A few months ago around November of 2017, Netflix had to handle some bad PR as one of their main actors for their hit show House of Cards was faced with accusations of unwanted sexual advances. An online article from Entrepreneur looked at the way that Netflix handled the situation to limit the amount of bad press surrounding the story.
The response of Netflix to the situation was to discontinue production of House of Cards immediately. At first glance, stopping the production of one of your most popular shows may not appear to be your best option. However, as the article points out, there are a lot of lessons on how to handle bad PR that can be taken from Netflix's response.
The first lesson that the article points out is about knowing your own morals and values. I thought that this was an interesting point, some might feel that larger companies would just be looking for the dollars so Netflix discontinuing production may not seem like the right move. However, the actions taken by Netflix showed the public that they will not stand for anything that goes against their values and it does not matter who you are or what show you work on. Netflix may lose revenue by suspending production but they maintain a good standing with their customers and the rest of the public for standing up for their beliefs. This action may have helped them keep customers instead of losing them only because they no longer get to see House of Cards. Netflix has many other shows that it can fall back on and it can continue to develop new shows as well. So, when it comes to damage control and maintaining your values Netflix made the right move.
The next two main lessons that the article brings up essentially have the same effect. They are working to distance the company from the event to minimize the association of that event with that company. The first of these lessons is that you should not admit that you have done anything wrong. In the case of Netflix there was no reason for them to apologize because what happened was independent of Netflix and they were unaware of anything that was happening. If you have not done anything wrong then there is no need to apologize, apologizing is essential a statement saying that it was you that performed the incorrect action. The final lesson is to acknowledge what happened and move on. Dwelling on a mistake only increases the amount of time that you are associated with the mistake. Acknowledge the mistake, correct it in the future and keep moving on with your business.
Do you think that Netflix made the right move by suspending production of House of Cards, or can you think of a better way that Netflix could have handled the situation?
As a fan of Kevin Spacey's work, I was very disappointed to hear the accusations and also about the canceling of House of Cards. However, I think Netflix made the right decision. Being one of their most popular shows, House of Cards drew a lot of attention to the accusations on Spacey. Replacing his character or even just killing his character off would've most likely resulted in a poor and displeased audience and ultimately a lack of one very soon after.
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