Family photos spark Braehead media storm
Published: 10 October, 2011
A row over a family photograph in Capital Shopping Centres’ Braehead centre near Glasgow has sparked a social media firestorm.
On Friday afternoon a Braehead shopper took two photographs of his daughter eating an ice cream in the mall. Within 72 hours, after centre security and the police intervened, the story was at the centre of a social media firestorm with over 6,000 people joining a campaign to boycott the centre and Scotland’s mainstream media highlighting the story.
Proud father Chris White took a picture of his daughter Hazel and was then asked by a security officer to delete the photographs in accordance with the centre’s no photography’ rule. When he declined – pointing out that the pictures had already been posted to his Facebook page – the police became involved. Eventually Mr White was asked to leave the mall.
But far from letting matters rest, Mr White contacted the Scottish dailies and the BBC and set up a Boycott Braehead page on Facebook which by lunchtime on Monday had attracted over 6,000 supporters.
Braehead issued a statement clarifying its position, pointing out: “it is not our intention to - and we do not - stop innocent family members taking pictures. Discretion is used at all times.”
But social media experts warned the statement may be too little, too late. Writing for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, Scottish PR blogger Scott Douglas wrote: “Tracking the fallout from this has been an exercise in watching, incredulous, between fingers. Poor judgment was compounded by heavy-handed authority, institutional arrogance and stone age customer relations. A toxic blend.
“A lack of understating of digital and social media created a bone try tinder mix, so that all it took was a relatively minor flashpoint to set it smouldering."
