Gap responds with dignity to racist graffiti on its inclusive ads and wins Great PR

 28th November 2013    Good and Bad PR 

Gap responds with dignity to racist graffiti on its inclusive ads

Gap, the apparel company, has clearly learnt from its mis-step over “Hurricane Sandy”. According to Huffington Post: "Arsalan Iftikhar, senior editor at The Islamic Monthly and founder of TheMuslimGuy.com, posted a picture to his Twitter and Facebook wall of a defaced subway advertisement for Gap featuring Sikh actor and jewellery designer Waris Ahluwalia. 

The caption had been changed from "Make Love" to "Make Bombs," and the writer had also scrawled "Please stop driving TAXIS" onto the poster.

 

 

 

 

Gap responded very fast by not only asking the location of the defaced ad, but also made the ad its cover picture on Twitter.

Great response to racism by Gap! The story has gone viral since.

Coca Cola Philippines suspends ads to donate money for relief 

According to Yahoo News Coca-Cola Philippines suspended all advertisements for all its brands via all media channels from November 18.
 
According to a Coca Cola Press release: “Any committed advertising space will be redirected to the relief and rebuilding efforts for the people in Visayas.”
 
“The money will be donated to rehabilitation operations, the government and other organisations that have launched in areas heavily affected by the monster typhoon 'Yolanda'.”

A nice way to show respect to the victims of “Yolanda” without being insensitive about it. A far cry from the bad PR trap companies such as GAP found themselves in during Hurricane Sandy with poorly timed ads. “Gap, who checked in at Foursquare to the “Frankenstorm Apocalypse,” with a message to “Stay safe and do lots of Gap.com shopping.”

Have you seen any great or even bad PR?

Write to Paarul Chand at paarul@prmoment.in or tweet @PaarulC or @PRmomentIndia throughout the week and we’ll happily credit you for your trouble.