In today’s technologically advanced world, we’re now more connected than ever, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. Ultimately, one of the largest consequences of the digital age is that companies are held accountable for mistakes, however big or small. If a CEO misspeaks in an interview, he could be trending on Twitter just mere moments later. If a tweet is posted with a spelling error or an inaccuracy, even if it’s deleted nearly instantaneously, most of the time someone on the internet will have caught it and circulated the screenshot.
You would think this would mean that companies would have all of their digital marketing and social media extensively proofed through multiple internal channels prior to posting, yet somehow each week it seems there’s a new story about leading brands issuing apologies for an insensitive or politically incorrect campaign.
For example, when distributing an en masse marketing email campaign following the Boston Marathon, Adidas chose to make the subject line 
“Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!” I mean, really? Not one person in Adidas’ marketing department though to reconsider referencing surviving an event where a terrorist attack took place only two short years ago? The company issued a nearly instant apology, but the damage was done. The email has been circulated all over the internet and has been picked up by several major news outlets. No doubt at least one person in the marketing department lost their job over this mistake, but I think the company as a whole should be held accountable. There’s no excuse for insensitivity in this day and age.
Enter exhibit B: Cosmopolitan magazine. Last week, the publication shared one of its recent stories on its social media channels with the click-bait headline “How this woman lost 44 pounds without *ANY* exercise.” Spoiler alert: the way she lost this weight is because she got cancer. When readers clicked through to discover the weight loss secret, they
were astonished to actually be reading a cancer survival story. As Jenna Amatulli wrote in the Huffington Post, “the weight loss aspect of Harbinson’s story is unrelated to everything she suffered through.” While the story’s headline on Cosmopolitan’s website now reads: “A Serious Health Scare Helped Me Love My Body More Than Ever,” a simple Google search highlights all of the backlash Cosmo received over this, with coverage from the Washington Post, the New York Post and USA Today, among others. Because of the internet, rectifying a mistake doesn’t always make the situation disappear. Cosmo can revise the headline, but the coverage of their insensitivity lives on. Ultimately, paying close attention to these types of stories is important for those of us in the PR industry and teaches an essential lesson on the importance of proof reading and getting a second, third and fourth opinion.
