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Hello, and welcome to our 2024 wrap-up of Reputation Digest, looking back at all things reputation – the good and the (mostly) bad.
Mr Bates vs The Post Office
The Post Office has been involved in legal action over the wrongful prosecutions of more than 900 sub-postmasters since 2017. In January 2024, ITV broadcast television drama, Mr Bates vs The Post Office became a national sensation in the UK, blowing up the scandal into a major news story and political issue.
Many sub-postmasters went to prison for false accounting and theft, while others lost their jobs, or were forced to make up shortcomings with their own money due to incorrect information produced by Fujitsu’s Horizon accounting software. Concerns by staff were dismissed as the organization was unwilling to consider the possibility that their system was faulty, prioritizing their brand ahead of the wellbeing of staff.
The drama tells this story, focusing on a group of 555 sub-postmasters, led by Alan Bates, who formed the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance and brought a group action against The Post Office. In 2019, the high court ruled that the sub-postmasters’ dismissals were unfair. The case was settled for £58 million.
The series was credited for igniting public interest in the scandal, with a petition for former Post Office CEO Paula Vennells to have her CBE withdrawn accruing more than 1.2 million signatures. The day after the series aired, then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced new legislation to exonerate wrongly convicted sub-postmasters. Bates received a knighthood for his work in June 2024.
The scandal has been called ‘the UK’s most widespread miscarriage of justice’ by media and the legislation to clear victims’ names and pay them compensation came into force last May. It’s clear that the public’s trust in The Post Office has been deeply undermined.
‘Let them eat corn flakes’
As the cost-of-living crisis has continued into 2024, rising food prices have been top of mind for many consumers. They’ve endured years of inflation and price increases blamed on supply issues, while retailers report record profit margins.
Kellogg’s chief executive, Gary Pilnick provoked anger in February after suggesting that people struggling with the cost of living should choose cereal as a “much more affordable” alternative to a proper dinner. The comments were prompted by an advertising campaign, running since 2022 which urged consumers to “give chicken the night off” and opt for Corn Flakes instead.
This sparked criticism across social media as consumers compared his remarks to Marie Antonette’s famous ‘let them eat cake’ and commented on how out of touch Pilnick (who earned a base salary of $1m and more than $4m in incentives in 2023) comes across at a time when consumers are seeing their budget stretched more than ever before.
As the social media outrage grew, mainstream media across the UK and US joined in, from the Guardian to CNN. With the ammunition created by a single careless quote, the story quickly spiraled out of control.
The negative perception hasn’t just affected Pilnick, as a representative of Kellogg’s, his words reflect badly on the entire organization, particularly when the company is running an ad campaign that compounds that message.
Clearly executives need to weigh their words carefully and consider the financial struggles that many individuals and families face. This controversy highlights how a lack of understanding of your audience – and the current socio-political climate – can and will alienate consumers.
CrowdStrike – A Lesson in Crisis Comms
A company that few had even heard of has now been thrust into the limelight as a routine cybersecurity update led to chaos and disruption around the world. Flights were grounded, health services delayed, and Microsoft services were unavailable in what some experts are calling one of the largest IT failures in history.
How did the company react?
CrowdStrike’s swift response came in the form of a post from CEO George Kurtz on X. The post identified the problem, making it clear that it was not the result of either a cyberattack or security breach. It also referred customers to a support page for updates and promised that CrowdStrike was doing their best to ensure “security and stability” for customers.
For some, the post was acceptable; it avoided disinformation, using clear and understandable communication and offering a way of getting support. However, critics argued that Kurtz’s statement was unempathetic, relied too much on corporate jargon and failed to acknowledge the impact of the incident on people’s everyday lives. The lack of immediate apology sparked a flurry of outraged tweets.
Kurtz did eventually engage with multiple media interviews where he told a national TV audience that CrowdStrike was “deeply sorry for the impact that we’ve caused to customers, to travelers, to anyone affected by this”. Meanwhile, the technical team at CrowdStrike continued to work on to locating and isolating the Falcon Sensor software flaw.
Nonetheless, most of the damage was done, and CrowdStrike stock dropped 11% after the incident. Moving forward, CrowdStrike must focus on quality control and rigorous pre-deployment testing if they are to regain the trust of their customers. Preventing an incident before it occurs will always be more effective than even the best crisis comms.
Labour’s 100 Day Disasters
Labour have been dragged through the mud by national media ever since Prime Minister Kier Starmer entered office in July, with their first 100 days described as the ‘worst start in living history’.
Despite Labour’s resounding electoral victory with their largest majority since the 1997 election, things are looking shaky for Starmer’s government. The party has slumped to a worrying low in the opinion polls and new research from More in Common UK has revealed that they would stand to lose 200 seats if an election was held in January.
Their political agenda has been overshadowed by a donations scandal which has dominated headlines and led to some scathing critique. Starmer, whose annual salary is as PM stands at £167,000, has declared freebies worth more than £100,000 pounds over the past five years, more than any other member of parliament.
Taylor Swift concerts, football matches and pricey designer clothes have flooded the public’s imagination – standing at odds with the values of fairness and equality that Labour have been attempting to project while in power.
Labour also failed to control the narrative around limiting winter fuel payments for pensioners. The change aims to save the government money and should also mean pensioner households on the lowest incomes still retain support. However, it’s clear that Labour have lost control of the narrative as national papers condemn the Labour government for forcing thousands of pensioners into poverty.
Other issues have also risen to the surface, with famers taking their tractors to protest new inheritance laws outside Westminster and the new National Insurance levies causing concerns for many businesses. One thing’s for sure, Labour will be hoping that these first few months will be long forgotten by the time the next election rolls round.
Greg Wallace & the BBC
Greg Wallace has long been a household name in the UK, but his reputation has taken a huge hit as allegations of misconduct have been brought against the MasterChef presenter by 13 people who worked with him in some capacity over the last 19 years.
BBC News spoke to more than 12 women regarding allegations about Wallace’s behavior, dating back to is 2005 – the year the presenter joined MasterChef. The broadcaster Kirsty Wark was one of the first women to publicly accuse Wallace of inappropriate behavior during Celebrity MasterChef in 2011. However, despite many of the women putting in complaints to TV bosses when the harassment occurred, Wallace was allowed to remain on screen.
In an Instagram video posted after the story got out, Wallace suggested that the allegations against him came from “a handful of middle-class women of a certain age” – a claim that was deemed both “inappropriate and misogynistic” by Downing Street and inspired a new wave of public outrage and media coverage. From a PR perspective, this ego-driven, tone-deaf response is a perfect example of exactly what not to do in a crisis.
Wallace has now stepped down from his role presenting MasterChef. The show’s production company, Banijay UK, has launched an investigation into Wallace’s behavior and said the 60-year-old is “committed to fully cooperating throughout the process”.
This is not the only scandal the BBC was involved in during 2024. Huw Edwards’ broadcasting career has ended after admitting charges of making indecent images, raising questions about wider issues with the company’s complaints process and culture.
Image: Roman Kraft / Unsplash
