“Fab Four” Companies and Their Public Scandal

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What is special about the competition between the “Fab Four”?

The fab Four consists of four technology-based companies that control the largest market base in the industry. The industry whose core business is based on technology offers a wide range of products that affect a consumer’s life daily. Thus, the Fab four offers products such as communication, technology gadgets, shopping, social interaction, and even shopping capabilities. The companies under this group include Facebook, Amazon.com, Apple, and Google.¹

Due to the specific nature of operations and products, the four companies specialized in the provision of their individual-based products without interfering with each other’s operations. For example, Google concentrated on communication, Amazon on merchandising goods, Facebook on social welfare, and Apple on technology gadgets. Over the years, with the need to increase their revenue, the companies have now broadened their product base intending to increase their respective market base. This could be seen in the case whereby companies such as Google have launched mobile gadgets and social platforms which were a preserve of Facebook and Apple.

Likewise, the other companies have also ventured into the preserves of the other respective companies. Due to this development, competition among the companies resulted and over the years it has grown to an all-time high. Therefore the companies have been able to increase their market base and therefore more revenues for them. By gaining an increased market share, the other companies will as a result lose their previous traditional consumers resulting in decreased revenues. This habit has resulted in rivalry as each company tries to outshine the other in becoming the leading technology-based company.

The companies have come to the realization that specializing in one thing only is not enough to achieve their revenues and thus the need to venture into other lucrative lines of production. “The more services they can offer, the more users they can attract, the more services they can sell us and the more advertising revenue they can generate. The battle to become chief executive of the web is on.”²

Why did the issue develop into a public scandal? What are ethical values at stake?

Competition among technology-based companies has increased over the years as companies seek to increase their market share and revenues. By doing so, the companies have on several occasions taken up projects that were handled by their competitors in a bid to outshine the other and eat into each other’s consumer base.

As the competition among the companies increased, one of the companies, Facebook, hired a PR firm to look into Google’s operation affairs and bring out negative campaigns against them. The PR Company, Burson-Marsteller, against PR ethics went ahead and undertook the campaign. Therefore Facebook undertook the services of Burson to plant negative anti-Google matters in other media houses in a bid to bring the negative issues into the public.

In doing so, the employees of Burson declined to reveal the client who had enlisted their services. Burson’s refusal to disclose their client to other media outlets was against ethical standards as no one would be in a position to verify the authenticity of the information. Nevertheless, the information became public when a blogger blogged the story. The result of this was a backlash on Facebook for orchestrating a smear campaign against its rival Google. Media and PR experts reacted negatively towards the issue and repugnance at the tactics employed by both companies.³

By refusing to disclose their client to the media and public, Burson denied the public and media a crucial element required in the industry and that was scrutinizing the information from both sides of the coin and thus determine the motive of the stories. Therefore, the source and the motive of the information were critical to give credibility to the story.⁴

Despite the issue coming into the public limelight, Burson’s explanation and apology did not meet the seriousness the issue deserved. It did not fire the employees involved and their apology was short off of a half-hearted apology. Therefore, the media and public perceived Burson as taking a defensive position instead of acknowledging its mistake and apologizing for it. The issue took a more critical turn when the company deleted Facebook posts that we’re touching on the issue while at the same time Facebook management kept quiet over the issue.

Due to this, there was a public outcry over the issue as both Facebook’s and Burson’s actions were both unethical and in breach of the trust, they had in the industry.⁵ Also, Facebook had breached privacy by accessing Google’s data and exploiting it for their use. Apart from the breach of privacy and trust, Burson’s reaction towards the whole scenario was appalling as it failed to address the issue with the seriousness it deserved thereby undermining standards across the journalism industry especially as an objective communication channel. ⁶

How did Burson-Marsteller respond to the crisis? Please analyze and evaluate their strategy

Facebook’s fierce competition for business and market forced it to adopt unethical competition strategies that involved hiring Burson, a PR firm to pitch negative stories about Google. As a result, this developed into a scandal as it was in contravention of the industry standards. In the wake of the scandal, Burson released statements saying that their client called for withholding of the source. Also, Burson noted that withholding the source of information while at the same time disseminating the stories was not against industry practices as the information was necessary for the public and it could be independently verified by any interested persons.⁷

Nevertheless, the company noted that it was not standard procedure for it to withhold the client’s name and against its operating principles. Besides, the company replied that there was no smear campaign intended and that their only goal was to disseminate information for public awareness. Despite this scandal, Burson did not terminate the services of the employees who orchestrated the scandal but went ahead to retain them offering to train them on PR ethics.⁸

What are the general lessons we can learn about communication strategies in the online world?

Facebook’s smear campaign against Google resulted in a scandal against one of the world’s leading PR firms when it undertook to take up Facebook’s smear campaign job. When the issue became public, it did not reflect positively on both Burson and Facebook, more so Burson’s defensive attitude towards the whole scandal. ⁹

From the scandal, a lot of ethical and moral lessons could be learned by both the media and PR companies. The scandal brought into light the various unethical practices that media outlets engage in intending to generate more revenues. There are a lot of unethical practices that haunt other professions, nevertheless, the Burson scandal was the worst of all as it affected media outlets that are trusted for disseminating objective information from credible sources. The journalist involved ought to have upheld the ethical standards required of them by the industry even though they were working for a PR company and not a media outlet. Apart from breaching Google’s privacy, the company also lied and distorted crucial information to smear Google and attain its client’s (Facebook) objective.¹⁰

From the scandal, a lot of questions have been asked with regards to the integrity of operations against the need to generate revenues which is the main aim of the PR and media companies. Despite there being ethical guidelines in place that govern how these organizations operate, there isn’t effective legislation to enforce the ethics and as result, companies are free to veer from the laid down operating principles. As a result, these organizations have more often than not engaged in unethical practices without regard to the laid down norms of operation.

PR and media companies regularly disseminate information that often influences the public, as a result, they ought to ensure that the information they reveal to the public is objective, unbiased, and from credible sources and clients. Besides, the need to generate more revenue should not surpass the need to offer objective information as this will result in mistrust in the institutions due to their malice. Company administration, for instance, Burson, ought to put in place effective operating guidelines, for example, training of all employees on ethical practices. For employees who breach the code, there ought to be severe measures taken against them as the industry deals with sensitive information consumed by the public.

Early corrective measures should have been taken when the scandal came to light, instead, Burson took a defensive stand and went ahead to delete some information that had been posted on Facebook’s page to hide the information from the public. This was unethical and resulted in a public outcry that shocked the industry as Burson was a reputable company.

Over the last two decades, the use of the internet to disseminate information has grown tremendously making it one of the most reliable sources of news in the world. Therefore, PR companies ought to ensure that they offer credible information as any news disseminated can be quickly verified via the web. Therefore, whenever a company acquires a new client, they should ensure that their services are not to be used negatively or in an uncompetitive way.¹¹

Thus from the above issues; ethics, integrity, and transparency play a key role in both the PR and media firms. There ought to be guidelines that the organizations follow in their daily operations and penalties for those who go against them. Though businesses thrive on revenue, the need for revenue should not surpass the need for ethical competition and operations. As technology advances day by day, the world is taking on the web to provide and clarify news, thus it’s no longer viable for PR companies to disseminate bias stories as the world will quickly verify their objectivity.

References

John Arlidge, “Race to win Cyber World”, The Australian, 2006. Web.
Sam Gustin, “Burson-Marsteller Deletes Critical Facebook Posts, Spares Google-Smear Flacks“, Bloomberg. Web.
Barbara Ortutay, “Facebook-Google rivalry intensifies with PR fiasco”, Bloomberg, 2011. Web.
John Arlidge, “Race to win Cyber World”, The Australian, 2006. Web.
Miguel Helft, “Facebook, Seeks to Downplay Campaign Against Google”, The New York Times, 2011. Web.
Robert Crag. Communication Theory as a Field. International Communication Association. (New York: Sage Publications, 2011), 15.
Danielle Kucera, “Facebook Hires Burson-Marsteller to pitch Story on Google“, Bloomberg, 2011. Web.
Marianne Dainton & Zellei D. Elain. Applying Communication Theory for Professional Life. (New York: Sage Publications, 2011), 20.
Roman Frigg and Stephan Hartmann, “Models in Communication”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (New York: John Wiley and Son, 2009), 17.
Harold Laswell D. The Structure and Function of Communication in Society. (New Jersey: John Willey, 2010), 9.
Daniel Chandler, The Transmission Model of Communication. (New Jersey: University of Western Australia, 2011), 22.

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“Fab Four” Companies and Their Public Scandal

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