Please — Let’s Proofread.
Who doesn’t love a good celebrity or corporate fail moment? It keeps us laughing and allows us to realize that the people behind these corporate giants are humans just like us! The example I have chosen is from the UK company Sainsbury’s. It appears that the company printed an advertisement poster without proof-reading it first. The poster reads, “Let’s encourage every customer to spend an additional 50p during each shopping trip between now and the year-end.”
It seems that the graphic designer and/or PR and social media management team overlooked this huge mistake that most likely cost the company thousands of dollars of misprints and a bad image to the public and their customers.
Let’s relate this to Bowen’s (2013) Ethical Guidelines for Using Social Media. The first guideline states to “be fair and prudent,” however, Sainsbury’s poster did not reflect this value because it was clear that the information written on the poster was the company’s internal sales goal; one that the public should not have been aware of.
The second ethical guideline is “avoid deception,” and it seems from this poster, Sainsbury’s was deceptive to their customers as they were trying to acquire an extra 50 pence from each customer until they reached their sales goal.
The third guideline is “maintain dignity and respect,” which did not seem to be reflected because the communication displayed did not respect the involved public since the company was trying to encourage customers to spend more money within their store.
The fourth guideline, “eschew secrecy,” does not apply to this particular slip-up. The fifth guideline, “is it reversible,” applies to this blunder because the public might have experienced negative emotions and ideas after reading this poster that blatantly states that they want to collect more money from shoppers.
The sixth guideline, “be transparent,” does not apply to this error. The seventh step, “clearly identify,” may potentially be used in this situation because although it was an error, the speech and opinion of a representative of the organization were identified in the poster mix-up.
The eighth guideline, “rational analysis,” definitely applies to this slip-up because the public can examine this message from Sainsbury’s in a negative light that may result in the company losing loyal customers.
Guidelines from nine to fifteen do not apply to this media blunder because the message put forth was not responsibly proof-read and checked before print. The message was not meant to help build connectedness and engagement within the community and public. Sainsbury did not establish consistent trust with this print mix-up because they displayed their sales goals and tactics to take more money out of their customers’ pockets.
Overall, companies make errors all of the time; the companies’ representatives are human just like everyone else. Although Sainsbury’s did not meet all of the ethical guidelines for using social media, this slip-up, in particular, seemed to have been an honest mistake and not one that was meant to be intentional. Situations such as these illustrate how important a strong PR and Communications team is to a company in order to avoid big mistakes such as this.
References
Bowen, S. (2013). Using Classic Social Media Cases to Distill Ethical Guidelines for Digital Engagement. Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 28(2), 119–133. https://doi.org/10.1080/08900523.2013.793523
