Crisis memory 2.0 : April 2017

April was a particularly busy month, with no fewer than 15 crises during the year. On the agenda: a lot of equality, some big crises and some products with slightly high prices! 26. Pepsi

Pepsi launched a campaign in which a white model, Kendall Jenner, tried to put an end to violent riots using a can of Pepsi. Against a backdrop of police violence and using an image that had already been widely seen (the Baton Rouge protest in 2016), the message was extremely badly received and triggered a wave of tweets against Pepsi. While the average number of tweets about Pepsi is 500,000, April saw 3.4 million tweets, almost 2 million more than the previous month.

Lesson learned: Using social causes to promote yourself is rarely an appropriate choice. 27. United Airlines

The record for the biggest crisis of the year belongs to the American airline United Airlines, with almost 2 million tweets. That's six times more messages published than during last year's biggest crisis involving Toblerone. This media and international outcry was provoked by shocking images and a video posted on Twitter of a passenger forcibly deported by the authorities. Let's go back to the story: United Airlines had overbooked its Chicago-Louisville flight. Four passengers were drawn at random to give up their seats to members of a partner airline. In compensation, United Airlines offered a night's accommodation, €400 and a flight the next day. The passengers refused, and the company raised the price to €800, but the refusal persisted. Finally, United Airlines called in the authorities to forcibly eject a man from the aircraft. The operation was violent, and the man was photographed with his T-shirt up and his face bloodied. The photos went around the world in a matter of seconds and the scandal was unprecedented. The consequences for United Airlines were immediate. The share price plummeted by 4%, newspapers around the world picked up the story and the number of tweets was spectacular. The company's CEO had to personally comment on the crisis. Lessons learned: Crises will be filmed more and more and will be bigger and bigger. 28. Paul France

The founder of Paul France pledged his support for François Fillon and said that all his employees seemed to be on the same wavelength. Via a video message on Twitter, he declared:

" I am the creator of Paul's bakeries... I am here as an ambassador for the 14,000 people that the company trains, half in France and half abroad, simply to tell you that I have looked at Mr Fillon's programme. And when Mr Fillon talks to us about freeing up work, it's the request made by all the staff to be able to free up work."

In response, the hashtag #boycottpaul was launched! It received over 5,500 tweets. Teaching : Politics and business rarely mix. 29. Ulker Biskuvi Ulker Biskuvi is one of Turkey's biggest companies, specialising in the sale of chocolate biscuits. For¹ April, the company published a humorous advertising spot awkwardly alluding to the failed coup d'état against President Erdogan in July. The 50-second advert was accused by the government of being another call for a putsch. This crisis had catastrophic consequences for the company, which saw its share price fall by 5%. Collateral damage also affected other companies held by the same owner. Lessons learned: Politics and communication rarely go well together... Even in jest. 30. Nivea A Nivea advertisement is going to cause controversy. In it, the beauty brand praises whiteness. The whole thing provoked quite a reaction: In response to the outcry over the advert, Nivea decided to remove its advert, stating:

"there have been concerns about ethnic discrimination due to the Nivea deodorant post on our Nivea Middle East page. We are deeply sorry that anyone was offended by this post. Once we realised that the post was misleading, we removed it immediately. Diversity and equality are core values at Nivea. The brand stands for diversity, tolerance and equality. We value difference. Direct or indirect discrimination must be excluded from all our decisions and in all our activities."

Teaching: Typical case that this advert has already had a few copies before in its construction. 31. Carousel at the Foire du Trône in Paris A scene in which a woman came close to a serious incident on a merry-go-round at the Foire du Trône in Paris was filmed and broadcast on the social network Twitter. One of the harnesses broke and released the young woman, causing her head to almost hit the ground. Teaching : The impact of video is always a powerful vector. 32. Science Po Paris Sciences Po Paris has been heavily criticised for using a sheep smiley to describe the au naturel hair of one of its black students belonging to the SciencesCurls movement. Science Po will apologise on its Facebook page: Teaching Sensitive subjects that can lead to misunderstandings. 33. Ikea Ikea launched an April Fool's joke that went wrong in Singapore. It announced :

"We're going to transform Småland from a playground to a digital playground! Our research into children's play habits has shown that today's children prefer tablets to physical activities. So we're going to replace the magical forest with a paradise of seats and tablets - recreating the way your children play."

This did not go down well with the public, causing a bad buzz on the Facebook page.

Teaching Another joke gone wrong. 34. Adidas

On the occasion of the Boston Marathon, sports equipment manufacturer Adidas sent out an e-mail congratulating its consumers on having taken part in the race. The word chosen was "survived". An unfortunate choice in view of the terrorist attack on the marathon the previous year. Adidas has apologised for this haphazard wording.

Teaching: Always check your message first, as this could have been avoided by a pre-publication checking procedure. 35. Zara Zara, which marketed a skirt printed with the iconic Pepe The Frog, likened to a sign of the far right. To justify its actions, Zara explained that the skirt was part of a collection produced in collaboration with very select artists. Mario Santiago, the designer, claimed that the idea for the skirt had come to him while painting with friends a few years earlier, so the sign had no connection with extremism. Teaching: The context of the moment influences our interpretation of events. 36. Rue du commerce Costumes of "deported children" were posted online on the Rue du Commerce website, immediately provoking outrage and emotion among Internet users. The site reacted quickly and removed the articles, stating: "We would like to apologise" on social networks before adding: "We strongly condemn the sale of these costumes and have immediately withdrawn them from sale". Rue du Commerce also stated that"an audit of the online procedures [had] just been carried out to ensure that this does not happen again". Lessons learned: Another case of controversial clothing in a large Internet database. 37 . Balenciaga The very famous luxury leather goods brand Balenciaga has awoken the irony of Internet users by releasing a new collection in which one of the handbags strongly resembles the blue bag from Ikea. The only difference is that the Balenciaga bag costs a whopping €1,695! The bad buzz quickly went international, with over 80,000 tweets. Teaching: The volume grows quite quickly when the humour kicks in. 38. PRPS Barracuda The Norstorm brand sold a pair of muddy "PRPS Barracuda" jeans for the modest sum of 415 euros... The whole thing was mocked on Twitter: Teaching: Nothing special. 39. Crédit Agricole Crédit Agricole is going to stir up controversy because of a rather misguided social network advert, namely an operation requiring a photo of a Dab to be taken in front of an ATM: Teaching: Sometimes blog posts can still make a bit of noise! 40. Dolce Gabanna A message posted on Instagram caused controversy because it promoted a certain form of thinness. Internet users mobilised against the "fat shaming" that was being conveyed, the whole thing being picked up by fashion journalists, while the main person concerned poked fun at the controversy. Lesson: Instagram is becoming an increasingly scrutinised medium for journalists.