Ralph Lauren and Blog Firestorm

Recently, Ad Rant published a rave, satirical review of a Ralph Lauren ad. The ad features a model that is impossibly skinny. At first, you might think this is a Dove PSA ad–commenting on the unrealistic expectations fashion brands place on impressionistic female teens–but no, Ralph Lauren is seriously trying to pawn the image as real.

To further exacerbate the situation, Ralph Lauren began suing the ad critics— sending takedown notices to bloggers who published the ad.

Unfortunately for Ralph Lauren, they wanted to pick a fight with the blogging community. And, of course they lost. As a result, the fifth link of a Ralph Lauren Google search is titled, “Image of ultra-thin Ralph Lauren model sparks outrage on Shine.” Consequently, anyone searching for Ralph Lauren clothes will see the controversy surrounding the brand.

The Ralph Lauren mishap illustrates the power of social influencers on the web. Picking a fight with bloggers connected to hundreds of thousands of people is dangerous. If you consider the audience of the worlds top bloggers and those of brands like Ralph Lauren–bloggers will win every time.

To avoid crises like Ralph Lauren, we can take a lesson from the PR playbook. Consider the role of crisis management in the digital world. It’s all about speed, transparency and empathy. Many of the same principles from crisis management offline apply to the web. Take example from Pepsi. In 1993, reports of syringes found Pepsi cans circulated in the media. Instead of bullying the media with lawsuits (think defamation), Pepsi made its first video new release in which they went to the factory to show consumers, it was impossible to insert a syringe into Pepsi cans. During the crisis, Pepsi publicly worked with the FDA to determine the syringe source. It was discovered that someone, outside of the company, was tampering with the cans.

The wrong way of thinking is to ignore or fight against your critics. As we can see from the Ralph Lauren crisis, this strategy can tarnish your brand image. There is a level of transparency that was never possible in a pre-digital world (e.g. the takedown notices were published on numerous blogs). Use social media and multi-media, blogs, or any other digital platform to provide up-to-date feedback. To save face, it’s crucial to listen to your audience and work with influencers to rectify any problems before the flare up into a blogosphere firestorm.

[via apointb]

Image by Stefan Glase from Stock.Xchng

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