Wells Fargo has joined the ranks of
companies such as Chipotle, Exxon and Volkswagen with a recent public relations
scandal. Actually, make that two
scandals. The first was an advertising
mishap that ended in a public relations triumph, but unfortunately the second
was a true crisis communication problem.
The bank, in honor of Teen
Financial Education Day, released advertisements depicting ballet dancers and
actors as childhood hobbies instead of actual careers. For example, one of the ads stated, “A ballerina yesterday. An engineer today. Let’s get them ready for tomorrow.” The advertisements sparked backlash on
multiple mediums, specifically Twitter.
However, Wells Fargo responded
almost at once on the same social platform that the backlash occurred on. They issued a very sincere apology on Twitter
and stated that in 2015 they actually donated $93 million to creative and
education groups for young adults. We’ll
chalk that up as a win. Crisis averted
right? Wrong.
On September 8th,
federal regulators busted Wells Fargo for secretly creating millions of
unauthorized bank and credit card accounts for the last 5 years. Thousands of
Wells Fargo customers were affected; one customer even reported losing
$250,000. If that wasn’t enough, the
executive in charge of the fraudulent division retired with an insane $124.6
million payout.
So how did Wells Fargo public
relations handle the scandal? CEO John
Stumpf has only made one statement, and that is to say he does not plan on
resigning. Wells Fargo has been fined
$185 million and the company’s stock has plummeted. Stumpf will appear before the Senate Banking
Committee next week and hopefully will make more of an effort to appease the
public. For now, customers and the
general public are outraged on all social media platforms only to be met with
radio silence from Wells Fargo.
Bibliography:
H. (2016). Bove: Wells Fargo will make retail banks
'rethink' how pay works. Retrieved September 14, 2016, from http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/14/bove-wells-fargo-will-make-retail-banks-rethink-compensation.html
Glazer, E. (2016). Federal Prosecutors Investigating Wells
Fargo Over Sales Tactics. Retrieved September 14, 2016, from
http://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-prosecutors-investigating-wells-fargo-over-sales-tactics-1473881424
Johnson, K., & McCoy, K. (2016). Federal prosecutors
examine Wells Fargo over sales practices. Retrieved September 14, 2016, from
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/09/14/federal-prosecutors-examine-wells-fargo-over-sales-practices/90370170/
Merle, R. (2016). Wells Fargo fired 5,300 workers for improper
sales push. The executive in charge is retiring with $125 million. Retrieved
September 14, 2016, from
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-wells-fargo-executive-fake-accounts-20160914-story.html
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