Kmart’s Anzac Day backflip was good PR in action
While I’ve no idea what went on behind the scenes, it looks to me like Kmart’s rapid backflip regarding opening on Anzac Day is a classic of good crisis PR.
I
t started to go wrong for the brand over the weekend, when it emerged that Kmart had applied for pre-1pm opening.
The story got big on Monday, with a single story on news.com.au alone pulling in 430 mostly angry comments (point A on the Google News chart).
Yesterday, Kmart executed an elegant reverse ferret.
But the announcement from Kmart is what impressed me. First, it came fast; second, the apology was fulsome; and third, the boss Guy Russo took personal responsibility (point B on the chart):
“I got this one wrong and on behalf of Kmart, I apologise to the RSL, retired and current members of the Australian Defence Force and the wider community for any offence that this application has caused.”
It looks to me like Kmart has handled the issue effectively, and I suspect we’ll now see it quickly go away.
If only every brand in a PR storm could act as decisively.
Tim Burrowes
Linkedin
I think he learned that from our PM with his ‘buck stops with me’ comment regarding Peter Garrett. It’s good business to take responsibility rather than run and hide.
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Tim. I couldn’t agree more. They handled it well. However, if the operations people who made the stupid decision to apply for the extra opening hours had have consulted their PR people first, the whole thing could have been averted.
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And a fourth tick.
Mr Russo sounds completely genuine.
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The old saying “There’s no such thing as bad PR” is true… 90% of the time… but in this particular case, Kmart could have easily slipped into the 10% that are negatively impacted, as a business, by bad PR.
What’s the message Guy Russo was sure to include in his prompt response? That he was trying to increase convenience for his customers. And if you haven’t noticed… their (Kmart’s) new advertising campaign is centred around the changes they are making to the stores – one of which is clearly articulated in the recent ASX release – “Open our doors for longer, at more convenient times”.
Either the PR company was very quick to react and is very much in tune with the brand, or Guy Russo is living-and-breathing the business strategy and was clever enough to turn this one around on his toes. I suspect it may have been the latter… after all, who better to deal with bad publicity than an X-Maccas man.
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Goes to show why social media is an ear trumpet, not a loudspeaker.
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This is proof that public pressure could cause other similar changes to the minds of company bosses if we choose to use it.
Sadly it takes a big issue like ANZAC day to get enough people motivated to apply that pressure.
Imagine lower prices!!!
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Dont think this will go away they where testing the waters.its been tried before and they will keep on trying.expect another go.They will try maybe boxing day,xmas day ,easter sunday and maybe even good friday to be in there sights .
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Agree wholeheartedly with Nicola (comment 3). While the backflip was good PR, the whole issue should never have left their boardroom and if competent PR staff had been involved from the beginning, it never would have. Having written that, organisations generally don’t suffer in the PR stakes for decisions that they make, but they always suffer by trying to cover-up, back pedal and blame anyone except themselves, so kudos to KMart for taking this hit on the chin.
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“Never should’a happened!” is a bit naive. Accidents happen, people make errors of judgement. It’s how you react that counts.
Imagine if Tiger Woods had immediately and unreservedly apologised to his wife, his sponsors and his fans, and also withdrew himself from his sponsorship relationships on the grounds that his behaviour was unacceptable.
What would have happened? Short period of Tiger in the wilderness, plenty of stories around “people make mistakes but it’s how they react that counts, he deserves another chance gawd bless’im etc” and eventually Tiger holding his head high again, back on the course and with sponsors in tow to boot.
Instead, he disappeared into a hole… begging the question “where was his PR advice?”
Crises do happen. And it’s how you deal with them that people respect and remember.
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The “never should have happened” comments are little simplistic.
If companies don’t ever try new or different things, how will they know if they work or not? Advice is easy to ignore and who’s to say who’s opinion is correct – sometimes you’ve just got to go out there and actually try something.
Seems to me that K-Mart did absolutely nothing wrong. They offered longer store opening hours on a public holiday (nothing wrong with this plan on paper), got a negative reaction (due to the overlooked or misunderstood cultural signficance of the day) and subsequently adjusted their position. No harm – in fact if anything, they showed they were able to listen, admit they were wrong and we can all now move on. Good work K-Mart
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They handled it well but as soon as you hear the words Anzac day you should hear alarm bells. What would have happened next? Worse case scenario you’d get employees complaining that they couldn’t go to the march. Depending on how good the Union was in finding a Veteran who happens to work at K-Mart or the child of a veteran all of a sudden K-Mart hates Anzac day. The lost half a day of potential sales and lets be honest who is desperate to go to K-Mart? They are open outside business hours.
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Good point, Nigel. It wouldn’t have happened if (good) PR was in on it from the start. Then again, the PR person could have been over-ruled. Neroli. you are showing your age (or possible lack of it). You obviously don’t understand the significance of ANZAC Day and how some things are sacrosanct. You don’t try new things like this on that day. As an Army veteran, I was ready to marshal my biker mates and surround the local K-mart.
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Thanks Greg, as a woman closer to 50 than 20, it’s always lovely to be told how young I am.
I never said ANZAC day was not culturally significant or not sacrosanct. Only that that K-Mart had overlooked or misunderstood cultural signficance of the day.
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