Today’s post comes from Bridgz’s junior copywriter Nick Nelson.
Last week, the New York Times sent out an email to about 8.6 million people urging them to reconsider their decision to cancel home delivery and offering a discounted renewal rate.
The problem: most of these folks had never received home delivery from the Times, or hadn’t canceled. Confused, receivers of the email went about contacting the newspaper for an explanation. They received one – too hastily – as the company quickly tweeted the following: “If you received an e-mail today about canceling your New York Times subscription, ignore it. It’s not from us.”
Did the newspaper really expect readers to simply ignore the fact that their email addresses had apparently fallen into the hands of an outside party, which was now spamming them? In a consumer world where trust is essential, the Times seemed to have a real problem on their hands.
Later in the day, a correction was made, as the corporate communications department informed people that the email was, in fact, sent from the Times, and that a message intended for 300 people had accidentally been sent to their entire distribution list.
A regrettable mistake, to be sure, but far less alarming than the idea that their list had been hacked and their data compromised. Dispersing bad information for the sake of a quick response proved to be a very poor choice.
The entire snafu showed that even an organization as respected and sophisticated as the New York Times is not immune to massive missteps in public relations. When your customers’ trust is at stake, it’s incredibly important to get all the details right.
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I guess this is why they say: “measure twice and cut once” good article!
Comment by Keith January 5, 2012 @ 11:22 amMistakes like this contribute to why my NYT rate just went up. I’m footing the overhead for the Times’ corporate communications department!
Comment by Stacia Goodman January 14, 2012 @ 5:21 pm