Enjoy this video from Embrace Disruption PR founder, Cory Stewart!

With the recent news of Burger King being hacked, followed by Jeep and MTV – we find ourselves wondering who’s next?

Incase you’re not familiar with the scenario, we’ll break it down for you:

Burger King Twitter Hack

The Damage

The hacker took over the account, changed the display picture to the McDonald’s logo, and posted some of the following tweets (Image via):

It was revealed that BK’s password was “whopper” (creative right?). Burger King later acknowledged the rogue tweets:

Interesting day here at BURGER KING®, but we're back! Welcome to our new followers. Hope you all stick around!

— BurgerKing (@BurgerKing) February 19, 2013

and released the following statement to media:

“We have worked directly with administrators to suspend the account until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings. We apologize to our fans and followers who have been receiving erroneous tweets about other members of our industry and additional inappropriate topics.”

The good news? Burger King saw a jump of 100,000 followers over the course of the day. Is it worth the headache? Time will tell!

Jeep Twitter Hack

The Damage

The hacker posted odd tweets, including mentioning luxury brand, Cadillac. The account has since been tamed, but looked something like this (Image via):

Cadillac later responded to ensure tweeps they were not involved:

Just to clarify, Cadillac is not connected to the hack of the @Jeep Twitter account.

— Cadillac (@Cadillac) February 19, 2013

MTV Twitter Hack

The Damage:

The hacker made promises to return Jersey Shore, changed the brand logo to BET, and continued on a wild tweeting rampage (Image via):

UPDATE: Reports are saying that MTV hacked their own twitter in promotion of their new show, Hacked. Good one, MTV..

1. Change your passwords regularly. And change them to something obscure that has nothing to do with the product you sell. Random numbers, letters, and symbols are your best friend. We change our passwords every month—that will probably change to every two weeks in light of this development.

2. Have procedures in place to stop an attack in its tracks. Create a fail-proof social escalation policy that can end something like this before it gets out of hand. Have the assets you need on hand to be able to restore the images on your profile.

3. Minimize the number of mobile devices that can access the account. If you look at all the apps that can access your account, you should know for certain where they’re all coming from and what their purpose is. If you’re unsure about any of them, ax them.

4. Make it mandatory that any mobile phones that link to corporate accounts are password protected. That way, if you leave your phone at, say, a Burger King and you’re signed into your brand’s account, no one can have easy access to it. Similarly, make sure that if you leave your computer at, say, a Burger King, it’s not logged into any accounts. Password protect everything that allows access to accounts that are password protected. Thinking about the computer I’m typing on, if I were to leave it somewhere and some swarthy character logged onto Facebook, they would be able to wreak havoc on about six different accounts (none of which are my personal account). That’s pretty scary when you think about it.

5. Change your passwords every time someone leaves the company—whether or not it’s amicable. Don’t trust people. There’s too much at stake here.

If you had to guess, which brand do you think is next – or do you think the hacker is done their dirty work?

This article was based on the article “Year In Review: PR Wins & Sins” from On The Fourth Floor. Mistakenly, this article originally appeared uncredited on our site. We take content ownership very seriously, and maintain a strong belief that credit should be given where credit is due. Our deepest apologies to those at rock-it promotions, and to owner Deb G.

Bring on the Big Buzz & Good Tidings

“Our Food, Your Questions” – McDonald’s

Everyone is familiar with McDonald’s, but there are definitely questions of where their food comes from and what is actually in it. To address the negative press surrounding their brand in 2012, McDonald’s launched the ‘Our Food, Your Questions” campaign. Customers & critics were encouraged to send in questions that were then answered by the  McDonald’s team. Sure some of the answers see to be delivered with an all too happy tone, but the sheer honesty and transparency of this campaign made it an all around winner in 2012.

“My Drink’s Zero, Coke Zero” – Coca Cola

This year marked the 50^th anniversary for the James Bond franchise and the release of their highly anticipated movie, ‘Skyfall’. To capitalize on the popularity of the franchise, Coca Cola came up with a way to get people pumped and feeling like a secret agent themselves, all in the name of free tickets to Skyfall. 70 seconds to reach platform 70? Not a problem for the guys in this video! What a great way to create word-of-mouth buzz for two of the most recognized brands in the world.

Every Little Boy Deserves Their Train Set - LEGO

PR win of the year has to go to LEGO. Over the years, we’ve all fallen in love with a specific commercial product: be it a pair of shoes or a favourite shade of lip gloss. Over time the product gets used up, or even falls apart – so we attempt to replace it, only to find out it’s been discontinued.

This was the story for James Groccia, an 11-year-old with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. James is a part of a LEGO play group that helps him learn to socialize with kids his own age. So when James saw LEGO’s Emerald Night Train Set, he began to save his money and two years later he finally had enough. Unfortunately by that time, the set had been discontinued by LEGO and sellers on eBay were charging way above the original price. So James decided to write LEGO and explain his whole situation. Lo-and-behold, what arrived just in time for James’ 11^th birthday but the Emerald Night Train Set. If that story doesn’t warm your heart, we don’t know what will.

Not Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

So for all the good PR stories last year, there had to be the ones that made us cringe. Here are a couple of the examples not to follow.

“Here’s your burger, side order of dirt off my shoes” – Burger King

So we all did silly things when we’re teenagers, even at our first jobs. The thing is, we usually didn’t go too crazy, and we probably tried to be super discreet about it. Not so for some employees at Burger King. Not only did someone decide it was a good idea to stand in the lettuce bins, but they had someone take a photo AND post it to social media! Needless to say, the employees involved were caught and fired for this one.

“Don’t Worry, it’s Just a Little Wind” – American Apparel

Hurricane usually means secure everything and get somewhere safe for the duration of the storm. Not, “Oh look one of my favourite retailers is having a killer sale, better get on that!” That’s right, during Hurricane Sandy American Apparel decided it was a good idea to have an online sale. And the language they used in their advertising for the sale wasn’t what we call……… empathetic.

But the PR FAIL of 2012 has to go to:

Chick-fil-A (of course)

President and CEO of Chick-fil-A made it pretty clear this year that he holds a homophobic & anti-gay marriage stance. With a little digging it came to light that the Chick-fil-A charity, WinShape Foundation, perpetuated this stance with large donations to political organizations that are also opposed LGBT rights. This stance enraged Americans, driving them to stand together against Chick-fil-A, mayors of Boston & Chicago pledged to not allow any new franchises to open in their cities and San Francisco’s mayor warned the chain to stay away from them altogether. The company released a statement saying that any support of anti-LGBT organizations has since stopped but there is apparently no clear proof of this.

This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King.

The above image and caption were posted on 4Chan website on July 16th, 2012. According to Yahoo’s Shine blog: it was a mere 15 minutes for the online hacking group, “Anonymous” to track down the alleged culprits and reveal them to the world.

Turns out, the origin of the photo is a Burger King employee from one of the Northwest Ohio locations.

Burger King Corp. said it was “taking the issue very seriously” and won’t tolerate employees violating the chain’s strict procedures for handling food.

“The franchise has taken swift action to investigate this matter and has terminated the three employees involved in the incident,” the company said in a statement to the Daily News

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/3-burger-king-employees-fired-viral-photo-worker-standing-lettuce-bins-article-1.1117625#ixzz216DEie7G

The interesting thing about this story is that more and more of these incidences are rearing their heads in the age of social media. PR daily had an interesting comparison on the subject:

Perhaps this incident reminds you of the social media firestorm that hit Domino’s Pizza after two employees posted a video to YouTube showing them defiling food.

The video went viral and the pizza chain experienced a swift PR backlash, partly because it waited days to respond. Ultimately, Domino’s launched a Twitter account to answer questions about the incident, posted a notice on its website, and filmed a YouTube video of its CEO responding to the crisis. The multi-pronged effort helped stem the tide of negative attention, but its effects linger online. Google “Domino’s Pizza” and on the first page of results is a news story on the matter.

Read more

It’s becoming increasingly important these days that companies issue more than just a “statement” to the press. Consumers are looking to be addressed directly, and accountability is a key factor in alleviating these types of situations. There’s no word on Burger King’s next move – but it’s in their best interest to start talking to their consumers!

What do you think Burger King should do?