So here's a little PR lesson that demonstrates what makes news, the potential reputation damage inherent in employee use of social media and how your positioning of your organisation can see you hoisted on your own petard.
It's a silly story in the Daily Mail but it is one of those little stories that can chip away at your carefully constructed brand essence and needlessly consumes your time and effort in issues management.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2135085/Not-innocent-Smoothie-companys-joke-selling-smack-response-comment-price-drinks.html
A jokey tweet by smoothie maker Innocent Drinks that they also sell heroin, in response to a customer's joke that the price of Innocent's smoothies bears comparison to that of illegal drugs, generates a 350 word "shock horror" article by the Daily Mail.
It makes news because even joking about such as thing is judged to contrast sharply with Innocent's carefully constructed ethics and values. This provides the reason for and the heart of the story. Maybe the Daily Mail is being humourless but it clearly believes that enough of its audience will share its sense-of-humour failure.
The Daily Mail is also able to justify its tone by linking the incident to Russell Brand's appearance before a Parliamentary committee investigating drug addiction (not often they have something positive to say about him!). This shows the impact of topicality and the 'bandwagon effect' on journalist judgements as to what constitutes a good story.
It is highly unlikely that before the advent of 24 hour online new media news, such a story would have made its way into the print edition (leaving aside that the story catalyst is new media!) but it shows how the online news beast needs to be fed.
It's a flash-in the pan story which required some management time to address; Innocent employees have no doubt received a memo reminding them of the brand essence and the dangers of casual use of social media. On the upside, the Daily Mail has publicised Innocent Drinks' claims about their ethics; on the downside I will be just that little bit more alert to anything else I see or read about the company that more seriously juxtaposes values and actions. And that's where the longer term damage has been done.
Andrew Caesar-Gordon
