Burson-Marsteller Digs Itself A Deeper Hole; Deletes Critical Comments On Its Facebook Page

from the crisis-management? dept

Burson-Marsteller, the PR giant, who is often used as a "crisis management" PR firm for clients undergoing bad press appears to need some outside help in handling its own crisis management. The company hasn't done a very good job responding to getting called out for trying to smear Google with questionable attacks and ghostwritten op-eds, at the behest of Facebook. The company has sort of but not really apologized, claiming that the smear campaign was not "authorized or intended." They just wanted people to "verify" the information. Uh, yeah.

And, now it's gotten worse, as Burson has been caught deleting critical posts from its Facebook page, forcing the company to sort of, but not really, apologize again, and say they'll reach out to the person who had posted a link to some of the coverage of the company's Facebook wall, and tell her she can put it back up. The company also tried to brush it off by saying that its Facebook page had been receiving "a lot of profanity," and that was all they were seeking to delete. That a basic story about the controversy got deleted in the process... well... I guess that's just collateral damage.
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Filed Under: crisis, openness, pr
Companies: burson marsteller, facebook, google


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  1. icon
    ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 13 May 2011 @ 4:45pm

    Puhlease

    Burson-Marsteller, the PR giant...

    The 'PR giant' with the domain name bm.com.

    (Stole that from Gruber.)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Designerfx (profile), 13 May 2011 @ 5:54pm

    don't forget that facebook is working with microsoft

    or did people neglect to remember the deal between them recently?

    having facebook then go after google kinda makes a lot more sense now, doesn't it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    Kaden (profile), 13 May 2011 @ 7:18pm

    Re: Puhlease

    My ex was an NNEB... Even now, those two letters have only one possible meaning to me.

    Also: You bastard, my screen's gonna smell like beer for weeks.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    nokings, 13 May 2011 @ 11:12pm

    Are you surprised?

    Especially when this guy, Dallas Lawrence is the head of Global Digital at Burson.
    http://mytown.mercurynews.com/archives/sunnyvalesun/12.18.96/impeachment.html

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    abc gum, 14 May 2011 @ 6:43am

    "The company hasn't done a very good job responding to getting called out for trying to smear Google with questionable attacks and ghostwritten op-eds"

    BM should simply claim it was "Not Intended to be a Factual Statement"

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    DannyB (profile), 14 May 2011 @ 11:57am

    Burson-Marsteller used by Microsoft to smear Google in 2007

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119059784609936938.html

    SEPTEMBER 24, 2007

    Microsoft Goes Behind the Scenes
    Public-Relations Proxy Aims to Gather Opposition To Google-DoubleClick Deal

    Yes, Burson-Marsteller, the company to go to when you want to smear Google!

    link to this | view in thread ]


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