Recently, Disney, owner of the Baby Einstein products, offered a full refund on any of their products bought in the past 5 years after claims that the product was ineffective in actually making babies smarter. First of all let me say are you REALLY surprised that sitting your baby in front of a television didn’t double their IQ? Maybe if you feed them a Big Mac a day they’ll develop stronger muscles at an early age. But I digress…

I decided to check out the Baby Einstein website and I was very intrigued by what I saw. I had sort of expected there to maybe be a small blurb in the corner about the refund being available, maybe hinting at the situation, but not really explaining it. Well, Disney proved me wrong.

The first thing you see on the page is something saying “Baby Einstein sets the record straight on refund.” Booyah! Disney decided to put the situation out there and they proceed to explain “their side of the story.” In the release, they sort of try to come off as the victim in the whole situation, but I’m definitely a fan of how they were very up front with the whole situation.

Beyond actually addressing this situation, Disney’s actions to refund any product, no matter how  beat up it is or how long your receipt has been in the landfill is a tremendous move. In a way, it shows that they still believe in the value of their product (they say they never claimed their product actually made children more intelligent) and believe that most customers will not opt for the refund. The name Baby Einstein remains pretty misleading, but maybe that’s on Disney’s “to-do” list.

The thing I’ll be interested to see play out is what will happen to Baby Einstein products now? Now that the education aspect of it has been put to rest, will people still want to use it as a pure babysitting tool? Personally, I think Baby Einstein will probably see a solid drop in sales, but this move is still a great way to ensure the Disney brand doesn’t walk out of this little tussle with bumps and bruises.

I’ll let some of you PR folk out there analyze the specifics of this, but what it came down to for me is too many times companies try to sweep things under the rug when things go awry and it’s very refreshing to see a company be up front with its customers like Disney has.

Can you think of any other examples where companies did a good job responding to a lawsuit or other potential crisis stemming from their product? What do you think of the PR move on Disney’s part? Let me hear what you think in the comments!