Capitalizing on Disaster

We are often advising clients to find news hooks in order to help promote their work and spread the word about their particular areas of expertise. We suggest they offer themselves and their work for platform building and name recognition. This is very important when it comes to book publicity. Finding a way to stand out from the thousands of books published every month. However, there is a line. When you are trying to profit from a disaster, things can turn ugly. The old adage is “any publicity is good publicity” but does this stand true?

Superstorm Sandy left millions without power and created massive destruction and fatalities. It was a tragic event with catastrophic results. Some companies, however, used the storm as a “hot story” to garner sales. Gap, Urban Outfitters and American Apparel offered online “Sandy Sales.” American Apparel released an ad targeting the states that got hit the hardest by Sandy with a 20% off for 36 hours, “in case you’re bored during the storm.” The problem with a PR stunt like this is that you are going to offend people. Yes, some sales might be incurred, but the end result is going to leave a bad taste in people’s mouths and might result in a backlash. The public doesn’t like to be taken advantage of or used. They want to be educated, informed and enlightened. We advise our authors to use their expertise, their experience and the work they created to open people’s eyes to things they may not have been aware of before, not to take advantage.

What are your thoughts on the Sandy PR?