Comments on: KitchenAid – A Post From Two Different Timezones

By: Katie Morse

Katie Morse — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 19:22:37 +0000

Agreed re: age. I find that age is a constant crutch in this field, where it is less so of a crutch in other fields. Interestingly enough though, the argument is positioned both ways… “you can’t really understand this unless you’re young” AND “you can’t understand the full picture unless you’re older”.

By: Lauren Fernandez

Lauren Fernandez — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 19:07:05 +0000

Hi Ryan -

Thanks for the response. You’re right, 10 minutes is not enough time to know what is going on, but that 10 minutes is for acknowledging that a situation exists. Then, you take time to figure out what happened, what is going on and how you will respond in the future.

In PR, we learn this acknowledgement vs. assessment rule pretty quickly….. but very few actually practice it.

Our crisis comm plans for the major brands I’ve worked with have always been general, and are updated every 6 months or so. It helps keep it flexible and general enough to make it specific to the event AFTER it happens.

Lots to think about with this one.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 18:14:16 +0000

Great recap of the situation. While a shame that it happened and while Cynthia may feel like the world is crashing around her, I can’t imagine this doing much long-term harm to KitchenAid’s business after the way they responded. Somebody sent out a careless, hateful tweet, likely (hopefully) from the wrong account and KitchenAid apologized quickly and profusely. It’ll be discussed for a day in the media, then another week by social media experts who love discussing stuff like this. At worst, it’ll end up as a bullet point in a “You’re Doing It Wrong: The Top 5 Worst Things You Can As A Brand In Social Media” blog post, but will otherwise be mostly forgotten. In terms of their response, it seems to be working. They got a good statement crafted, got it to the major outlets both online and in traditional media and it’s been spreading quickly. The result is that many of the stories being posted are including lines like “KitchenAid responded almost immediately. In a statement to CNN, Cynthia Soledad said: …” which is about all they could hope for. So unless they’re still discussing this on Monday, I think they handled it well.

I’m with you all the way that a crisis communications team and plan outline should exist, and ideally, the plan is written in a way that allows for quick and decisive action. But too often, those plans end up being reactionary and specific, focusing too much on the previous issue that led to the plan being written. When the next issue is nothing like the previous one, it can leave gaps in the plan and cause confusion among the team. A crisis comm plan should be general and flexible enough to apply to a multitude of situations as there’s no telling what turns into a crisis.

If the above plan is written just for KitchenAid on this one situation, it works, but as a crisis comm blueprint, it could do more harm than good for some issues. Depending on what’s happened, 10 minutes may not be enough time to determine what has occurred/is occurring and without an accurate handle on what’s going on, apologizing right away may not be appropriate. Once you’ve got a statement ready, deciding where to distribute/post it can be tricky as well. The issue and ensuing discussion helps dictate where the statement will be most effective, or in some cases, where it could cause more trouble.

That said, this post is a great conversation starter and much more in-depth than the usual “Have two separate accounts,” tweets that kept flying around last night.

By: Jessica Malnik

Jessica Malnik — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 17:04:38 +0000

I have a ginormous beef with the fact that anytime something like this happens, it automatically brings up why “young people” shouldn’t be a social media manager argument. That’s complete bs. It’s not about AGE. Instead, it’s about having poise, class, and the experience necessary to run an account for a brand. The KitchenAid tweeter obviously lacked class and judgment. You shouldn’t be tweeting stuff like that from your personal account, let alone publishing accidentally on the brand’s main account.

BTW, I did some digging, and discovering the KitchenUSA tweeter is not a twenty-something, but a middle-aged women. And for the record, the Chrysler guy wasn’t a 20-something either.

By: Lauren Fernandez

Lauren Fernandez — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:52:35 +0000

Can you get on a cookie tweet for H&R Block soon?

Agree with you there – and think your point opens up the discussion again about how much your personal account reflects your employer, if it does at all.

By: Jenna Bromberg

Jenna Bromberg — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 15:47:10 +0000

You know what? Some people disagree with me on this, but I think the takeaway here is that maybe some of us should ask ourselves this question every time we get ready to post: “If I sent this from my brand handle accidentally, would it be super damaging?” Like, saying something pro-Obama or pro-choice or whatever is awkward and oops whatever, but saying something so stupid and ridiculous is just a doofus move. This is why I tweet about cookies frequently. The end.