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Be Careful What You Wish For: Viral Internet Ups the Stakes in Consumer PR

The old adage states that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but this isn’t quite the case. Those of us who make our living in consumer PR know that managing our clients’ reputations is a big responsibility, and that it is critical that our client’s brand is seen in a positive light. A recent stain on the public reputation of Food Network star Ina Garten shows illustrates how important it is to manage a brand’s reputation tightly.

The advent of the internet brought unparalleled benefits to humankind—instant, constant and limitless access to information has made our globe smaller than ever before. Unfortunately, the down side to this rapid flow of information is that mistakes can become public at a moment’s notice, and in some cases, causing permanent harm to reputation. Yet at the same time, harnessing the web is essential to successfully gaining visibility and loyal fans.

In the case of Ina Garten, a simple mistake has seriously called into question her likeability as a person, and by extension, as a brand. For the sake of full disclosure, I’d like to state that I’ve always been a fan of Ina’s. Her recipes are fantastic (if not a little heavy on the salt) and the image she portrays of life in the Hamptons makes me want to up and move every time I see an episode of her wonderfully entertaining show on the Food Network, “The Barefoot Contessa.” But Ina messed up recently, as we all do from time to time. When a six year-old boy with Leukemia requested to cook a meal with her through the Make a Wish Foundation, she declined. Twice.

At first glance this seems utterly heartless, and frankly, at odds with the public persona we’ve all come to love and admire. After all, she used to work in the White House! Her devotion to her husband Jeffrey is nothing short of heartwarming. Could she really be so cruel as to turn down the wish of a critically ill six-year-old? The short answer is yes, but for good (well, good enough) reason. In public statements, Ina’s representatives have emphasized the number of requests for perfectly worthy charitable causes the star receives in a given year—hundreds—stating that there are more than any person could conceivably take on. This is understandable.

The trouble is, the mother of this six year-old boy has a blog. And when she got the news that Ina had turned down her son’s invitation, well, she blogged about it. Suddenly this “snub,” which may well have gone completely unnoticed in decades past, went viral.

The resulting fallout was, frankly, a mess. Ina’s people made an attempt to schedule a meeting as a result of the public outcry against her, but to no avail—the child’s parents did not want to put him through any additional stress. He will learn to live with the disappointment, even as he faces Leukemia.

At the end of the day, the story is just sad. A six year-old boy will not get his wish, and a celebrity who (as far as we know) had good intentions must live with a less-than-savory reputation, at least for now. No one wins, but one thing is perfectly clear: the internet is powerful, and to underestimate its power will only end in trouble.

The lesson to PR professionals is clear: we live in a different world now, and one where we all must (and will) be held accountable for our actions. We must assume that anything that could be made public will be made public, knowing that a single headline can become a thousand headlines in a matter of minutes or even seconds. We need to tread lightly. With great power comes great responsibility; we must use it wisely.

Written by Margaret Farrell

@matzofarfel