Ralph Lauren’s Olympic Uniform Controversy: The Right Way to Handle a PR Foul-Up

Ever since the media flap that erupted when ABC News reported on Ralph Lauren outfitting the US Olympic team with uniforms made in China, I’ve been scrutinizing everything in our office to see where it’s been made.

The keyboard I’m typing on and the mouse I’m using? Made in China. The mousepad? China. The phone on my desk, the chair I’m sitting on and much of the stuff in our office-supply closet: China. China. And, yes, you guessed it, China.

According to Mark Arena of PR Verdict, Ralph Lauren, the go-to designer for US Olympic uniforms since the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, has been outsourcing these functions to China all along – in fact, most of the objects that surround us every day are made there – but no one really bothers about it.

So why now? Politics.

It’s a presidential election year, and President Obama’s re-election campaign has been relentlessly hammering the presumptive Republican nominee, one-percenter and car-elevator owner Mitt Romney, over his record of outsourcing jobs to other countries while at the helm of private equity firm Bain Capital and as Massachusetts’ governor. All of a sudden, the heated debate over outsourcing of American jobs has created a PR landmine for Ralph Lauren.

Would people have cared if it wasn’t for the Olympics? Probably not. Or if they did, it wouldn’t have landed as lead story on network news.

An All-American identity is the keystone in RL’s branding arch, so to speak. Its main emblem, apart from the horse-and-rider Polo logo, is the American flag. It is Americana at the very core. On the flagship website, you see the waving Stars and Stripes in the words RALPH LAUREN, just above a photo of the much-discussed uniforms, which the company says it is proud to create. Ralph Lauren went wrong because it forgot that when you’re in the business of selling Americana, it helps to be perceived as 100% red-white-and blue. (Still) Red China garments just don’t feel right. And in an election year, politics, like the Olympics, is a game that attracts many spectators. This time Ralph Lauren got mixed up in a pre-game tussle that didn’t need to happen.

That said, if you build up your brand as a paragon of American-ness while outsourcing the making of Team USA uniforms to China during an election year - where outsourcing is a major issue - your PR team shouldn’t be shocked when the proverbial **** hits the fan.

I half-agree with Mark Arena’s verdict that RL handled this well. Yes, it didn’t ignore the issue. It acknowledged the problem and promised to rectify it in time for 2014’s Winter Olympics.

But the damage has been done. “Sorry” doesn’t cut it. And let’s face it, in our mile-a-minute, tweet-a-micro-second culture, is anyone going to remember this little PR snag – or its lesson – on Friday February 7, 2014, at the opening of the next Winter Olympics, a whopping 817,000+ minutes away? My Magic 8 Ball says ‘no.’ More than likely it will leave another company open to similar slipups. Even so, companies need to remember that nothing they do happens in a vacuum and often products and promotions that bear no obvious linkage to other events, be it politics or world news, somehow becomes relevant. It also doesn’t hurt to remember election year rally-around-the-flag sensationalism.

As for our office? At least our desks and chairs come from Sweden-based Ikea. Even here, some 22% of the brand’s inventory is made in China. But unlike RL and petty politicians, I doubt any of our clients will mind which nations constructed our furniture – Olympic and election year or not. 

Even Decade-Old Lies and “Omissions” Can Wreak Havoc on a Brand.

One would think that in our 24/7 news cycle and oversharing age, companies and celebrities – who depend on public goodwill to remain famous and profitable – would resist the impulse to lie or cover up less-than-flattering information.

Perhaps guess GlaxoSmithKline and “Dr. Drew” Pinsky missed that memo?

Last week it was revealed that Dr. Drew, an addiction specialist and host of Loveline and Celebrity Rehab took more than $250,000 from the British-based pharma giant in the late ‘90s to talk up its antidepressant Wellbutrin on Loveline.

Even as he touted the drug for its effects – or lack thereof – on libido, the good doctor neglected to mention he was being paid to promote the drug.

$250,000 is a rather handsome sum of money, but in failing to disclose his financial link to GlaxoSmithKline, Dr. Drew ended up doing a great deal of damage to his own brand – more than a decade down the line.

As a PR practioner, I’ve said this so many times to my colleagues and will continue to until I’m blue in the face: Dishonesty will always come back to bite you on the behind

The GSK kerfuffle could end up costing Dr. Drew far more than money – just read some of the comments following a recent CBS News report:

“Dr. Drew, too bad you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube once it is out. You are now and will forever be a pharma shill. Unlikely that you will ever be seriously considered an astute medical practitioner.”

That’s what I mean about being bitten in the bottom.  I wouldn’t want to be associated, even tangentially, to what officials are calling “the largest case of healthcare fraud in US history.” No sum of money can make up for such a loss of credibility – in my mind, at least.

I recently wrote a post about the massive PR blunder committed by lobbyist Stephanie Harnett of Mercury Public Affairs on behalf of Wal-Mart: she posed as a reporter to infiltrate a meeting of union members opposed to a planned Wal-Mart in Los Angeles. She was caught, then fired and managed to garner some (more) negative press for Wal-Mart, the exact opposite of what she – and her previous employer – had intended. Not that Wal-Mart is a stranger to awful press, of course.

While these are two distinct scenarios, they both raise the issue of lapses in professional ethics and serve as yet another reminder that dishonest behavior in business, particularly in our always connected age, can backfire disastrously.

So what have we learned from GlaxoSmithKline and “Dr. Drew” Pinsky?

Credibility is our most important asset. If we don’t have that, we don’t have a business. At least not a business worth having.