Missed Opportunity?

I receive an electronic newsletter from Disney World. I usually take a quick peak at it and then delete it. Today, I paid special attention to it. Like many, I've followed the news of the recent monorail crash at Disney World. For the latest on the investigation click here.

I was surprised that today's e-newsletter made no mention of the accident. Instead, adding President Obama to the Hall of Presidents was the main story. While I don't think an organization should flaunt its bad news, I think the usually PR savvy Disney missed an opportunity to discuss the accident, let us know what's being done so it doesn't happen again, and remind us that they have a very good safety record. After all, I'm a subscriber to their newsletter. I'm a friend and I want to know what's happening.

Too often organizations shy away from bad news and hope the problem goes away. An excellent example of doing it the right way happened years ago in the way Johnson and Johnson handled the poisoning of its Tylenol pain medication. While it was scary for consumers to think that a trusted brand might contain cyanide, J&J addressed those concerns by removing every box of Tylenol from the shelves, told people that their safety was the number one concern, and redesigned the product and its packaging so that similar tampering could not happen again.

With proper planning, a bad situation can be handled in a manner that can actually make your organization look better to the public.