Is All PR, Good PR?

We are all familiar with the myth that “all PR is good PR” (which may have some truth for the “Small Names”). But for a company or organization that is already a known brand, this phenomenon is far from the truth!

Let’s take a quick look at the recent story of the United Airlines passenger shown being violently removed from the aircraft. We all know the brand “United”– but wait, they still spend roughly 35 million dollars a  year on advertising! That money is spent on advertising ticket prices and good services; they don’t need to let us know who they are because we already know, and nor do they need to focus on pure branding (ie: like a Coca Cola ad) since you aren’t just walking into a gas station and purchasing a United Airlines ticket.

Let’s get back to our example at hand, United getting “free” coverage on every news outlet and across all Social Media platforms. But as they say, “numbers don’t lie” — and days after the newsworthy incident, United Airlines stocks dropped as much as 6.3% pre-market trading- that’s a $1.4 billion drop!

To recap, definitely for the “Big Names”, bad PR can be very bad PR for them!

(Photo Credits: pexels.com)