PR Roundup – Feb. 3

03 Feb PR Roundup – Feb. 3

Our PR roundup is a collection of the week’s top stories in PR and communications. The roundup is published on Fridays and written by Joe, Chad and our team of rockstar interns. 

1. Trump
This one may sit atop our list for quite some time. Where do we start? While the president has been busy tweeting – sorry – busy signing executive orders, offending the Australians and referring to Frederick Douglass as if he’s still alive, we rate his public relations approach somewhere between “it can’t get much worse” to “needs improvement.” Take the travel ban, for example. Trump could have briefed key surrogates and supporters right before a public announcement, enlisting their help with communicating his message. Instead, top administration officials were caught off guard and unprepared.

Image: VOA

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was on his heels for two days trying to explain the rationale behind the decision. It was painful watching him insist the order isn’t really a ban when the president used the word ban. When making major decisions that impact millions of lives, the Trump administration could benefit from giving more thought to the strategy behind their messages.

2. Delta Airlines
Speaking of Trump, he managed to needlessly insert himself – via Twitter, of course – into Delta Airline’s computer outage crisis that caused the cancellation of more than 200 flights. Even without the president getting in the mix, Delta had a crisis on its hands, with thousands of travelers suddenly left stranded Sunday night and early Monday morning. The airline’s website and mobile apps also went down. Frustrated customers vented on social media. Fortunately, Delta systems were up and running again by mid-morning on Monday. The CEO issued a quick apology and promised to improve.

Twitter.com/delta

The lesson here? Fly Jet Blue. But seriously, even our favorite airline isn’t immune from something like this. In fact, companies whose survival depends on technology and computer systems should have updated crisis communications plans in place for when, not if, their systems go down.

3. Underwear
No, we’re not talking about Donald Trump’s underwear. We’re talking about Fruit of the Loom this week issuing a request for proposals from select PR firms, including Edelman, Ketchum and a few other big names. The highly sought after account is reportedly worth seven figures. Who knew Fruit of the Loom pays so much for PR services? We’re still waiting for our invitation to bid.

Until next week…