How often have you seen a good brand apology?
While there seems to be more apologies than ever, few are effective. Many feel like they have been issued through gritted teeth.
And then there are of course the non-apology apologies.
Bad apologies can exacerbate an issue, particularly if the organisation is dealing with a crisis media management situation.
But one organisation issued the sort of apology this week that other organisations should aspire to emulate.
It came from the US National Archives, which as the self-proclaimed ‘nation’s record keeper’, found itself in the deeply uncomfortable position of being accused of falsifying history and censorship.
A journalist from the Washington Post revealed that it had made numerous alterations to a photograph included in an exhibit dedicated to the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage.
The archives’ curators changed a photo taken at a Women’s March the day after President Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 to remove references to the new president on placards.
One that read ‘God Hates Trump’ had ‘Trump’ blurred out – completely changing its meaning. ‘Trump’ was also blurred out of another which had read ‘Trump & GOP – Hands off Women’.
As well as removing the references to Trump, signs mentioning genitalia were also blurred.
That story led to a significant backlash.
So, how did the National Archives deal with this damaging crisis media management situation?
Well, it took to social media to issue a forthright, bold and unambiguous apology.
And the series of tweets began with the simple, yet powerful, “we made a mistake”.
It went on to say that altering the image was “wrong” and then showed what action it was taking to rectify the situation and prevent something similar from happening in future.
It said: “We have removed the current display and will replace it as soon as possible with one that uses the unaltered image.
“We apologize (SIC), and will immediately start a thorough review of our exhibit policies and procedures so that this does not happen again.”
This is a great apology that encompasses much of the CARE acronym we use on our crisis communication courses to show how organisations should respond when they are in the firing line.
It stands for Compassion, Action, Reassurance and Examples.
The only problem with the National Archives apology was that it took two attempts to get it right.
When it was first approached by the Washington Post about the image, it responded with a combination of weak excuses and arguments.
It said the altered photograph was not part of the suffragist exhibition, but was simply part of a display to promote it.
And it argued that as a “non-partisan, non-political federal agency”, it had blurred the president’s name “so as not to engage in current political controversy”.
Fortunately, its second response was much, much better – but other organisation should note that you often don’t get two attempts to get the apology right.
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