PR Investigation: Child Death X Peloton Equipment

Peloton Recalls Products After An Incident Involving Peloton Equipment and the Death of A Child

In May 2021, Peloton recalled treadmills after the death of a six-year-old child involving a Peloton treadmill. This comes after a separate incident reporting that a three-year-old suffered head injuries after getting trapped under a Peloton treadmill.There have been 72 other reported injuries due to Peloton machines.125,000 Tread and Tread+ machines were recalled.

CEO and Founder John Foley called it a "tragic accident” and one of a "small handful" of incidents in which children have been hurt on the firm's exercise equipment. Foley explained how Peloton “design and build all our products with safety in mind.”Foley didn’t disclose any further information regarding the death of the child. Foley said the firm had "made a mistake" in not recalling the machines sooner. Peloton warned users to keep Peloton machines away from pets and children.

Peloton aimed to address the concerns of not only its users but also the general public by acknowledging there were problems in some of its products and addressing the harm these products caused. Ultimately, Peloton was working to rebuild and improve its public image and reputation after numerous reports of user injury due to Peloton products.

Peloton is a well-known fitness and healthy lifestyle company that offers high-end exercise products and services. Peloton is known for the convenient workout experience, so many of Peloton’s target users are busy parents who don’t have time to waste commuting to the gym. Peloton’s users must have extra space for Peloton's products in their homes, so some of Peloton’s users are likely either parents or pet owners, or both.

An important idea to consider when evaluating this Peloton case and the Spycam case is if something went wrong it doesn’t always mean someone is lying but it may be that someone is unaware of what happened. Both the Spycam case and this case had prior warnings; in Peloton’s case, they had reported incidents of user injury, one including a young child, and in the Spycam case the school district had an intern voice her concern about the privacy problems on the school’s laptops. In both cases, the prior warnings were ignored and later caused more public and disruptive problems. I personally believe that the school district was unaware of the situation at hand, as technology and privacy software in 2010 were still new and unfamiliar products to many individuals. But, this doesn’t dismiss the responsibility of the school district as they were ignorant to any warning signs of the problem until they were forced to acknowledge it. On the other hand, Peloton had undeniable evidence of machine error and the need to recall certain Peloton products but instead neglected to until the heartbreaking incident of the death of a child. In this situation, I am forced to question the motives and values of Peloton, and the company’s ethical standards.

Another principle discussed in class that was present in this case was the choice of who to speak on behalf of the company in a crisis. In the Dominos case and this Peloton case, both companies’ CEOs addressed the public following crises. Dominos had positive feedback in response to the CEO delivering a crisis response statement, potentially because of the platform the message was delivered through (YouTube), while Peloton’s CEO’s statements had less of an impact. This comparison shows that the public’s ability to forgive a company is largely influenced by the severity of the situation. In this case, it was easier for individuals to forgive a gross employee prank video from Dominos as opposed to Peloton being responsible for a child's death, and many other injuries to its users. With this being said, I think Peloton made the right decision to have the CEO and Founder speak on behalf of the company because it accurately reflects the severity of the situation.

This case was very shocking to me largely because of the prior warnings Peloton received regarding problems in their exercise equipment. It’s likely if they would’ve acknowledged these problems and acted upon them earlier, Peloton could’ve potentially prevented the death of the six-year-old child. It’s surprising that a well-known company like Peloton could have multiple reports of child and pet injuries due to their products and not be forced by either internal motivation or outside pressures to address the cause of these injuries. Ultimately, it is sad to consider that many successful and well-known companies may only address ethical problems when forced to by public backlash, but that also reflects not only the power but importance, of the public voice.