However, as demonstrated in its latest marketing drive, creativity can rapidly erupt into chaos and crisis management when ideas crash and burn…
Its campaign to sponsor the names of two weather fronts called ‘Minnie’ and ‘Cooper’ to promote its new Cooper Roadster backfired when the weather system’s icy temperatures caused over 100 deaths across Europe. Read my comment on the story in the Oxford Times
More forward planning of what could potentially go wrong with any campaign can help avoid disasters. A simple ‘SWOT’ analysis of a creative marketing idea (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) should help in the forming stage. Not every disaster is avoidable of course - and we can’t always predict everything that could go wrong - businesses will always need crisis communications expertise!
But it’s what you do when things go wrong that can matter even more to your brand... Are you prepared for a crisis and how do you react when one happens?
BMW did the right thing in holding their hands up immediately and apologising. Being open and honest and saying sorry is something a lot of firms could learn from! Timely communication of the appropriate message to the key audience is an important part of reputation management and can help stop negativity gathering force and keeping the story running in the public arena. People can be quick to forgive when an apology is timely and sincere.
We’ll hopefully see many more creative campaigns, perhaps on less weather-dependent themes (?) from the Mini brand.
