The Power of the Brand

It's been a while since my last post and the whole Penn State thing has my head spinning. I was going to stay focused in on work and put off blogging for yet another month, but the nudge for me was the whole Papa John's lady chinky eyes dilemma. It is incredible how one person or in the case of Penn State, how a few people can bring down a brand a couple million notches. While the two cases are very different in terms of social impact (the lives of young people versus one person being humiliated) and neither should be tolerated, the ability of one person having the potential to do millions of dollars of damage is pretty incredible. Penn State was one of the purest brands in the marketplace. It was the Ivory Soap or Campbell's Soup of the education marketplace. The potential that one person has, coupled with the power of social media, became even more evident with Papa John's (see the story at http://www.businessinsider.com/papa-johns-racial-slur-lady-chinky-eyes-2012-1) where one employee, rather than get a person's name correct, put her name as "lady chinky eyes" on the order record.

As the event became viral, I was informed by my cousin Vincent about this ... the outrage we felt was incredible, as I am sure that others, Asian and non-Asians, were certainly feeling. Upon arriving the official Papa John's Facebook site ready to vent my anger to the papa himself, I saw that they had dealt with it swiftly. I still posted my concern and ultimate thanks and Papa John, as a result, did not lose me as a customer (we order Papa John's at least once a month). They handled it well from a PR and social media perspective and dodged a multi-million dollar bullet. Kudos to Papa Johns. Too early to tell what the ultimate impact is for Penn State, but hopefully the healing for community, victims, alumni and the university's employees has begun.