It seems that the ‘apology advert’ is becoming an increasingly popular crisis communications tactic.
After its data crisis, Facebook ran both newspaper and television adverts to address people’s concerns and remind them why they used the network in the first place.
KFC also took to print earlier this year to issue a cheeky apology for its chicken shortage.
Nicely done, @KFC_UKI pic.twitter.com/C7W6dstk9y
— We ♡ Food (@WeLoveFoodTweet) February 23, 2018
And now another under-fire brand has turned to the apology advert – only its effort appears to have caused more of a backlash.
Beleaguered pizza firm Papa John’s posted a promoted video to social media in the US over the weekend as it attempts to draw a line under its racism scandal.
— Papa John's Pizza (@PapaJohns) August 24, 2018
You might expect that this video would feature someone senior in the organisation apologising and revealing plans to ensure the organisation had learnt from its mistakes.
Instead, it highlights a number of negative tweets in which customers describe the company as ‘racist’ and report that they won’t buy food from it again.
In between the screenshots from upset customers, the company types ‘you expected better from Papa John’s. So did we’.
And it ends by thanking customers for their ‘anger’, before replacing that word with ‘criticism’, before finally settling on ‘honesty’.
There is a lot to admire about the video.
It is slick (even if it looks a little like a YouTube instructional video), it is not what I would have expected and, perhaps most importantly, it is an undoubtedly brave move to showcase tweets and posts with very strong criticism of the company and share them with a wider audience than they would have had first time around.
But there is a fundamental flaw which has led to a social media backlash – just like the Facebook advert, there is no hint of an apology.
Companies often find ‘sorry’ a particularly hard word to say.
Perhaps, in this case, the brand felt the tone of the video suggested remorse, but to my mind, considering the scale of the crisis media management incident, the apology needed to be explicit.
And looking through some of the social media responses it has received, this appears to be a view shared by many others.
but wheres the apology?
— fabian (@feelingsiacidal) August 25, 2018
There wasn't an apology anywhere in there, and you never actually acknowledged what you did wrong or how you're going to fix it, but other than that, a bang up job!
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) August 25, 2018
but wheres the apology?
— fabian (@feelingsiacidal) August 25, 2018
Did I miss the appology? pic.twitter.com/lFAWDJfGnm
— A.D. (@a_dix83) August 25, 2018
A “sorry for all the racism” would’ve been nice
— Yes, You're Racist (@YesYoureRacist) August 25, 2018
Another key part that you could argue was missing from the video was the action element – what is Papa John’s doing to make sure it doesn’t find itself in this type of situation again.
But to its credit, this came in a separate post published alongside the video, with a written ‘update’ from CEO Steve Ritchie.
We are working to earn back your trust. CEO Steve Ritchie shares an update on our values and progress: https://t.co/dalQM4Grlg pic.twitter.com/0WWm5yFjxy
— Papa John's Pizza (@PapaJohns) August 24, 2018
This is quite hard to view in the UK as clicking on the link redirects you to the company’s page with its latest offers (which isn’t really ideal).
But if you do get to see it, you’ll find that it takes a similar approach to the way Starbucks handled its own race related crisis media management incident earlier this year. We are told there will be a ‘listening tour’ to get feedback from franchise owners and employees, an ‘independent audit’ of its diversity and inclusion practices, and increased emphasis on diversity across the company.
And we learnt that the leadership team has received unconscious bias training.
It is perhaps a shame that some of this could not have been put across in the video. Asking people to watch a video and then read a separate post feels a bit clunky and it can be easy to miss one of the parts.
But even if it had managed to do that, would it have been enough to make amends and win back customers?
One of the biggest crisis problems the brand faces is that while its founder John Schnatter has resigned as both CEO and chairman of the board following his comments about the American Football national anthem protest and then his use of the n-word in a media training conference call, it can’t get him fully away from the company.
Not only does he still own a large part of it, but he continues to be vocal and has launched a ‘Save Papa John’s’ website because of the board’s attempts to ‘silence’ him.
That’s pretty messy and it makes it hard for the company to fully take control of the narrative as it tries to restore confidence and get back on track.
And, on top of that, it is still his name on the box when you order your pizza.
That in itself is quite an issue and it is hard to see how the company can ever fully recover until it is resolved, no matter how many videos it produces.
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