Bank of America Headlines: Let the PR Crisis Begin

Fascinating to watch all the headlines erupt over the Bank of America announcement that they will start charging five dollars a month for debit card usage.

Debit card fees: Outrage triggers backlash against BofA (Los Angeles Times)

Bank of America faces outrage over debit card charge (Washington Post)

Bank Of America Is 'Sticking It' To Customers, Senator Says (NPR)

Bank of America has declared war--on America (Catholic Online - ok, second tier, but great headline)

Customers cry ‘holdup’ as Bank of America blames feds (Boston Herald)

Bank of America Goes Through With Stupid Consumer-Hating Idea (Tucson Weekly)

Bank of America: Please Don't Use Our Debit Card to Buy Stuff (CNBC)

Bank of America debit card fee plan met with resistance and anger (The Guardian)

Anyway, you get the drift.

At this point Bank of America might as well go through with the charge because they've trashed their brand so bad even if they cancelled the charges they would still suffer the same damage.

It will be interesting to see if customers actually walk away from BAC when the charges go in effect. If NetFlix tells us anything about today's consumers, when you piss them off, they will walk.

Now for some BAC laughs....

Comments

Morgan Freeman Botches Reddit IAmA - Black Eye on PR

For those not familiar with Reddit it's basically a forum where people post interesting things on a wide variety of subjects. Postings gain popularity when people 'up vote' them and become more visible in their particular subreddit (a subreddit is simply a subject category, like politics or videos). One of Reddit's most popular subreddits is the IAmA subreddit - which allows reddit users to ask questions of various people. Over three million people subscribe to IAmA, which is also widely used by celebrities. An IAmA can last a couple hours during which Redditors (the term Reddit users call themselves) can ask the person doing the IAmA questions. The term "IAmA" comes from the concept of "I Am A doctor, ask me anything", "I Am A movie star, ask me anything" - you get the drift. IAmA's are not just for celebrities, lots of common folks do them as well. Recently Morgan Freeman did an IAmA and it turned into a PR mess. To make a lo...

Mainstream versus Alternate Media - Where is the news now-a-days?

It's well known that CNN has been suffering an exodus of viewers, losing over half their viewership over the past couple of years. Yet Fox News has not lost viewers, but has increased its viewership slightly. It's an odd phenomena given that Fox news is clearly biased in their coverage. Mind you, so is CNN according to many. But I'd suggest it comes down to something much more simple. While Fox may be holding its ground, the rise of alternative media is taking off where CNN left off - a focus on hard news. For those of the under 40 crowd, that's what they are looking for, NEWS. The simplest way to highlight the difference between mainstream media and alternative media is to take a look at their homepages and the stories they highlight. It becomes very clear why people are turning away from CNN and turning to alternative media. Let's look at five media sites and their homepage (click on pictures to enlarge): CNN Feature stories: CNN heroes Top t...

E-cigarettes: A PR battle Health Canada cannot win?

So I've now been using an e-cigarette (e-cig) for two months and thought I'd talk a bit about how I see the upcoming battle between Health Canada and e-cigs going. First though, let's do a quick overview of what exactly an e-cig is. Basically an e-cig vaporizes liquid that contains nicotine. The vapor is then inhaled. People who use e-cigs are called vapers (not smokers). Because the liquid is atomized (ie. vaporized), not burned the way tobacco is, vapers do not consider themselves 'smokers' in anyway. An e-cig is comprised of basically three components: The tank - this is the component that holds the juice (sometimes referred to as e-juice or e-liquid). The atomizer - this a coil and wick unit that atomizes the juice. When the coil is heated (from the battery) it atomizes the juice that has soaked into the wick. The battery - batteries for e-cigs come in various capacities (some last 8 hours, others 40+ hours, depending on their size). The ba...

Inside the world of Rob Mclean, Author

Search This Blog