1.0 Introduction
This selected case is about Watsons Malaysia launching an advertisement for the year 2017 Hari Raya called “Legenda Cun Raya.” The advertisement tells the story of a “black woman with a curse.” A wealthy businessman named Al-Kazam is looking for a mysterious girl whose beautiful singing often haunts his dreams. When the news got around, many beautiful princesses came from all over the world to audition. At that moment, the rich merchant was attracted by a beautiful voice, and he was sure that it was the same voice that appeared in his dream day and night. The merchant asked her to take her veil and said, “I think your face is as beautiful as your voice. Let me see your face.” Just as the girl took her veil to show her dark skin, the rich merchant exclaimed, “My gosh, where is the light?” Then carefully look for a while and doubt said: “She is really very dark?” Nevertheless, in the end, the rich merchant chose her as his wife. At this time, she also gave the rich merchant a surprise, she “washed” her face, showing her fair skin, and explained that this was a test for the rich merchant, and the rich merchant, therefore, passed the test, she also agreed to marry the rich merchant (Cher, 2017).
The type of crisis of this incident was intentional. That’s because once the video was posted online, it caused a lot of controversy for the drugstore chain. The 13-minute video was deemed by most to be highly offensive to black people and highly racist. Others said she was a loyal Watsons customer herself, but when she saw the super sexist, orientalist, and racist advertisement, she was very disappointed and boycotted Watsons Malaysia.
On June 7, 2017, Watsons Malaysia issued the first apology saying they were sorry for the offended customers, but that was not their intention. They were just recreating a folk story about a woman who was “cursed by her black skin.” But the apology was seen by many as inadequate and insincere. Some argue that Watsons Malaysia should have taken down the video if it had offended a customer. Such a casual apology was meant to be an apology for offending someone, not for being offended. This led to a large number of customers no longer choosing to patronize Watsons. The intentional crisis caused Watsons to lose a large part of the loyal customers.
The general manager of Watsons Malaysia issued a second apology on June 8, 2017. In a second statement, Watsons Malaysia expressed its deepest apology and regretted over the video. And explained that the video was intended to express inner and outer beauty, but accidentally offended the public. It said it would take full responsibility for the content of the video and immediately take it down. Finally, they expressed great respect and value for the opinions of all the public and sought forgiveness (Ram, 2017).
This is an intentional crisis because, in the beginning, they just want to say that you can be pretty in Watsons Malaysia. Watsons Malaysia just wanted to express the inner beauty and outer beauty through the video, but it accidentally offended the Malaysian nation. This was not in their expectation, as they did not think that imitating the story of a cursed black girl in Daya Senandung would make the public feel racist. Because Malaysia is a country of three daimyo races, people of different colors live together harmoniously. In the video, the dark-skinned girl is considered ugly because other people strangely look at her, and the male character also dislikes her dark skin. What’s more, the actor used inappropriate words in the video. When he saw the heroine’s black skin, he said where the light was and asked her if her feet were black. The public perceives this as very discriminatory against black people. But Watsons Malaysia ignored this, and their unintentional actions offended the people of Malaysia. So this intentional crisis created a very bad impression on Watsons Malaysia, and at the same time, lost many loyal customers for many years, who were very disappointed with Watsons.
2.0 Public Reactions
2.1 Internal Public
A firm or organization employs the internal public, and they are intimately related to the organization (Lyngdoh, 2014). Examples of the internal public are employees, management, stakeholders, suppliers, and investors. Watsons Malaysia launched a video advertisement called “Legenda Cun Raya” in 2017. After the video was uploaded onto the internet, most viewers quickly criticized it (Samadi, 2017). The viewers tend to protest that the particular advertising video contained a serious racism issue. While the public was criticizing the video and blaming Watsons for their mistake, the company’s reputation and image were immediately affected by the negative feedback from the public.
At the same time, Watsons realized the occurrence of the crisis and reacted immediately to it. Initially, the company was trying to defend the video. They released a statement on social media to explain the creative rationale and message of the video (Writer, 2017). In a particular statement, it explained that the video intended to convey the concept of inner and outer beauty. The initial idea of the video was not meant to be offensive. Unfortunately, the first “apology” was not going well on social media. The public felt that the particular “apology” was inadequate and insincere. Once again, Watsons Malaysia was criticized for not issuing an actual apology and tended to cover up their mistake.
For the second time, Caryn Loh, the General Manager and country head of Watsons Malaysia, was appointed as the company’s representative and issued an actual apology to the public (Samadi, 2017). She mentioned that “We deeply and sincerely apologize for our recent Legenda Cun Raya video, it was our intention to convey concepts of inner and outer beauty, unfortunately, the video was offensive to the public.” Watsons eventually admitted their mistake and immediately removed the video from all sorts of platforms.
2.2 External Public
The external public refers to the people or organizations that are clients doing business with a firm or company (Lygndoh, 2014). Examples of the external public are the company’s customers, community members, government officials, and competitors. After Watson Malaysia uploaded an advertising video called “Legenda Cun Raya” onto social media, the netizens and social media users, immediately felt a sense of discomfort towards the video (Malay mail, 2017). Netizens tend to criticize that the video contains a serious stereotyping and racism issue. The Malaysians were not happy with the video; they felt that the video released by Watson is trying to portray dark skin as undesired and not beautiful. Some of Watson’s customers felt disappointed in the company for making a huge mistake (Ram, 2017). One of the company’s customers, Maryam, posted on Twitter. She stated that she has been a loyal customer for years but has decided to boycott Watsons after they released a super racist advertisement. On the other hand, another Wastons customer, Iman Tanita, also stated that it was a terrible advertisement for Raya and requested the company to fire their marketing team immediately.”
To respond to the crisis, Watsons released a statement to defend their mistake. However, the purpose of the statement was only to defend and cover up their mistake, and they did not admit their fault. After the statement was released onto social media, it aroused the anger of the netizens once again. The netizens criticized that the “apology” was not sincere. They felt that Watsons did not admit their mistake and blamed those who were sensitive to the issue. One of the netizens, Elia Anis, commented that Watsons apologized in the wrong way. They should apologize for their offending act, not because people feel offended. After discovering tons of negative feedback on social media, Watsons issued a second apology and eventually admitted their mistake. However, the company’s reputation has been significantly damaged due to the overwhelming criticism from the customers.
Meanwhile, competitor Guardian Malaysia released a similar video advertisement for their Hari Raya Campaign (Writer, 2017). The video portrayed a similar storyline where a lady with a lovely voice saved a prince. Instead of dark skin, the lady was perceived as not as beautiful due to her dusky skin. However, the prince did not mind her skin color and expressed that a pure heart is more important. After the advertisement was released, netizens took it positively and described that the video is funny and creative (Writer, 2017). Consequently, Guardian viewed the criticism towards Watsons as an opportunity for them to strengthen their brand image and enhance the company reputation.
3.0 Crisis Communication Team
After uploading the “Legenda Cun Raya” video on social media which is Watsons Malaysia’s Facebook page, it has created a huge wave of negative responses from the public about the advertisement using dark skin or blackface to portray sexist ugliness and racist (“Blackface” video in Malaysia blasted on social media,” n.d.).
3.1 Watsons tried to defend themselves
At first, Watsons Malaysia replied to the public by defending themselves. They said that the advertisement was shot to highlight the story of a legend and its moral values of inner beauty, and also true love does exist. Besides, the video referred to the folktale of Dayang Senandung, who was born to be black skin, but the public was enraged and focused on the wrong view of the video.
3.2 First Apology was issued
However, Watsons Malaysia took down the video from its social media pages, but the public was not planning to forgive the incidents caused by the video. By the time the video has uploaded, it has created a big controversial issue in the society about stereotyping the dark-skinned people. So, the first apology was issued by Watsons Malaysia saying, “We are sorry that some of our fans feel offended by the video which was not our intention” (Ram, 2017). But the apology was not being accepted by the public. The scolding towards Watsons for the video is still getting serious by the time goes by, such as saying Watsons was blaming people for being offended, and the apology from Watsons does not sound sincere (“Watsons Malaysia’s blackface Raya ad labelled racist by netizens,” 2017).
3.3 Second Apology was issued
Therefore, a second apology was issued again on June 8, 2017, by telling the public that they regret the video presented to the public. In the apology statement, Caryn Loh, who is the General Manager and Country Head of Watsons Malaysia, said, “We deeply and sincerely apologize for our recent ‘Legenda Cun Raya’ video which was released on social media in Malaysia. Regretfully, we acknowledge that the ‘Legenda Cun Raya’ video is not in-line that we hold dearly in Malaysia. The intention of the video was to convey the inner and outer beauty, unfortunately the video instead offended many. Watsons Malaysia will take full responsibility for the video and its content is truly sorry that some elements offended the general public” (Ram, 2017).
To sum up, the spokesperson of Watsons Malaysia, Caryn Loh, has defended their company initially. Still, the public was not satisfied with the answer that has been given out by her. Hence, the first apology was issued, but the public did not stop complaining and scolding them, so the second apology was issued again by coming out with an apology statement to express their regret about presenting the video on social media.
4.0 Media response
Mass media plays an important and crucial role in connecting the world of individuals. It can reach a wider audience and provides pieces of information about society and the world (Krishnasamy, n.d). In this modern era, media is differentiated into traditional and new media. Traditional media includes television commercials, radio, and print advertisements such as newspapers and magazines, while new media includes social media and paid online advertisements. To respond to the crisis, Watsons Malaysia had used apologia theory through both traditional and new media.
For traditional media, there were many news articles reported based on the crisis by The Daily Sun, PR Weeks, AstroAwani, Rojak Daily, and also The Daily Seni. Besides that, radio stations such as BFM 89.9 also had invited special guests to tear down Watsons’ controversial Hari Raya advertisement. Since the crisis happened, everyone in Malaysia focused on it and led to an argument. All of the news articles were published between June 8, 2017, and June 9, 2017. Most of the published articles stated that the advertisement consists of some kind of degrading element, as colorism is the most definite racists (Zahirah, 2017).
For new media, Watsons Malaysia had posted on social media by themselves through their official Facebook page. Watsons Malaysia was aware that the video regarding ‘The legend of Dayang Senandong’ they made had gone viral on social media. Watsons Malaysia took the first and second steps, which are redefinition and dissociation in their post, which was posted on June 7, 2017, at 7.20 pm to define the meaning brought from the advertisement. They deny that their advertisement brought the meaning of racist and explain that it was about true love and the moral value of inner beauty. However, the netizens are not satisfied with the statement and felt that it seemed like they were the one who was right and blamed others for being sensitive. Watsons Malaysia was strongly opposed by netizens and received negative publicity from both local and international media outlets. After that, Watsons Malaysia removed all of the advertisement traces and mentioned that the advertisement was following a local folklore story.
In this case, Watsons Malaysia had listened to the Malaysian public and issued the second apology after their first apology backfires. Since then, Watsons Malaysia has taken the last step of conciliation, which is to apologize for a press release on June 8, 2017, regarding the ‘Legenda Cun Raya’ video. The headline of the press release is ‘Maafkan Watsons.’ It was issued by the representative of Watsons Malaysia, the General Manager, and Country Head, who was Caryn Loh. A press release is also known as an immediate release that promotes significant and specific information clearly (Wolfe, 2020). Thus, the purpose of the press release is to apologize deeply for their mistake to the public. Fortunately, the press release was accepted and has been forgiven by all netizens and media outlets. There was no press conference made by them during the crisis.
Watsons Malaysia had apologized deeply and sincerely. They were full of regret and truly sorry to realize that the content is not suitable and had offended the general public. They had removed the video immediately after noticing the responses and appreciated the honest feedback. They showed that they would listen and took every feedback seriously, and lastly, they hoped that the public could give forgiveness for any harm that they had caused. Watsons has appreciated the feedback and hopes people continue to pay attention to Watsons to help in improving their services.
In conclusion, media response is a solution that delivers skills and strategies positively during a crisis to manage the crisis and safeguard a company’s reputation. An apology theory is a speech that defends, justifies, and apologizes for a wrong action or statement. The practical implication in this theory for Watsons Malaysia was helping them better utilize in image repair.
5.0 Post-crisis analysis and evaluation
The “Legenda Cun Raya” racist case of Watsons Malaysia happened in the year of 2017. Although it suddenly happens, it can be counted as an intentional crisis due to its poor risk management. Risk management is the key to the willingness of the contractor to be evaluated during pre-qualifying. In contrast, the capacity to reduce risks and conduct work is the pros of the project. When risks materialize, the company’s capacity decreases and the capacity needed to mitigate risks in the project will increase (Iyer et al., 2019). To avoid the same crisis happening twice, Watsons Malaysia should consider the overall case and the mistakes that have been made.
The first apology of Watsons Malaysia used a diminishment strategy. Watsons Malaysia attempts to minimize the distribution of organizational authority and reduce the crisis’s negative effects with the first apology (Ki & Brown, 2013). Watsons Malaysia stated that the intention they want to convey is the inner and outer beauty of people but not about stereotyping. However, the lame strategy is useless due to the insincerity of the public’s views towards it. The insincerity of Watsons Malaysia turns the strategy into a negative impact due to the public response. This mistake led the crisis to keep ongoing and become more serious on the offending issue. To tackle this crisis, a second apology came up.
The second apology was issued the next day. This quick response of Watsons rescued the image and reputation of Watsons Malaysia. The rebuilding strategy was implemented. The rebuilding of Watsons Malaysia provided concrete or symbolic forms of assistance, which compensated the public and asked for their forgiveness (Mohamad Ashari et al., 2017). Watsons Malaysia admits its fault after realizing the backfires from the first apology. Watsons Malaysia declares their stand that they felt sorry for the misleading message occurred, appreciated the feedback from the public, and gave compensation through removing the video because removing it is the best compensation for the public. In the end, this professional step saved Watsons Malaysia reputation from the issue.
Recommendation & Conclusion
An organization should develop an important part of the preparedness plan, which is the crisis communication plan when an emergency or a crisis occurs. In the following hours and days, organizations must respond quickly, accurately, and confidently in emergencies. Many different audiences, such as customers, regulators, local government, employees, stakeholders, media, and the public, must be provided with information tailored to their interests and needs. The public’s perception of incident handling will have a positive or negative impact on the organization’s image.
According to Ian Mitroff’s Five Stages of Crisis Management Approach, it is an overall guide for effective and efficient crisis management in the organization and including five stages. Firstly, signal detection describes how an organization can prepare for and prevent the crisis before it happens by identifying the warning signs of a potential crisis. Secondly, probing and prevention are testing includes actively looking for risk factors and taking preventive measures to reduce potential damage. Thirdly, damaged containment teaches the organization how to handle the damage caused by the crisis and how to prevent it from spreading into uncontaminated areas. Fourthly, recovery emphasizes the restoration of normal operations and systems as soon as possible. Lastly, the step of learning about the crisis should be reviewed, analyzed, and criticized. Therefore, the organization can make a better improvement on its crisis management skills for future crises.
In my opinion, there are some steps suggested to deal with the crisis. Watsons can make a better improvement based on the following recommendations. Firstly, some skills or characteristics should be developed to the selected spokesperson, Caryn Loh, to handle the crisis. The right spokesperson is critical to the success of Watsons because it can greatly affect the audiences. Caryn Loh lacks strong communication skills. She must be able to deliver the key messages tailored to the needs of the audiences. The messages should include communicating empathy because it can attract the listeners due to her caring nature, which is vital in crisis communication interviews. If she can deliver the key messages to the audiences on different channels, then she does not need a second apology to the public.
Other than that, Caryn Loh should learn to be a charismatic speaker. It is because the strength of the message is the same as the strength of the delivery. Caryn Loh should convincingly convey their messages, and the public should like to listen. But in reality, after the first apology issued by her, the public was very frustrated and did not accept it. They scolded Watsons for the video as getting serious as time goes by, saying Watsons was blaming people for being offended, and the apology from Watsons does not sound sincere.
Besides, Watsons Malaysia should think about all the possible crises that may encounter and develop key messages that can be used to respond. Watsons need to think over what questions the media might ask and draft a response to these questions. Watsons should develop vulnerabilities or grid assessments to help the company determine the likelihood of different types of crises within the company or community. Watsons can use the messages verbatim, serve it as a starting point, and help them put the sentences together when needed. The messages should determine the cause of the crisis, briefly explain what happened, offer a timetable for plans, express sympathy for victims of the crisis, and provide appropriate advice. Watsons should avoid divulging any private information of the company if the crisis involves patients. The appropriate manager and the legal team of your organization should run the messages to resolve all the issues in advance.
In conclusion, there are some crisis communication impacts on Watsons Malaysia. Watsons may deal with anticipated events at some point, which may directly impact its brand image and reputation. If it is not resolved, the situation will quickly get out of control, and the workplace will become chaotic. Although the corporate communications department will handle social media and public relations during the crisis, Watsons needs to implement a communications plan for one of the most important audiences in its organization, the employees. They will be confused, make assumptions, and even worry that the crisis may harm their work. The working atmosphere becomes negative, and employee productivity begins to decline because everyone is trying to find information related to the crisis, or to learn more about the root cause of the crisis, or to predict the impact of the crisis on their work, rather than engaged in jobs.
Besides, this may threaten the stability of Watsons or even the bottom line of Watsons. This crisis affects Watsons’ image, reputation, financial situation, compliance, and even employees. This crisis causes financial losses by disrupting operations, causing loss of market share/purchase intentions, or generating litigation related to the crisis towards Watsons.