One of the Biggest PR mistakes of 2017

Being in Boston this weekend is making me remember all the things I love about Boston. I love the people, the town and how the people of Boston love Boston sports. Everything from The Celtics and the Red Sox's to the Boston Marathon. Being in Boston also made me remember on the biggest PR mistakes of 2017 made by Adidas. Everyone remembers the Boston Marathon bombing that occurred in 2013 that killed three people and injured several hundred people. Through all the chaos, Boston stood together and stayed #BostonStrong. Now back to 2017, Adidas had the idea to send an email to the Boston Marathon runners to get them to buy Adidas clothing. This wasn't a bad idea, the marathon runners are the type of people Adidas would want to market to. Where the PR mistake happened was in the subject line of the email that was sent out. The subject line read, "You survived the Boston Marathon!" This was slammed on social media for being too soon after the bombing in 2013. How this went through the whole Adidas team is beyond me, like no one thought that the subject line could be offensive in any way. Adidas did make a public apology. “We are incredibly sorry,” the company said in an e-mailed statement. “Clearly, there was no thought given to the insensitive e-mail subject line we sent Tuesday.” Adidas did what one can do when trying to recover from a mistake that one can't take back. Adidas made their public apology and then they moved on to improve their public image again. Adidas acknowledged they made a mistake, Adidas attempted to fix it and Adidas moved on. One can't be too upset with Adidas, mistakes happen. Adidas didn't try sweeping it under the rug; Adidas did what anyone would have done in the situation that they were in. There have been a few PR mistakes in 2017, but this one seemed like a joke when I first read about it. It seemed like an easy catch for a PR team to see and correct right away before going public with the idea.