A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.
It's an old adage for those of us working in crisis comms and reputation management but it's been given new saliency by that viral Coldplay concert video.
Alex Wignall, Senior Account Director and part of our crisis team, shares why this story is particularly worrying...
“A compromising video circulating on social alleging an affair between a CEO and an employee is tricky enough to deal with. What’s new though, is what came next.
It's no secret that misinformation can proliferate rapidly across social platforms. This often comes from accounts pushing a certain political agenda, bots or those who like to indulge in conspiracy theories.
However, the appearance of a fake statement from a CEO, deemed credible enough at the time to be picked up by national news media, is a novel and unsettling development.
Reputationally, it was particularly damaging because:
1. The statement itself was tone-deaf. Beginning with the contrition you might expect, it then veers into essentially blaming Coldplay for putting the CEO on the big screen before ending in toe-curling fashion with a refrain from the band's hit Fix You.
2. Despite first appearing on a parody account on X, national news organisations initially gave credibility to the statement by running stories which framed it as genuine
3. While those initial stories are being corrected following hastily issued denials that the statement was genuine, it is still circulating widely online. How many people still believe it's legitimate? Probably a great many.
And that's before we get to the fact that the actual allegation - irrespective of the veracity of the statement itself - is damaging enough.
For me, this is the most vivid recent example of how fake content on social can be amplified further through trusted national news brands, reaching huge numbers of people before it can be corrected.
From this day forward, it's a case study which will surely be added to every crisis communications playbook."
