Are you squeezing my muffins? Crisis PR blunder by Tesco
Are you squeezing my muffins? Sadly not a euphemism for anything, but it is a salutary lesson in how fragile a reputation can be, as Tesco have found out after unpleasant incident with muffins, being squeezed, and some clumsy public relations.
Seemingly in a galaxy far far away there was some savvy public relations advice bouncing around Tesco that allowed them to win the ‘Store Wars’ with a self proclaimed Jedi Knight who was banned from wearing his hood. Now, another few days and the turning of news cycles and Tesco have blundered.
Morgan PR are public relations specialists and know a thing or two about crisis management, and have helped clients in Newbury, West Berkshire and throughout the Thames Valley manage negative PR and just days ago we blogged about the deft use of humour in some PR crisis management by Tesco. They cleverly met cries of discrimination by the offended Jedi with a funny response that the media loved and left the Jedi’s face glowing like Darth Vader’s light sabre.
However, now the headlines have turned after Tesco got heavy-handed with a pair of Italian girls who go hands on with the muffins and squeezed a couple checking for freshness before choosing one.
Now, it was the store staff that turned this muffin mix up into a chocolate chipped delight of a story in dozens of newspapers and websites today. Yet had it been better handled by the Tesco public relations team it would have been a much smaller story.
How about, instead of justifying the actions of the store staff they had apologised? Sent a muffin basket? Said it was a storm in a muffin cup and assured everyone that their muffins were always fresh? Absolutely at a local level staff would need stroking, but it would have avoided the headlines that made Tesco look petty and small minded.
Apologising is still remarkably underrated as a crisis management strategy despite how well it worked for Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, but even in the real world people often just want an acknowledgement that you are genuinely sorry – that is not a qualified apology.
So do say: ‘We are sorry, we over-reacted and here is a muffin basket’ and avoid that awful approach of qualification: ‘We sorry you feel you over-reacted, and here is a muffin basket’. Do you see the difference?
To be fair, crisis management public relations should not be entered into lightly, especially when your carefully created reputation is at stake!
Thinking about it, ‘Are you squeezing my muffins?’ should become a euphemism; or maybe a catchphrase – and I’m think it is the equivalent to ‘are you yanking my chain?’ before you get smutty!