Updated Tues., Dec. 9 , 4:27 p.m. EDT: Strange Fruit PR has changed their name and issued a statement and have apologized for the use of the name. Click here to read more.
Earlier:
You’d think a public relations firm would know better. You’d think it would research a name before using it for a company. You’d think someone would have pulled the person aside who was in charge of the Strange Fruit PR firm and let him or her know the history of the song bearing the same name sung by Billie Holiday.
https://twitter.com/audrawilliams/status/541463450883743745https://twitter.com/txvoodoo/status/541458709529251841https://twitter.com/thetrudz/status/541457703772913664https://twitter.com/Karnythia/status/541456451005579265
After all, why would you want to have your company’s name associated with a song about lynching? Especially if it’s owned by two white women?
https://twitter.com/quotergal/status/541646789188001795
But of course, doing research would have made way too much sense. Instead, one public relations firm had to learn a hard lesson via Twitter. Strange Fruit PR, based in Austin, Texas, seems to have vanished into thin Internet air. Although the firm has been around since 2012, it wasn’t until this weekend that its name caused a stir on Twitter.
Strange Fruit’s name didn’t last long after that. The company has seemingly deleted all of its social network accounts, but before it went off the grid, it did release an apology:
It may also want to think about leaving the public relations world behind, too.