Episodes of Public Relations disasters and how they influenced public opinion.

1. Jerrick Frye
Public Relations Nightmares and Aftermath
Oh what a wonderful joy it is to have social media. When used in the correct way, social
media can be a brilliant tool for companies, entertainers, brands, and individuals to interact with
their customers and fans. Social media more often than not can enhance create a positive
atmosphere for your cause or purpose and spread awareness for all sorts of events. However, not
all things go according to plan and that can absolutely not happen on social media. It is an all
too familiar formula in today’s society that a company or personality comes under fire for a
mistake no matter how tiny or massive it is. The advancements in technology make it even
worse for potential public relations disasters with websites like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube
leading the social media firestorm along with apps like Vine and Instagram combined with the
numerous amounts of smartphones, tablets, and recording devices in the world that always seem
ready to “tweet”, post, or share potential unflattering moments. Three companies that have
found themselves on the receiving end of the negative media press are Domino’s Pizza, FedEx,
and Chick-fil-A. Each incident could have been avoided, but nonetheless they each happened
and the following aftermath of the events are as follows.
Firstly, there is fast food restaurant Domino’s Pizza www.Dominos.com. Domino’s came under
fire for two of its employees violating the safety and health of customers as they altered the pizzas
and sandwiches and served it to customers while interestingly enough filming it. “In videos posted
on YouTube and elsewhere this week, a Domino’s employee in Conover, N.C., prepared
sandwiches for delivery while putting cheese up his nose, nasal mucus on the sandwiches, and

2. violating other health-code standards while a fellow employee provided narration.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/media/16dominos.html?_r=0 “By Wednesday
afternoon, the video had been viewed more than a million times on YouTube. References to it were
in five of the 12 results on the first page of Google search for “Dominos,” and discussions about
Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter.” (1) Dominoes came under fire fast prompting an
apology from Patrick Doyle (President, of Domino’s USA) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-
gvs2Y2368 Domino’s apologized to all of its customers and even sanitized the facility including
throwing away open container storage items and giving the store a makeover. Since then Domino’s
has been on the fence about their image and pizza quality they created a twitter page @dpzinfo
shortly after to discuss the initial incident and reply with its customers and later moved to
@Dominos https://twitter.com/dominos.
Next, there is global delivery courier service FedEx http://www.fedex.com/. FedEx came
under fire for a viral video on YouTube of an employee throwing a customer’s computer
monitor over a fence to “deliver” it. “The incident occurred outside the home of someone
expecting a computer monitor via the delivery giant… The delivery man, caught by a security
camera, carries the box to the gates of the house and, without even ringing the door bell,
carelessly throws the package over the fence.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/fedex-deliveryman_n_1162743.html adding insult
to injury is the customer stating, “the customer says he was home with his door open” during the
incident. (2) The video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKUDTPbDhnA shows the throwing
the package and simply continuing with his day even though it is clearly evident that he is
delivering a computer monitor to the address. The video quickly reached a large number of
views on YouTube prompting FedEx spokeswoman Shea Leordeanu to say, "This was careless

3. treatment of a customer package by our courier and it will be addressed. We take pride in the
quality of service we provide to millions of customers daily and we will not tolerate any
irresponsible act that affects the quality of any item we deliver and the good reputation FedEx is
known for worldwide" (2). FedEx has stated that it has disciplined the employee responsible and
has made several attempts to gain back the trust of its customers.
Lastly, there is the no stranger to controversy fast food restaurant Chick-fil-A
http://www.chick-fil-a.com/. Chick-fil-A created a public relations and media firestorm after
several controversial statements on the subject of same sex marriage. “What started out as a
protest against Chick-fil-A giving money to anti-gay marriage organizations has blown up to
letters from various mayors wanting Chick-fil-A out of there towns and even a reported fake
Facebook account using a stock photo image.”
http://www.perivision.net/wordpress/2012/07/chick-fil-a-pr-fail-epic-levels-and-its-not-over-
yet/ “The internet heat started to rise as people began a movement to boycott Chick-fil-A for
supporting anti-gay organizations. ” (3) Social media, media, and personal interaction were at an
all-time high after this news was announced. Everyone from politicians, to celebrities, to
average citizens was weighing in on the subject as things only continued to escalade. President
of Chickfil-A Dan Cathy only added more fuel to the fire by releasing as statement saying,
“Chick-fil-A is “very much supportive of the family,” …That is, “the biblical definition of the
family unit”, “And that doesn’t include Adam and Steve.” (3) Chick-fil-A then was caught in the
middle of yet another controversy as Toy Company Jim Henson pulled their toys from chick-fil-
A meals prompting the company to make a statement that the toys were removed for “safety
reasons”. (3) The fast food company then faced a host of cities and towns clocking the openings

4. of its stores in particular in Boston and Chicago where Chicago mayor, Rahm Emanuel, was
quoted as saying,
“Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values…They disrespect our fellow neighbors and residents.
This would be a bad investment, since it would be empty.” (3) Not to mention the numerous
amounts of bad publicity they gained from the boycotts outside of their stores.
Mobile internet is taking the world by storm and companies and personalities just can’t
seem to get a grasp on that. Long gone are the days of the desktop and large Polaroid cameras,
devices are getting smaller and smarter by the minute. Smartphones are able to capture better
images and videos for longer durations of time. The newspaper, radio, and television news casts
aren’t the only sources of information anymore as they are being replace with social media
which in the blink of an either can make you or break you as Domino’s pizza, FedEx, and
Chick-fil-A are all too familiar with.

5. Works Cited
www.Dominos.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-gvs2Y2368
https://twitter.com/dominos.
http://www.fedex.com/.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKUDTPbDhnA http://www.chick-fil-
a.com/
(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/media/16dominos.html?_r=0
(2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/21/fedex-delivery-man_n_1162743.html
(3) http://www.perivision.net/wordpress/2012/07/chick-fil-a-pr-fail-epic-levels-and-its-
notover-yet/