by Jean Wyllie, MD, Porter Novelli, UK

Yesterday morning, an employee of Porter Novelli London engaged in a Twitter conversation with a competitor of a client, in which they criticised the competitor’s products. This act is in violation of our Social Media policies and is the agency’s – not the client’s – responsibility.

We flagged the incident to the client as soon as we became aware and have apologised. As part of that apology, we have restated that PN is committed to transparency and respect whether offline or online, intentional or unintentional. With the client’s permission, we are also using the incident as an important learning experience for our teams worldwide.