In a hellish display of confusion and human error at Sunday night's Oscars, #PricewaterhouseCoopers went from respected accountancy firm – to brand crisis.
For the last 83 years, the company has managed the voting system and distributed the winning #Oscar awards without any problems. But on Sunday night, one of the most horrifying events in Academy Awards history, the Best Picture award was mixed up.
The wrong film was given the statue
Three of the producers of #La La Land said acceptance speeches. The stage managers, in a brilliant act of swiftness and chaos control, ran onto the stage to give the right film the award.
Much searching through envelopes ensued. And finally Moonlight was correctly lauded as Best Picture.
The embarrassing error was repeated on social media and talked about all the next day. And suddenly, PricewaterhouseCoopers was in the midst of a major brand crisis.
“Not since Janet Jackson and her wardrobe malfunction on the #Super Bowl have we seen something quite as glaring,” Andrew D. Gilman from CommCore Consulting Group – a crisis PR firm – told the New York Times on Monday. He said that whilst the majority of the accountancy firm's clients are understanding of the mistake, the name of the firm has been a little tarnished.
