Case Study

The Dromo Widget Inc. (DWI) has a non-disclosure policy thats set in stone. Unique Public Relations has just won the DWI account and all the account personnel working on the account have signed DWIs non-disclosure policy form. The forms are on file in DWIs Law Dept. Three weeks after work for the new client has started, the account team is given a briefing about a new product that will revolutionize the widget market. The new widget model is half the price of conventional widgets and does the work in half the time. In addition, secret tests show that it lasts twice as long. The account team is cautioned not to say a word about this to anyone not even other Unique PR employees or family members.

After a month of work on a dynamite new public relations program that could pre-empt the market, Unique PR staffers are invited to a fund raising party for the Ghana National Cathedral. The top echelon of influential citizens are at the function, where food and wine flow like food and wine! A Unique PR junior staffer assigned to the DWI account lets the wine flow too freely and, before anyone can do anything about it, he discloses all he knows about the new widget to an editor with the Joy News.

You are President of Unique PR and hears him blab the final piece of information to the editor. You pull the staffer aside.

What are your next courses of action? With the staffer? With the editor? With your client?

Would you inform your client about what has occurred? Would you try to get the editor to hold up releasing information about what he was just told? What would be your responsibilities towards your employee?