Lilly Pulitzer Employee isn't as bright as the clothes

Source: Mashable

A month ago, Lilly Pulitzer was in the spotlight for selling out within minutes after their line launched at Target. People were lined outside the store for hours and Target’s website could barely handle all the traffic. Some customers were irate they were too late to buy anything, others jumping for joy about their new purchases. There was nothing too negative about #LillyforTarget besides the fact it was so limited. Now, the famous brand is making the news for an unfortunate reason. The internet exploded Tuesday morning after an employee had fat shaming cartoons hanging at their desk.

Lilly Pulitzer is headquartered right outside of Philadelphia in King of Prussia. The employee had extremely upsetting cartoons saying things such as “Put it down, carb face.” It wasn’t long before the social media and news outlets got the word of this. This is a PR crisis that won’t be an easy fix. Discrimination against weight is a topic that sparks a lot of conversation in the fashion world. It is no secret how many women suffer from body image issues because of size 0 models and clothing lines. Their VP of Creative Communications issued an apology explaining these cartoons of one employee do not reflect the company’s values.

Hopefully this employee will be terminated and the company can move forward with launching exciting items that make females excited to buy their clothes. Plus size clothing is something really breaking through recently. It was announced that Melissa McCarthy will be launching a new plus size clothing line and Tess Holliday was recently the first plus sized model signed to a mainstream modeling agency.

During a crisis workshop in class, we learned an immediate apology from one main spokesperson is always important. Termination of this employee will make a lot of people happy, proving to the public they do not tolerate such hate towards other women. As a female clothing line it is upsetting to see discrimination targeting other women. It will be interesting to look out for ways Lilly Pulitzer plans on addressing this crisis from a PR standpoint. #Lillyforallsizes?

This blog post was written by PRowl Director of Finance Gabrielle Lacherza 

Chipotle's Offensive Twitter Hack

Chipotle Mexican Grill had a lot of cleaning up to do after the brand's Twitter account was hacked for two hours on Sunday morning. Hackers changed the account's avatar to a picture of a swastika, edited the bio information, and sent out multiple tweets using offensive language to attack President Obama and the government systems.

Source: Coloradan Magazine

According to Mashable, Chipotle Communications Director, Chris Arnold, immediately responded to the hacking by making a public statement:

"Our Twitter account was hijacked overnight for about two hours during which a series of offensive tweets was posted to the account. We apologize for the nature of the posts that were made during that time, and we are now conducting an investigation to try to determine what happened and who might have been involved." 

During PR issues such as these where customers and audience members are offended, it is important for the brand to come forward with a spokesperson and a statement. Sitting back in silence can often lead to assumptions that your brand or organization is backing up whatever drama has occured. Not only did Chris Arnold speak on behalf of Chipotle, but the brand also tweeted a public apology and deleted all remains of the inappropriate hack.

Chipotle is commonly associated with positive marketing. Its current "Cultivating Thought" campaign involves printed literature on the restaurant's cups and paper bags as an activity for customers while dining. The works of well-known authors, such as Malcolm Gladwell, Toni Morrison, and Michael Lewis, and even a few faces from the entertainment realm, like Bill Hader, Sarah Silverman, and Judd Apatow, are used within the series. Additionally, the brand had a successful Twitter contest the week prior to the hack; followers posted haikus about Chipotle on Twitter and shared via Facebook to be entered to win a free entree for two.

Source: Vanity Fair

In July of 2013, Chipotle actually "faked" its own Twitter hacking as a publicity stunt for their 20th anniversary, and wound up with over 4,000 new followers the next day. Let's see how much @ChipotleTweets' followership increases after a real hack.

Hopefully the Communications staff was able to treat themselves to a hearty burrito after what must have been one stressful social media Sunday.

#RealTalk: Crisis Communications

"In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity."

This is a quote from a session at the PRSSA National Conference called From the Crisis Trenches: Blazing a New Trail in Communications. Speakers from the Mach 1 Group discussed the crisis the Livestrong Foundation was faced with when the Lance Armstrong scandal broke.

No matter how prepared we try to be, crisis will always knock us off balance.  Only so much can be learned about crisis communications in a classroom but it is something that will most likely face all of us one day. Here are some key takeaways that I learned in this PRSSANC session that made me feel more comfortable in my ability to handle a crisis situation.

• Work your company's mission statement into any answer you're giving the press
• Think "how can we turn this around?"
• Remember: we are more than the sum of the actions we take
• Be sure to show the big picture, not just focus on the problem at hand
• You always want to be the one to break the news so you can shape it
• Ethical and transparent communication is essential

Keeping these things in mind when handling a crisis situation will help ensure that it goes as well as possible. 

What tips do you have for dealing with crisis communications?