Earlier this week, an email claiming to be from the HR department of the at-home beauty services firm, YesMadam, stated that it was firing all employees who had responded that they were stressed following an employee survey.
Naturally, this went viral on the 'Redditt Startup India' community as well as all over social media. After nearly a day of back and forth, the company admitted that it was a ploy to get attention for their wellness packages.
In a statement on LinkedIn the company issued an apology and outlined a corporate wellness program.
In an unusual development, the firm's PR consultant, V360 issued a statement this evening denying their involvement in the planning or implementation of the stunt.
In an email shared with PRmoment India, V 360 said, "The recent marketing campaign by YesMadam has sparked widespread discussion on social media, eliciting a range of opinions. While we are officially managing PR activities for Yes Madam, Value 360 Communications was neither consulted nor involved in the strategic planning or execution of this particular campaign."
To stand out in the fame and attention economy, brands have been losing sight of the larger issues involved in reputation and trust.
Earlier this year, there was the Poonam Pandey fake death stunt to bring attention to cervical cancer. Planned and implemented by Schbang, a creative, media & technology transformation company with a digital heart; as it calls itself on LinkedIn. The campaign was implemented pro-bono for the fashion, beauty and lifestyle portal Hautterfly.
It was proof that PR not digital agencies are the best guardians of brand reputation. Yet, its PR who gets the brunt of the fallout from such campaigns.
Pradeep Wadhwa, the founder of Kritical Edge, points out that, "Trickery is not PR by any stretch of imagination! This stunt has nothing to do with public relations except that as a result of this cheap gimmick, they will land up in a reputational crisis that their corporate communications team will need to resolve. Such gimmicks should not be given the status of PR as it does a huge disservice to the PR fraternity and industry. In my almost 3 decades of experience, I have seen PR people work very hard to understand the business and the customers, develop strategic plans and execute them with elan. Cheap tricks are not PR."
Pierre Fitter, integrated communications strategy specialist says, ". I've already seen half a dozen Reddit threads and tweets blaming PR for this one. My guess is - like the Poonam Pandey stunt - that PR wasn't even at the table during the pitch & approvals."
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