Public Relations: Samsung's Reputation Management in Crisis

This report examines the importance of online reputation management for organizations, using Samsung as a case study. It analyzes how the company's image was impacted by the Galaxy Note 7 recall, and the subsequent damage to their reputation. The report details Samsung's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and explores the problems they faced due to negative online reviews. It outlines a public relations strategy, including objectives and tactics, such as government interactions and traditional media advertisements, to restore consumer trust. The conclusion emphasizes the need for proactive reputation management to address potential crises, highlighting the critical role of social media monitoring, expert handling of online communications, and the importance of transparency in crisis situations. The report stresses the need for a comprehensive approach to protect and maintain a positive brand image in the face of negative publicity, particularly in the digital age.

Running head: PUBLIC RELATION REPUTATION TO RISK
Public Relation Reputation To Risk
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary
The report is required to look into the importance of online reputation, which people create of
any organization in social media. Each and every company is in some way or the other has
presence in social media channels. Social media nowadays is a global platform where
information can be accessed by anyone and news spreads like wildfire. Online reputation is
an aspect where companies need to put special attention on how people are reacting to
product launches, what are they talking about, the kind of reviews they are giving of the
products and services tested. All these play a vital role in building up reputation for an
organization.
The organization chosen for preparing the report is Samsung, the South Korean Multinational
Conglomerate, having their headquarters in Seoul. The need to have reputation management
came from the fact that the company’s image had taken a hit due to Galaxy Note 7 mess,
when users had compared Samsung Galaxy Note 7 to a hand grenade. The report concludes
that maintaining good online reputations for companies is a must as the reviews and
comments received from customers and social media users, directly impact the buying pattern
and mentality.

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Discussion..............................................................................................................................3
2.1 Organization.....................................................................................................................4
2.2 Present Situation...............................................................................................................4
2.3 Situation Analysis............................................................................................................5
2.4 Problems...........................................................................................................................6
2.5 Strategy............................................................................................................................7
2.5 Objectives.........................................................................................................................7
2.6 Tactics..............................................................................................................................8
3. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................9
4. References............................................................................................................................11

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1. Introduction
The report takes into consideration the importance of reputation for organizations and
managing them in an effective way. Online reputation is nothing but how companies manage
negative comments, which might get published by users and customers, due to their
unsatisfactory level of services and the products they deal with (Carroll 2015). People are
free to express their opinions on social platforms but companies need to be careful in
identifying the reviews and comments and handle tricky situations with great care.
Samsung is the company, based in South Korea considered for preparing this report.
This is a multinational conglomerate, who deals with numerous businesses which are
affiliated. The company was founded by Lee Byung-chul, in the year 1938. The group, over
the next 30 years, got diversified into different areas like textiles, food processing, securities,
insurance, retails and insurance (Coombs 2014). Their electronics industry was started off in
the year 1960.
The report concludes that maintaining good online reputation is something which
companies need to be careful of to uphold the dignity of the organization and find ways out to
tackle different problems through review and comments of the customers and users.
2. Discussion
Dear Mr. Lee Kun-hee
Samsung, GEC, 26, Sangil-ro 6-gil
Gangdong-gu, Seoul
Korea

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Thank you for the opportunity to provide the following reputation
management plan Samsung. The Public Relations approach has been taken to frame
out the plan. Public Relations is a strategic communication process that builds
mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.
2.1 Organization
The organization chosen for preparing this report on reputation management plan is
Samsung, the South Korean Multinational Conglomerate, who has been operating since 1938.
They have got a diversified portfolio of businesses ranging from electronics, appliances to
insurance, food processing, textiles and retail (Kapferer 2012). Some of the noteworthy
industrial affiliates of the company are Samsung Electronics, Samsung Heavy Industries,
Samsung Engineering, Samsung C&T, Samsung Everland and Samsung Life Insurance.
Online reputation is a key issue which every company need to consider, in order to take care
of misinformation provided, negative reviews given by consumers, feedback of the services
provided by the company and many other stuffs. Samsung influences South Korea’s
economic development, media, culture and politics to a considerable extent (Maor, Gilad and
Bloom 2012).
2.2 Present Situation
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was compared to a bomb as the phone had kept on exploding
from time to time, which led to a huge uproar. The news had spread in no time thanks to
social media channels and blogs, where details regarding the incidents were shared. The
company was forced to issue global recall of all Galaxy Note 7 phones, leading to loss of $5
billion and loss of sales (Martin and Burke 2012). The reputation of the company had taken a
hit, due to which in the list of 100 most visible companies in the United States, the company
dropped down to 49th position from a premier position of 7th. Galaxy Note 7 was nothing
short of a fiasco for Samsung. Currently, the company has done away with their Note 7

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phones and they are now the leader in sale of smartphones. Samsung Electronics is on the
Forbes list of top multinational performers (Neef 2012).
2.3 Situation Analysis
Situation Analysis refers to a company’s internal and external influencers which
impact the policies and framework. Through the analysis, the company’s strengths, weakness,
opportunities and threats which lie would be looked into.
a) Strengths-
i) Company’s brand name
ii) The image which the organization has created over the years on the
minds of the customers.
iii) Diversified business which helps in mitigating risks (Ott and
Theunissen 2015).
b) Weakness-
i) Inability to keep experienced persons for handling social media pages
ii) Failure to provide prompt responses to customers’ queries and
accusations.
c) Opportunities-
i) Samsung had the opportunity to restore their pride and reputation by
handling queries and objections in an efficient manner (Ponis 2012).
ii) They had to call back Note 7 sets, which was an opportunity for
Samsung to come up with sets having improved technologies
d) Threats-
i) The major threat for Samsung lied in, how much would the company
take to get things back under control

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ii) Restoring customers’ faith in the company’s products was also a
cause for concern.
2.4 Problems
Samsung, despite being the leader in manufacture of smartphones, got hit badly by
their Galaxy Note 7 problem where they got forced to call back all the sets from the market
due to a bad online reputation getting created through bloggers and other users in the social
media. There were frequent explosions which used to take place in Note 7 sets, hence the
social media channels and bloggers had gone crazy (Smith 2013). This had hampered the
company’s reputation to a great extent. Sales had dropped drastically, leading to the company
suffering heavy losses. Consumers had lost faith in the quality of phones manufactured by
Samsung, hence the company had a huge task of regaining customers’ faith and earn their
position back in the electronics market. The problem of Galaxy Note 7 was a catastrophe for
Samsung. Dozens of devices malfunctioned due to the existence of faulty batteries, which
had become a serious threat for all those who were using the sets. The company had recalled
all those devices with the purpose of getting things fixed but their inability to come up with
suitable replacements, led to the complete discontinuation of the device (Fearn-Banks 2016).
Social Media channels like Twitter, Facebook had started mocking the company
through sarcastic memes with the sets getting compared to grenades. Jokes spread around that
soldiers would use Note 7 sets instead of bombs to create explosions in war zones. People
used this tough phase to make a joke of the renowned organization in all possible ways.

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2.5 Strategy
Recall of Galaxy Note 7 phones by Samsung got support from the Government level,
as Consumer Product Safety Commission had stepped. The statement issued contained the
following points:
a) Users not only needed to be careful while using but also should ensure that the
powers were down for all the sets and preferably stop using them completely.
b) The Government agency had also proceeded in a swift manner to determine
whether replacing sets of Galaxy Note 7 was a feasible option or not.
c) CPSC had rejected the trade-in deal offered by the company as the agency thought
that the option was not feasible (Veil and Husted 2012).
The traditional media refers to print and electronic media, in the form of newspapers,
magazines, business journals, television and radio. Samsung ran full page apology ads in
three major US Newspapers, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Through
those ads, the company had stressed on their mission of providing best-in-class safety and
quality. Social media users had appreciated this move by saying that running full page
advertisements was the way forward for the company to use print media effectively.
2.5 Objectives
The objectives behind the strategy implemented through interactions with
Government and the information which the company tried to convey through newspaper
articles were:
i) The company had to take care of the brand image, which was affected due to
the incident.
ii) Customers had to be given clarity on the action plan and also restore their faith
towards the organization.

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iii) The reputation of the company had to be restored.
2.6 Tactics
The tactics involved in shaping up perceptions of the public through influencing
information, surfacing in social media about that particular organization. This is crucial
aspect which needs to be treated with care and hence proper planning is required. Companies
in the first instance should ensure that there is a system in place to take care of all the issues
and queries and also tackle negative comments from users (Crandall, Parnell, and Spillan
2013).
In Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 fiasco, the plan that should have been in place to prevent
things from going overboard is chalked out as follows:
i) Samsung should have ensured that experts handling their social media pages
are in tune with the problem which the organization had faced.
ii) Now before people could start posting random stuffs about the incident, the
experts should be given a clear picture.
iii) Once they are aware of the problems that have surfaced, the company
representatives should be clear about the action plan which Samsung was
aiming to take.
iv) Then a clear cut action plan which the company was considering, along with
consultations with the Government agencies, should have been put out as
screenshots in the social media. This would have calmed the users down and
ensured authenticity (Kriyantono 2012).
v) Media would always be able to influence people better and become effective,
if images and videos get posted. The company should have put out videos of
official statements on the issue. Then the full action plan formulated by the

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company and the immediate steps which they had taken to tackle the situation,
could have been posted as pictures and YouTube videos.
vi) Regular communication with the officials on company’s facebook page would
have provided the much needed clarity on the issue.
Prevention is better than cure. Hence, system should have been put in place right
upfront by the Company to ensure that no user could express or spread any negative
information about the organization. Moderators should have prevented people from posting
comments or pictures about the issue. Maintaining secrecy was the need of the hour. The
company had to avoid spreading the news so that confidentiality got prime importance. In
this age of advanced technology where, young generation is glued to the social media,
scanning through pages of companies, whose products they generally tend to use (Kim and
Sung 2014). They do this in order to gather current information regarding offers, new product
launches and any other development. Hence, spreading news on issues where the image of
the company was in line through leading newspapers should have been prevented. Rather,
they could have taken a reserved approach, not to hide information but to slowly let things
flow into the public.
3. Conclusion
The report concludes that maintaining good relation with the public, whenever any
issue crops up in an organization is of paramount importance. Problems can occur as humans
deal with the manufacturing of the products. Similarly, in case of Samsung, the phones get
manufactured and the batteries get developed through proper research and development. A
proper plan should always be put up in order to manage the reputation of the company, which
might be in risk, due to mishap and the whole image in front of customers could get affected.
Keeping experienced personnel to take care of the social media pages would do the company

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a world of good to tackle tricky situations like these. In addition to these, regular updates on
the work which goes on behind the scenes from company’s part along with related pictures
and videos would be ideal to put the company’s image on the minds of the customers, back
on track.

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4. References
Carroll, C.E. ed., 2015. The handbook of communication and corporate reputation (Vol. 49).
John Wiley & Sons.
Coombs, W.T., 2014. Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding.
Sage Publications.
Crandall, W.R., Parnell, J.A. and Spillan, J.E., 2013. Crisis management: Leading in the new
strategy landscape. Sage Publications.
Fearn-Banks, K., 2016. Crisis communications: A casebook approach. Routledge.
Kapferer, J.N., 2012. The new strategic brand management: Advanced insights and strategic
thinking. Kogan page publishers..
Kim, S. and Sung, K.H., 2014. Revisiting the effectiveness of base crisis response strategies
in comparison of reputation management crisis responses. Journal of Public Relations
Research, 26(1), pp.62-78.
Kriyantono, R., 2012. Measuring a company reputation in a crisis situation: An ethnography
approach on the situational crisis communication theory. International Journal of Business
and Social Science, 3(9).
Maor, M., Gilad, S. and Bloom, P.B.N., 2012. Organizational reputation, regulatory talk, and
strategic silence. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 23(3), pp.581-608.
Martin, M.G. and Burke, R.J. eds., 2012. Corporate reputation: Managing opportunities and
threats. Gower Publishing, Ltd..
Neef, D., 2012. Managing corporate reputation and risk. Routledge.

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Ott, L. and Theunissen, P., 2015. Reputations at risk: Engagement during social media
crises. Public Relations Review, 41(1), pp.97-102.
Ponis, S.T., 2012. Resilience Against Crises. The Journal, 28, p.2.
rand anarchy: managing corporate reputation. A&C Black.
Smith, R.D., 2013. Strategic planning for public relations. Routledge.
Veil, S.R. and Husted, R.A., 2012. Best practices as an assessment for crisis
communication. Journal of Communication Management, 16(2), pp.131-145.