Jeanne Bliss on the website Marketing Profs Daily Fix brings our attention to a great example of how not to react to bad publicity. In Lubbock Texas recently, a woman’s nipple ring was detected by the security system. She was forced to go through a humiliating procedure during which she had to remove the ring in front of officers. Naturally this made the Transportation Security Administration look very bad.
The situation could have been saved at this point. They could have accepted they did wrong, but no, “It appears that the Transportation Security Officers involved properly followed procedures.” They could have explained what they had done to ensure this sort of thing never happens. Instead they offered a woolly “we are changing the procedures”.
Most important of all, they could have said ‘sorry’. Instead, when you wade through all the flummery, here’s their ‘apology’: “TSA acknowledges that our procedures caused difficulty for the passenger involved and regrets the situation in which she found herself.” In other words, sorry but you’ve only yourself to blame.
A commentator invents a new motto for the TSA, “You fly… we pry.”
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