PR example #4
This PR tactic had great intention behind it. I’ve never heard of such a great deal. You can only buy half a can of beans for 23 cents, but this day a whole pizza could be yours for 23 cents. Papa John’s seemed like the obvious choice and an amazing company. This was their way of apologizing to the Cleveland basketball team for having some of the employees wear shirts that said “LeBron is a crybaby.” All of the funds would go to the LeBron James Family Fund and the Cavaliers Youth Fund. This is making a huge statement from Papa Johns. They had to have lost a lot of money from this.
So, what’s bad about this? The fact that the lines were a wait of a few hours and the fact that the Papa Johns stores were afraid of vandalism if the customers had to wait for much longer. Cops were called in to 20 of the 40 Papa Johns locations around Cleveland and were asked to close.
Potentially this apology is great in theory. It shows that the company cares sincerely for its community and how it is portrayed. You have to be able to trust companies and their actions. Their actions can usually show where their “heart” is and the t-shirt was a low blow to many of their stakeholders, so they took full responsibility for their actions. Perhaps, they could come up with a new plan next time. They could let everyone put their name and address on a form and then send out the day they could come in and pick up their pizza to avoid the “malicious” aspect of this apology tactic.
on December 9th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Where was I when this deal was available? Haha, although, by the sound of it I wouldn’t have wanted to be at the store with all the crazy masses. It definately was a great “idea” but not a great tactic. I don’t think they put a lot of planning into this. It sounds like they came up with it last minute in their rush to apologize, and they ended up the worse for it.
on December 9th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I agree with Carolina (and the post in general). It was a great gesture for an apology but part of a good PR plan is to plan every aspect and for every situation and, apparently, Papa Johns did not. Hopefully, they will learn next time.