Sunday, November 25, 2012

Module 11- PR Crisis


PR Crisis

My response is going to be rather short and straight to the point  due to the small amount of content I found about the Best Buy scandal. 

So, The Company I choose was Best Buy obviously and the short term crisis they suffered was based off The Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn. The biggest issue was that Brian Dunn left the company. The reason for him leaving was because he had an inappropriate relationship with a female employee there. Richard Schulze, Chairman of Best Buy confronted Dunn about the situation between him and the female. Richard did not report the situation to anyone else on the corporate level which later caused everything to be misconstrued.  Best Buy did not explain the reason why he left which caused assumptions, rumors, and misconceptions to flair up. Words that could be sensitive to an organization like “scandal” and “misconduct” began to spread amongst the organization and to the public which eventually blasted into the media. As time went on, no one really tried to clear it up or giving reasoning as to why Dunn left which made Best Buy look suspicious as if they were trying to hide something. Reporters decided to dive deep into the situation and later found out that Dunn left because of the negative relationship with the female employee. This really placed a negative effect on Best Buy's brand because of the rumors and misconception.

 Best Buy really did not handle this situation properly. When the CEO is involved, I feel that they should have taken every proper measure possible to clear up an issue like this so people can know what is going on. The issue was not even that crucial, Dunn leaving the company was just a proper business decision he decided to take to cease any prolonged conflict with another member of the company. Something like that they just could have come clean with. They could have watched communication amongst the social media to make sure the brand is protected.  They also could have measured and analyzed how sales were affected during this period of the scandal. Most of the resolutions and measures could have been regulated amongst the organizations corporate level. They should not have let it get this far to the point that people are creating misconceptions about the company simply because of the sake of the company’s brand.

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