Can communication specialists anticipate on everything that could go wrong?

When Telenet launched the idea for a new campaign they probably expected a totally different outcome. The campaign started with a commercial on the radio about how Telenet was counting down till the day they would ‘push the bottom’. Listeners who wanted to find out more could visit the website ‘http://www.telenetdruktopdeknop.be/’. A perfect example of a tool that is often used in advertisement or Public Relations: Trigger your target group! That is of course when it all goes well!

A day before Telenet would reveal their big secret they were the victim of a hoax. Several Belgian journalists received a fake press release announcing that Telenet would stop the data limits for downloading. The news was immediately published on several online newspapers and media. Telenet had no other choice than to react by sending the media a real press release denying the earlier release and announcing that Telenet would just speed up the download time for a part of their clients and not stop the actual data limits. And so the campaign failed in two ways. Firstly it was revealed before the actual date which of course completely ruined the surprise part of the announcement they planned. But even worse than that: Telenet had to deny the big news that they would stop the data limits for downloading. And this news was not left unnoticed. It drew the attention of Tik, a national organization for Telecom and Internet clients, and they promptly launched “They day of the download” on the 30th of December. By launching this day Tik wants to point out to the Internet Providers that the data limits in Belgium should stop or be minimized, like they do in our neighboring countries. The campaign of Telenet was the actual trigger for Tik to launch this annual download day.

The above is just an example of what can go wrong in a campaign and hopefully for Telenet it will all be forgotten soon. But it shows that there are so many circumstances that are hard to predict when launching a communication or PR campaign. Who could have thought that someone would send a complete fake press release to the press which ruined the idea of the campaign and lead to a reaction by an organization like Tik? Is it the task of communication specialists to be able to anticipate on everything that could go wrong when launching a campaign? Or is that just not possible?

Karolien