Can a Company Make an Apology?
Dan Gilmore wrote this great article on the appearance and meaning of the phrase “Take it Seriously” in today’s PR. Here is link from Citizen’s Media: http://citmedia.org/blog/2007/01/09/they-take-it-seriously-oh-sure/ In the article, Dan says that he “googled” the pharase “take it seriously” and the pages are littered with companies that had made mistakes and release an official statement saying that they take (violated policy) seriously.
Dan closes out by saying, “A straight apology? That, we might take seriously.”
So the question is, with legal ramifications, can a company make a mistake and take care of it by acting responsibly?
Can they say they were sorry…. and can they handle the “reimbursement” if possible without lawyers? Can they act like adults instead of children that got caught?
Or is a wrong, like Sony distroying grandma’s photo, be tolerated with a genuine sorry. Is the problem the company, or can human’s accept a wrong without full measured “payback”?
I’d like to know?
Add comment January 10, 2007





