Disclaimer: This writing piece was something I created for an internship opportunity. I was instructed to outline, in 500 words or less, an example of a recent event that was covered by local or national media that did, or should have employed the expertise of public relations professionals. I was to include my thoughts on what was or wasn’t effective and offer strategies or tactics that I thought may have been a better fit. This was written on November 16, 2018.

For the purposes of this writing exercise, I selected an incident that happened earlier this week at the Simi Valley Ford Dealership in Southern California. The dealership is currently being criticized for advertising their “smoking hot deals” during the nearby Woolsey Fire. The situation was covered by local, national, and international media.

The situation could have potentially been avoided if the dealership had the help of a public relations practitioner. One of the jobs of a public relations practitioner is issues management.  Practitioners have the ability to stop potential issues before they begin by scanning for things that could affect an organization’s product, stakeholders, or the way they do business. A practitioner can help create a plan to mitigate future issues, by watching for any conflicts between an organization and its publics. If the dealership had a practitioner, they may have advised against the insensitive advertisement. A practitioner could have explained that the advertisement may be perceived as insensitive considering their proximity to the fatal Woolsey Fire.

The dealership did make a good decision by making a public Facebook apology. However, they deleted the comment after many people said that it came across as insincere and evasive. They replaced the original apology with a shorter, less detailed one apologizing again to the community. The dealership could have enhanced their apology by entailing any recent examples of them demonstrating social responsibility. This method would aid in reminding the public that their values and code of conduct is in line with the community’s beliefs.