Friendly Skies: How much new is there left to say about last week’s United debacle? It was “one for the ages,” as the Wall St Journal says, and likely will be a staple for teachers and students of PR for many years to come, or until the next corporate PR disaster occurs. And as long as CEOs and brands fail to properly acknowledge customer sentiment and ignore the fact that consumers have cameras on their phones and social media affords their videos free airtime, there will be another corporate PR crisis. The take- away: “The quicker and more sincerely and transparently you can fall on your sword the better...but it’s a lesson few executives have learned,” says Deb Hileman, president/CEO, Institute for Crisis Management. Fortunately for United, “the American public has a very short attention span...we’ll soon move on to the next thing,” she says. Some more comfort for United: reports last week that preorders for Samsung’s Galaxy S8 smartphone could reach record highs, obliterating the mark of the fiery Galaxy Note 7. Some are even predicting a first-year sales record for the product, Reuters says. Volkswagen, despite its Dieselgate mess, topped world auto sales last year, besting Toyota. Wells Fargo shares jumped about $10 in late March to $60, a high for the year. Putting aside that Oscar Muñoz, once hailed as a great communicator, might be re-accommodated out of his job as United’s CEO, the airline may find the future most difficult in China, Hileman says. Last week’s incident harmed its “long-term reputation” in China signifi cantly, she says. Even before Dr. Dao’s ethnicity could be confirmed, the top trending topic Tuesday on microblog Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, was #UnitedAirlinesforcespassengeroffplane, CNBC reports. When reports surfaced that the 69-year-old doctor had Vietnamese roots it started an internet furor against United in that country, Borderless reports. “They’re going to have to be very sensitive to cultural issues” as United attempts to recalibrate its image in China, Hileman says. “A culturally sensitive approach” will work best, she counsels, as opposed to “a one-size-fits-all, American apology...I think it will take them a bit more time [to recover] in China than they might realize.”
Sharp Claws: Maybe the biggest beneficiary of United’s woes was Wells Fargo, whose 113-page board report about its 2 million bogus accounts barely registered in the news cycle when it was issued Apr. 10. In short, it fingers a pair of former Wells employees: CEO John Stumpf and community banking chief Carrie Tolstedt. An encouraging note: The two will lose an additional $75 million through clawbacks, the largest clawbacks in banking history. In all, clawbacks will cost Stumpf $69 million; Tolstedt, who did not cooperate with the investigation and whose lawyer challenged its findings, will forfeit $67 million. The report found little fault with Timothy Sloan, Stumpf’s successor and a career Wells executive, who became Tolstedt’s supervisor in 2015. The clawbacks are “encouraging but, alone, not enough to restore public confidence in the bank,” says Ashley McCown, president, Solomon McCown. “With new checking accounts down 43% and credit card applications down 55% in February, compared with a year ago, it’s obvious there’s more work to be done.” She adds, “bringing in an outsider [as CEO] would have been a far more powerful signal…that the board is serious about moving on from...fraudulent business practices….” The report “portrays the board as having been fooled by bank executives who were less than forthcoming about illegal practices,” she says. Should board members lose their seats during Wells’ annual meeting Apr. 25, it “could indicate…a larger overhaul of the bank’s leadership is in the offing.” Note to Subscribers: The report can be found at the PR News Pro Essentials page: prnew.se/pr-essentials
Growth: Ruder Finn launched a specialty practice focused on healthtech called Bloom Health. Nicole Pariser, SVP, who will lead Bloom, tells us for new healthtech brands “it’s no longer just about efficiency, but about [clearly communicating]…value…to patients, providers, payers and an increasingly diverse group of stakeholders.”
People: Uber’s communications chief Rachel Whetstone left April 11. Speculation is she departed due to an investigation of Uber’s links to former U.K. prime minister David Cameron. Whetstone is married to a former Cameron advisor. – The Arthur W. Page Society says its third New CCO podcast [guest TBD] is slated for June. The success of the first two podcasts bodes well for the program to continue, Page says. Aflac CCO Catherine Blades is featured on the current podcast at: bit.ly/2pB2MNw – Rasky Partners named Jessica Tocco SVP of its government relations team. A former U.S. Chamber of Commerce director in Vietnam, Tocco has ties to VP Mike Pence. – Sad news: Pioneer PR exec and Golin founder Al Golin passed April 8, aged 87.