. UAW UNWELCOMES
MARINES
Organized labor is having enough trouble without alienating the U.S. Marines.
United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger barred
Marine reservists from its parking lot if they drove foreign-made cars or sport pro-Bush
bumper stickers. The Marines had parked there for years because they train nearby.
Gettelfinger apologized for the unpatriotic ambush after the Michigan press played the
story, but the Marines said they would find alternative parking. "In trying to stiff the
Marines, the union signaled that its petty political concerns trump the needs of the armed
forces and the sanctity of the voting booth," wrote Daniel Howes in
the Detroit News.
4. NO BENEFIT OF THE
DOUBT FROM BENEFIT MANAGEMENT COMPANY
It appears that Michigan employee-benefits firm Benefit Management
Administrators Inc. needs help managing its own employees. The company fired
Suzette Boler for, among other things, taking too much time to say
good-bye to her husband who left to fight in Iraq, according to an Associated Press
story. The poorly timed pink slip fueled public outrage forcing the company to lock its
doors and turn off its phones. When the company's founder responded to TV station
Channel 8 in Grand Rapids, he compounded the blunder by pressing additional complaints
against her to justify the firing.
5. HARVARD'S SUMMERS
STORM
Publicly expressing sentiments that women are not good at math and science is not the kind
of stereotyping you might expect from Harvard. So when Harvard's president,
Larry Summers, said gender differences are why fewer women than men excel in
those areas, the school's outraged faculty and alumni called for his ouster. According to
BusinessWeek, "his remarks about women may make it hard for Harvard to recruit top
female scientists," and "harm fund-raising" for much needed reforms.
6. ALL THE NEWS MONEY
CAN BUY
The U.S. military's Washington, D.C.-based communications subcontractor in Iraq has been
secretly paying newspapers to run positive "news" articles in an attempt to polish the
coalition's image, denounce insurgents and praise U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.
These articles, purportedly written by independent journalists, have been touted as unbiased
news accounts when, in fact, they were one-sided stories delivered to Baghdad media by
American troops. Mark Mazzetti and Borzou Daragahi
with The Los Angeles Times put it this way, "The military's effort to disseminate
propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote
democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging
from decades of dictatorship and corruption."
7. GRAND THEFT AUTO'S
UNDERCOVER ADDITION
As if best selling video game "Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas" didn't have enough violence
and debauchery already, its maker Rockstar Games added hidden
animated sex scenes. The soft-core porn ignited a political firestorm forcing a new
"adults-only" rating, reported the Wall Street Journal. Other coverage said
Best Buy and Circuit City pulled the game from
their stores.
8. MERCK'S PAIN
Hiding the risks associated with taking its painkiller Vioxx could cause
Merck, an $18 billion litigation heartache. Even though studies in 2000 showed
Vioxx-takers five times more likely to have a heart attack than individuals using a generic
medicine, Merck publicly downplayed the risks. A later study blew the lid off Vioxx
resulting in several thousand lawsuits. "Should they have been open about concerns? The
failure to be honest is what gets companies (in product liability cases) in trouble," law
professor Anthony Sebok told the Associated Press.
9. SNAPPLE'S MELTDOWN
It was the first day of summer in steamy New York, so Snapple
put a 35,000-pound ice pop in the middle of Union Square at midday. When the 25-foot high
ice sculpture melted, bicyclists wiped out in the stream of kiwi-strawberry goo, according
to the NY Daily News. The tabloid's headline "Gooing, Gooing, Gone" summed up the
fiasco for Snapple. "It was a big boo-boo, they should have had that [up] before the sun
came out," onlooker Kizzy Vazquez told the Daily News as
she watched firefighters wash Snapple's ill-fated stunt down the sewer.
10. NATL. ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES PUBLISHES HOW-TO FOR MILK TERROR
When Lawrence M. Wein and Yifan Liu
of Stanford University wrote a scientific article discussing how
terrorists could poison thousands of people by releasing toxins into the U.S. milk supply,
the National Academy of Sciences published it over the objections of
the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Academy
president Bruce Alberts editorialized that terrorists would not
learn anything useful from the article and that such information is already available on the
Internet. However, news organizations reported HHS's vehement disagreement with Reuters
quoting HHS spokesperson Christina Pearson, "Our concern is that if
the academy is wrong, the consequences can be dire."
