University snow day becomes negative publicity

I stumbled across this video on Facebook today, showing how a campus-wide snowball fight on Friday escalated. The University of Oregon (UO) football team challenged students to the battle after an overnight snow storm that brought almost six inches of snow to campus. The team used their personal Twitter accounts to promote the snowball fight, says UO's student newspaper.

In the video, participants stop two cars outside the Erb Memorial Student Union to pelt them with snowballs and buckets of snow. Students stand in front of the first vehicle, preventing the driver from getting away. The second driver actually steps out of his car to confront the strike, but is met with mocking shouts and a bucket of snow to the face.

A campus-wide snowball fight could be fun, right? In theory, I think so. But the video shows how such an event became harmful and upsetting. The video was posted by the school newspaper, then quickly shared by the campus community through Facebook and Twitter. Social media platforms make it easy for content like this to be shared with a wide audience at a rapid pace. Many responders on social media describe the event as "embarrassing," "disappointing" and "awful."

Though the footage only just surfaced, it's already generating some negative publicity for the school. If you were a PR professional working for the UO, how would you respond to this event? I'd love to hear your thoughts in a comment.

Video courtesy of the Oregon Daily Emerald.