A year in four stories - our review of 2024

2024 has been busy – from elections and a summer of sport to outages and outrage, there was a lot to take in. So, in our roundup of the year we wanted to focus on just a few standout stories: CrowdStrike, The Olympics, ‘X’ and finally, Conkers.

CrowdStrike – the largest global outage ever. 

There are few times when a company makes a critical error so publicly as CrowdStrike. When an outage caused by a faulty software update affected 8.5 million of Microsoft’s computers, we kept a keen eye on each company’s strategy for crisis communications. Here are a few lessons we learnt.

If it’s your fault, apologise. CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz failed to say sorry in his first public statement about the outage. It was dubbed a PR blunder by many, including Forbes. Demonstrating a lesson learnt, Kurtz later apologised.

Sometimes, however, a company can walk away without saying sorry. For Microsoft, the traditional pillars of crisis communications – truth, clarity and accountability – appeared not to be unshakeable. Directly involved but ultimately not responsible, the company chose to protect its credibility by distancing itself from the issue – this crisis was the fault of ‘an independent cybersecurity company’, rather than a question about the fragility of Microsoft’s systems. In a clear rebuttal of any accountability, the company even had a pop at EU regulation.

Ultimately, there’s no set answer to crisis communication, but there may be one universal lesson we can take away from this. As mentioned in our blog, if a crisis doesn’t happen on a bank holiday, it’ll be on a Friday. 

The Olympics (of comms campaigns) 

This year, The Olympics and Paralympics came to Paris. The event was streamed over 218 million times – a global cultural event and one that felt significant for us at Fourth Day, as it took place just a stone’s throw from our French office, Quatrième Jour, 

With the Olympics comes one of the biggest opportunities for brand promotion so our Paris team put together its top 3 comms campaigns of the games. McDonald’s showcased nation-specific menu items; Canada’s Maple BBQ Quarter Pounder, the pitta-based ‘Greek Mac’ in Cyprus and for the UK, Garlic Sauce. Coca Cola had ‘Hug Cans’ in a cheesy bid for unity. WWF instead took a blunt approach with its message – “Records we don’t want to break: 2023, the hottest year ever”. Direct, powerful, and in contrast to the feel-good vibe it was a message that stood out from the crowd.

Where ne(X)t?

2.7 million active users have moved away from Twitter (currently known as X) in the past two months, according to The Guardian, which itself took a public step down from the platform. At Fourth Day, we’re testing the waters of BlueSky and Threads and deciding whether to shift more weight to platforms such as Instagram and LinkedIn. 

While considering our options, we took the opportunity to speak with Mark ‘Mr LinkedIn’ Williams about how to get the best from the platform, and it seems that LinkedIn itself is changing. Short, snappy videos offering quick tips, are now the best performing content on the platform.  The idea that LinkedIn could be morphing into TikTok is a new one to us, but worth keeping an eye on.

King Conker and nuts of steel. 

When we were looking back, there was one story that could not be ignored, not least for the headlines it created: King Conker and the cheating scandal that shook the World Conker Championships. 

In PR, we’re constantly reminded of a rule that underlines our industry – nothing beats a good story. The ‘Conker-fuffle’ (BBC) took UK papers by storm and as the news reached global audiences through the likes of the NYT, we were reminded of just how important that lesson is.