In May of 2016, when a young boy fell into a gorilla enclosure and was seized by one of the gorillas, the Cincinnati Zoo had a tough choice to make. Their options were to either enter the enclosure to distract the gorilla, tranquilize the gorilla, or kill the gorilla. In the end, the zoo opted to kill the gorilla to ensure the boy’s safety. This decision would go on to stir up a lot of controversy…and a lot of memes.
Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-38383126
But what does this have to do with PR? Why are we talking about this again?
Well, even though this meme is sooo last year, there is a lot to learn about how the Cincinnati Zoo handled the crisis and if they did a good job of it or not.
So what did the Zoo do? After the crisis they had to act quickly. Within hours of the crisis there were videos of the incident going viral and people getting angry about what had happened. The zoo ended up issuing a release the day after the incident explaining why they did what they did and followed up with statements on social media. They ensured the public that they didn’t have any other choice without jeopardizing the safety of the child. They made sure that everyone knew that this event was completely out-of-the-ordinary and that nothing like it had happened in all of the time that they had been open. They followed-up by improving their safety measures and providing information on how to support endangered gorillas.
Did the zoo handle the situation well? Overall, they did pretty good. They were very firm in explaining their reasons for their actions and did a good job with their follow-up. They kept a good tone despite receiving a lot of emotional criticism and while dealing with the flood of memes that would last for what seemed like eternity. The biggest thing that they did right though was not placing the blame on anyone. Rather than blaming the mother or the child or anyone else involved, they focused on what their actions were and what they would do to make things better in the future.
Featured Image retrieved from: http://aldf.org/blog/justice-for-harambe/
Sources
https://www.holmesreport.com/long-reads/article/the-top-12-crises-of-2016-part-2-of-3
KML 
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