Krispy Kreme’s approach shook the sprinkles off its launch

OPINION: There’s been a lot to learn over the past fortnight for us marketers as we’ve watched one company take a PR disaster and turn it from bad to good, and the other do the total reverse.

Last week we saw how wittily KFC responded to their crisis after hundreds of UK restaurants ran out of chicken, turning a drama into a positive.

Whereas last week, back in New Zealand, the Krispy Kreme donut company got into a complete public relations jam during the opening of its first store in South Auckland

First KFC ran out of chicken, then it ran out of gravy, much to the horror of its customers. But rather than running scared and getting defensive KFC turned the whole thing to a positive using a bit of humour.

But there were no jokes in sight after an ‘‘over-zealous and tired’’ security guard turned away a Filipino woman at the Krispy Kreme opening because she wasn’t a New Zealander.

An incident which brought a scathing attack of racism down on the company during what should have been its finest hour.

Having promised a free box of donuts to people who turned up to the opening, turning her away was pretty rough.

It was justified by the head of Krispy Kreme’s marketing who said it was standard terms and conditions to stipulate that entry was only open to residents of the specific country where the competition was running.

Sorry, but what was the company thinking?

People had to turn up and stand in a queue for up to 36 hours to get free donuts. If you’re prepared to do that then frankly, you have more than earned your Krispy Kremes wherever you are from.

As the woman’s boyfriend reasonably said, he understood why a foreigner might not be eligible for the first three prizes – up to a year’s free donuts – but didn’t see why his girlfriend couldn’t line up for one box of doughnuts.

So what had been going swimmingly for Krispy Kreme’s marketing and public relations turned sour in an instant.

The company has been running a slick marketing and public relations campaign for months. We’ve had weeks of media coverage about the opening starting in late January when stories about Krispy Kreme’s opening first appeared.

Krispy Kreme sent dozens upon dozens of doughnuts to newsrooms and gathered the country’s C-list celebs and social media ‘‘influencers’’ for a special preview event.

NBA superstar Shaquille O’Neal encouraged everyone to head to Krispy Kreme on opening day for some freebies.

There have been many column inches spent on this opening, way more than it deserves, to be fair. But hats off to the marketing department for a pulling out all the stops; it’s worked.

People, and the media, flocked to the opening.

Then it all went to custard. I’ve been involved in organising events and I hate doing them. You get bogged down in detail and there’s always something important that you forget. In this case, it was to properly brief the security guards.

And it seems that hell hath no fury like a Filipino ambassador whose country is scorned.

Describing himself as a ‘‘former Krispy Kreme fan’', ambassador Jesus Domingo took to Facebook calling for a boycott of Krispy Kreme and renaming it the KKK (Krispy Kreme for Kiwis only) after hearing about the incident with the security guard.

In an instant, that incident became the story of the day.

Krispy Kreme could learn something from the #kfcrisis and follow the three rules of putting things right after you’ve make a PR FCK-up.

Say you’re sorry, take responsibility and tell people what you’re going to do to put it right.

I’m hoping there’s a lifetime supply of free donuts for Domingo and the un-named woman, but it might be too little too late.

PHOTO: EMILY FORD/STUFF A slick public relations exercise by newly arrived donut maker Krispy Kreme was derailed when an ill-advised security guard denied a woman, who had waited in line, a freebie because she wasn’t a New Zealander.