AWSJ(9/14) With Attack On US Comes Public Relations Pitfalls
September 13, 2001
Dow Jones Newswires
By MICHAEL FLAGG
Staff Reporter
HONG KONG -- Around 11 p.m. Tuesday, as the towers of the World Trade Center burned, the chairman of Hong Kong phone company Pacific Century CyberWorks Ltd. called one of his public relations people. Could she still get an ad in the local newspapers, Richard Li Tzar-kai wanted to know?
She could. On Wednesday morning, ads appeared listing information lines that people in Hong Kong could call to get the phone numbers of hospitals in New York and Washington, airlines and police. The company waived the normal $1.50 charge for international information and even helped desperate people get through jammed telephone exchanges in the U.S. The information lines got 27,000 calls Wednesday, twice as many as on a normal day.
For companies everywhere, Tuesday's terrorist attack could be a public relations pitfall, especially in what people might see as insensitive advertising or television programming. But if handled right, for companies like PCCW it's also a chance to do a little good and polish their public image.
Taiwan's VIA Technologies Inc., a computer-microchip designer that is embroiled in lawsuits with U.S. chip-maker Intel Corp., said Thursday it was donating $1 million to the victims. But a spokeswoman said, "We're afraid people will have a negative reaction, so we're still thinking about how to donate the money and to whom."
The Japanese are also playing it safe, at least at Tokyo's Nippon Television Network Corp. The network removed the Bruce Willis movie "Die Hard 3," in which terrorists set off bombs around New York City, from its Friday night schedule in favor of the blander science-fiction comedy "Back to the Future."
The movie industry too has changed tack to deal with the sensitivities. AOL Time Warner Inc.'s American movie studio Warner Bros. said it was postponing the Oct. 5 release of "Collateral Damage," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Los Angeles firefighter whose family is killed by terrorists. The studio has also spiked television ads for the $80 million movie and plans to take billboards down.
Then there's Asia Market Intelligence Ltd., one of Asia's larger market researchers, which took the risk that it might look opportunistic by rushing out a survey of 240 Hong Kong people with the not-terribly-surprising news that half say they are less likely to travel to the U.S. this year.
Some airlines, as usual after a crash, pulled their advertising. British Airways and Australia's Qantas Airways, one-quarter-owned by British Airways, halted advertising world-wide, said Ian Thubron, chief executive of the Hong Kong operation of British advertising agency M&C Saatchi, which handles both companies.
So did the One World Alliance, in which both airlines are members with American Airlines, which lost two planes in the attacks. The alliance advertising is a particular problem as some of it is on buses, which will take time to paint over.
"Typically an airline will go a month after a crash without advertising," said Mr. Thubron. "But with a case like this, with four airplanes lost, nobody is sure how to react."
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Yumiko Ono in Tokyo and Chen-Wei Pai in Taiwan contributed to this article.
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