Is it safe?

Reference post 1

This blog brought to my attention Mastercard's latest "advertisment" about their committment to securing customer data. It came in the form of a surprising press release about how the account info for 40 million cardholders had been compromised. What made this so surprising was that MasterCard took the inititive to publish the bad news. CardSystems, the transaction processing company who was hosting the malware, discovered the breech nearly a month ago and was advised by the FBI to keep it under wraps. Instead of cowering in the corner and hoping customers would not find out, MasterCard saw this as an opportunity to differentiate.
MasterCard could have spent million$ on mass media advertising campaigns promoting their security policies that sound exactly like their competitors'. Instead they wrote a press release about how they handled a real security crisis which quickly circulated through the major news media. This release clearly marks them as company that does more than just "talk the talk" of customer privacy. When something bad happens, MasterCard takes action.
The fact that CardSystems' chief financial officer, Michael A. Brady was "blindsided" by this press release seems to clearly point to the fact that he has a few things to learn about the future of public relations. (Kotler and Armstrong p516) Just because the news is bad, does not mean that the publicity has to be bad.