MAD PR Skills

So now that we at Big have been able to recover from RFP land, I have been able to catch up on my twittering and RSS reading. Glad I had time to today, because a fascinating case in corporate PR and blogger relationships was being discussed.



Turns out that MAD magazine did a spoof on Circuit City and their prices. An executive at Circuit City took offense and demanded all MAD magazines pulled from store shelves. Thankfully, a PR professional at Circuit City, Jim Babb, recognized the reputation disaster that was brewing and took it upon himself to reach out to the bloggosphere directly via the consumerist.com. As pointed out by Ben Poken, a consumerist blogger, Babb used PR 101 to address the issue.

Let's evaluate it on the 3-step system for fixing corporate gaffes:

1. Admitted they were wrong
2. Stopped doing the wrong thing
3. Made a material gesture of apology

What is relevant and awesome about the way Babb handled this is not just that he followed the correct PR-response protocol, but that he did so online, immediately, and with a sense of humor. This didnt feel like a 'company issued statement', it felt like a conversation, which is what 2.0 PR is all about.

Bravo to Jim Babb for his mad pr skills.