Molly McPherson Analyzes 3 PR Fiascos and the Brand Mistakes Behind Them

Crisis communications authority Molly McPherson has been called in to handle no shortage of corporate fiascos. But while the brands vary, the incidents all have one thing in common: The first move is generally a sign of how well things will turn out. Or not.

“If your first instinct is to blame, you’re not going to get through it,” said McPherson at ADWEEK’s Social Media Week summit on Wednesday. A crisis signals that “the public is feeling an emotion about [your brand]. You have to tap into that emotion.”

All too often, however, brands fail to do that—and pay the price.

McPherson cited a few examples of crises handled well, such as American Airlines’ rapid and sympathetic response to the midair collision in Washington, D.C. in January. But a gaffe can just as easily escalate, too. Here are three recent disasters McPherson cited, how the brands managed them, and how they could have done better.

The language barrier that really mattered

On March 22, and Air Canada Express flight collided with a truck while landing at New York’s LaGuardia airport. The accident killed both pilots, one of whom was from Coteau-du-Lac in French-speaking Quebec. But when Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau issued his on-camera condolences, his only French consisted of “bonjour” and “merci.” The public was outraged.

Canada’s Official Languages Act designates both English and French as the country’s official languages, making the oversight baffling—though not to McPherson. 

“I see this all the time with senior leadership, when they don’t think the public is even worth the time. The biggest driver of a crisis is contempt, and that’s what happened here,” said McPherson, who pointed out that public sentiment should always inform every response. (Plus, in this case, a simple teleprompter could have prevented the debacle entirely.)

But the carrier has taken its licks and seems to have recalibrated. In its search for a new chief executive, Air Canada’s board promised it “will consider a number of performance criteria … including the ability to communicate in French.

Confusing DEI with a marketing strategy

Long before the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests spurred brands to get inclusive in a hurry, retail giant Target had made diversity, equity, and inclusion its corporate mission, notching a perfect score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index as early as 2009. But last year, amid pressure from the White House and far-right activists, a host of blue-chip companies dropped DEI like a hot potato.

The problem with that move, McPherson said, is that it made years of commitments look hollow, especially in the case of Target, which cited an “evolving external landscape” as its reasoning for the retreat. But that decision prompted a boycott by Black consumers that did real damage to the company.

“DEI is not a tactic—it’s the infrastructure that builds the foundation of your company,” McPherson said. “You do not do it because of what the media thinks, or what your followers think; you do it because it’s the right thing. What Target lost there is opportunity.”

Target’s new CEO Michael Fiddelke, appointed in February, has met with Black activists including Women’s March co-organizer Tamika Mallory, and reportedly conceded that the company had lost the community’s trust. 

When ‘laughable’ photos aren’t funny

Earlier this month, New York Post gossip section Page Six got its hands on photos of Dianna Russini, a reporter for The New York Times’ The Athletic, hanging out at an Arizona resort with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel. The problem? The pair were shown holding hands, embracing, and lounging by a hot tub in bathing suits.

“That is not a scandal story about two people possibly having an affair—it’s a brand story, it’s a trust story,” McPherson said. “It’s about the New England Patriots, and it’s about The New York Times.”

But the crisis responses from the organizations were very different.

Russini resigned shortly after the Times began an investigation—just the appearance of impropriety is a violation of the paper’s code of conduct—but The Athletic editor Steven Ginsberg stated that the paper “has taken the matter seriously from the moment we learned about it.”

And the Patriots? Executive VP of player personnel Eliot Wolf skirted the matter by stating that Vrabel’s involvement with the team was “business as usual.” Vrabel himself was dismissive. “These photos show a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable,” he told the Post. “This doesn’t deserve any further response.”

Except that it does, McPherson said. Russini “needed to resign because she breached ethical standards, and now the New England Patriots as a brand have a problem,” she said.

“Vrabel said it’s laughable that anyone would think anything was there. Well, here we are a week later, and she resigned, so obviously the joke is on them. When the brand loses trust, that’s when you’re in crisis.”