Did Disney do all it could from a PR perspective following the fatal gator attack on 2-year-old Lane Graves at its Disney World property?
How about the Cincinnati Zoo’s handling of the incident where employees were tasked to kill Harambe, a rare, 450-pound lowland gorilla, after a 3-year-old boy fell into the animal’s moat?
Don’t forget the Oscars. Was the Academy transparent enough about how it plans to include more minority voices in naming future Oscar nominees? As you probably remember, the brand had to scramble as it dealt with the outcry that occurred when not a single minority actor was nominated for an award again. Oh, yes, it happened during the previous Oscars, too.
Perhaps the Academy's best move was giving Oscars host Chris Rock carte blanche to satirize the situation during the subsequent telecast? Either way, Hollywood was able to withstand the outcry that began on social with #OscarsSoWhite and included a small boycott.
The handling of these and other crises is the subject of Solomon McCown & Company president Ashley McCown’s analysis in the video below, provided exclusively to PR News. All the crises occurred during the first six months of 2016.
The other crisis responses McCown evaluates are: Apple vs. the Department of Justice (she says Apple dodged a bullet when the FBI figured out how to hack an iPhone on its own); the Wounded Warrior Project (wherein two employees were fired over misuse of funds; non-profits must realize their finances are open to public scrutiny, McCown notes) and the incident she dubs the Uber Shootings, referring to the calamity in Kalamazoo, MI, where Jason Brian Dalton, who’d driven for Uber, killed 6 people and wounded others between trips in February. She compliments Uber’s transparency and quick response to a crisis not of its own making.
What do you think of McCown’s views? Her choice of crises? Let us know.
Follow Ashley McCown: @AshBoomerSooner
Follow Seth Arenstein: @skarenstein