How to do bad PR: Announce plans to raise fees effecting
low-income customers, then pull back, wait a year, then announce such plans
again, then pull back yet again. This sort of PR strategy gives rise to
headlines such as, “Bank of America Backs Down on New Fees.” The Wall Street
Journal could have added, “yet again.” Besides the obvious PR downside to
announcing unpopular fees—and on one’s least well-off customers—is the
implication of weakness or vulnerability in repeatedly backing down. In the
animal kingdom, Bank of America would not exactly be the alpha male lion.
Rather, the bank would be one of the other males, which may or may not get to
reproduce.
