Disney called, they want their mistake back
Guess what? Phil won't be the only new face at the Parentopia Passover Seder this year. Craig Dezern from Disney has also scored himself an invite. Craig, who oversees PR for the Disney Parks, responded to an email we sent to Disney regarding the blogger event scheduled on Passover.
Craig did exactly what we would expect from a stand-up guy working with a company that understands a terrible and unfortunate mistake was made. Craig offered a no-excuse apology from Disney for their failure to check the date and realize they had planned an event on Passover. He said it was wrong, he said it was accidental and he said he was very sorry. We accept his apology, we accept Disney's apology.
PR folks, we understand screw ups happen. We're all human. But when the mistakes happen take responsibility, apologize wherever necessary, educate yourself or those responsible for the error so it hopefully will not be repeated, perform an act of contrition if warranted, and then move on.
This is exactly what Craig is doing at Disney. Craig will be meeting with his PR team and reinforcing with them calenders must be checked and there is no excuse not to check a calender. It is a simple, and obvious, thing to do when planning an event. Period. Craig also told Devra apologies will also be extended to those bloggers whom had been invited to the event and had to decline due to the event being scheduled on Passover. It is our understanding those bloggers will be invited to a future Disney event.
Learn from Craig and the way he handled the situation, notice he did not offer even one excuse, not one backpedal applied. Not even and inkling of, "We're sorry, but..." He kept it simple; An apology and a promise to do better next time.
And that,to quote a former Mouseketeer,is exactly "What a girl wants, what a girl needs..." and makes us happy.
Labels: Apology, Disney, Social Media Mistakes
posted by Devra and Aviva @ 11:22 PM
12 Comments:
Disney did the right thing, and so did you by pointing out their mistake for future reference.
Another example of the lesson that unless we speak up, things won't change, even when it comes to honest mistakes.
Good for them. A sincere apology can go a long way to healing hurt feelings.
You know they'll make a serious effort to check calendars from now on.
So happy to hear this news. I'm such a big fan of the Mouse and it was breaking my heart to think they weren't stand-up--even if they failed to invite me to their little party.
Maybe next time...
See? That was all that was required?
I've been assuming all along that it was an oversight. All we were looking for was an "Oops. Sorry."
We all make mistakes. If the organizer had just apoligized in the first place it would have never gotten this out of hand.
FANTASTIC! I'm so thrilled to hear this. Nothing annoys me more than someone trying to "justify" their mistake. Just apologize, own it, and we'll all move on.
But tell me, did you want to make him apologize in a Mickey Mouse voice? Even for just a second?
I'm so, so glad they realized there mistake and issued a real, honest to goodness, apology.
As I keep trying to explain to DH, "sorry, but..." is not an apology. It sounds like you got a real one. Nice job, to you and Disney.
All is well. :-)
It was so great to meet you last in person!
Hey I just wanted to let you know it was sooo great meeting ou last night! Big fun. AND I'm buying your book!
Rony
Hi,
The last line of your post was really funny! I can't help but comment on your post - and the one about Easter eggs. I work in PR I'm also a blogger, too) and have for the past 11 years. I absolutely love my job, but I know my profession gets a bad wrap and it's things like this that continue its negative perception. In this case, the guy from Disney did absolutely the right thing and I'm happy he reached out to you. When I talk to students or other people in the profession, the one thing I really try to get them to understand is how important it is to build a relationship, whether we're pitching traditional journalists or bloggers. We need to know our audience and what would be of interest to them (plus what makes something newsworthy) and decide if we can provide something that would add value to them and their readers. And as for the pitch, I cringed when I saw the WS pitch on eggs - very generic and obviously once he just copied and pasted to everyone he targeted. As a blogger, I get pitched all the time - and as a PR person, I can't believe some of these pitches I receive... it's no wonder we get a bad wrap. I guess my point is that there are clearly people who don't get it, but there are also a lot of us that do. And hopefully in time, those of us that do will outweigh the ones that don't and then just maybe our profession will start to lose some of the negativity. At any rate - great posts!
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