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When PR Goes Viral or Very Wrong: United Airline VS. CeraVe and Micheal Cera 

Written by

Molly Mullins

in

OpenAi

Best Practices in PR: Lessons from the Experts

Some of the best PR practices are learned rather than taught. To become “good” at PR one must sort learn practices by being hands on. For example, In the Lead Balloon episode “Sherwin-Williams Paints Itself Into a Corner,” Tony Piloseno talks about his success that ended in him getting fired. As a college student, Piloseno made Tik Tok videos mixing different paint and brought millions of views and brand attention to Sherwin- Williams. Failing to recognize his social media potential, the company fired him. His experience shows an important learned PR lesson, to embrace engagement from digital audiences to keep interest in a brand. While this could be assumed, this lesson was learned by Sherwin- Williams after firing Piloseno. 

Additionally, in When Things Go Wrong, Richard Levick speaks on how important it is to have clear, timely, and transparent communication. This type of communication is the foundation of effective crisis management. Levick’s work during the BP oil spill and 9/11 shows how proactive reputation management and empathetic messaging can diminish public outrage. This shows that in moments of crisis, a leader must learn that their leadership must lean into communication not retreat from it.

Biggest PR Fail: United Airlines’ Passenger Dragging Incident (2017)

This PR fail has become well known and turned a significant number of people off of United Airlines. A security officer dragged a screaming Dr. David Dao from a United Airlines flight after he refused to leave after “four passengers were selected to be involuntarily bumped” (Goldstein, 2021). This is one of the biggest PR disasters of the decade, because it went viral after being caught on camera. Following the incident, United’s response made the situation even worse to the public eye, due to CEO Oscar Munoz defending the airline’s actions. He only changed his response after public backlash.  

The Biggest PR Success of the Decade: CeraVe’s Michael Cera Campaign (2024)

One of the best PR stunts of the decade was skincare brand CeraVe’s campaign with Michael Cera. CeraVe launched a viral campaign teasing that the actor had “created” the product line. The campaign began with Michael Cera “front and center in the news and across social media promoting his ‘namesake’ brand, CeraVe” (CeraVe, 2024), and gained major traction on TikTok. Then, in a Super Bowl ad Cera jokingly revealed he had “made CeraVe.”This campaign was funny, clever, and a pop culture moment. The brand was able to make the entire thing seem fake up until the Super Bowl ad. This gave CeraVe a lot of brand exposure to younger audiences, so much so that memes were created because of this campaign. 

The success that came out of Cerave wasn’t because they spent millions of dollars to promote the brand. Leadership understood there was a lack of media communication in younger generations and they embraced their digital audience creating an iconic PR stunt. CeraVe raised brand awareness through a lighthearted joke and allowing the media to help push the brand name out. 

Conclusion: PR in the Age of Memes and Mistakes

United Airlines’ failure showed how damaging unthought out responses can be, and Sherwin-Williams showed us of the risks of resisting innovation and digital media. CeraVe showed that PR success is no longer just about what a brand says, it’s about what the brand does and what people say about them. PR professionals need to learn strong communication and up to date digital media. Because whether you’re handling a PR failure or launching a skincare campaign, brand perception is everything. 

Multimedia:

CeraVe (2024)

Keywords/Tags: #PublicRelations #PRFails #CrisisCommunication #BrandReputation #TonyPiloseno #PRWins #PRStrategy

References

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