British retailer Marks & Spencer passed a public Crisis Management 101 pop-quiz with flying colors when, facing a campaign protesting its charging extra for bra sizes above DD, it decided to reverse the policy and issue a public mea culpa via full-page newspaper ad. Toting the bold headline, “We boobed.”, the firm stuck firmly to the crisis response tenet of admitting your mistakes and it’s paid off beautifully. CNN recently interviewed the leader of the protesters and this is what they had to say:
“I think even though we all obviously held a bit of a grudge against buying our bras from M&S we should really be grateful they got rid of the surcharge and have given us the super generous 25 percent off,” Mount wrote on the group’s site Friday. “They may get cleared out by the time the weekend is over!”
The head of a protester’s group publicly commenting on your company’s generosity and predicting brisk sales? You really couldn’t ask for a better reaction than that. A hearty U.K. “cheers” to Marks & Spencer, very nicely done!
JB
Jonathan Bernstein
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com