A Mistake in the Digitoral Era

Checked all the details in the picture?

It was last Black Friday. To promote the products, SuperGurl-- a Singarporean e-commerce company, replaced the normal "SHOP NOW" with “RAPE US NOW”. To be honest, I don't have such a strong feeling on the wording or the picture. The actual reaction then, however, was far beyond my realization. After the company posted the sale information on Facebook, apparently people were mad. One commenter wrote: "Rape isn’t an advertising angle that one can exploit when thousands of victims suffer the irreparable damage rape has caused to them everyday.” The poor team might just consider the idea creative as I did. Neverthless, the customers, who were all females, got offended.

I think a sincere apology to directly admit the mistake would be appropriate. Creative Director Jordus Lim did post an apology, which most of the people didn't buy. What Lim wrote, say, "failed to review the Graphic Designer’s work before approving the image to be displayed" was still like an excuse to many. See, you were the one to lead the group and guide the process. Now you're saying you didn't review the work of your colleague?

Is it hard for many who are in such a situation to make an apology good enough for people to believe? I'm not sure, since there're simply so many examples in which the leaders can't let the audience buy their apologies. But asking for more opinions and standing in the audience's shoes could have made it better, I guess.

The marketing team is the one to blame to make the initial mistake. And I still believe the same group should be responsible to handle the crisis. This is a world where word of mouth plays such a big role. In terms of saving the reputation, the traditional PR routine can not be so effective as it used to be. The mainstream media is not the only one you need to deal with. Letting the PR solve the problem is like having a mother apologize on behalf of her coward grwon-up kid. The tens of thousands of individuals are waiting for an answer from who have made the mistake.