EXCLUSIVE: Crisis experts reveal 2025's biggest PR fail
It didn't just stuff up once, either.
In a year stuffed with corporate missteps, governance meltdowns and “please-advise” moments that sent comms teams scrambling, Monash IVF has been officially named 2025’s worst PR performer - taking home the dreaded 'Brown Eye' at crisis podcast Up The Creek!'s annual Reputation Eye Awards.
And it wasn’t even close.
How the crisis spiralled
The trouble began in April, when the reproductive health provider confirmed a Brisbane patient had given birth to a baby genetically unrelated to her - the result of the wrong embryo being implanted in 2023. Initially framed as a “one-off human error”, the story ricocheted across the country.
Then came what Up The Creek! co-host Mark Forbes pointed out as the real reputational killer: the sequel.
Just two months later, Monash IVF disclosed a second, unrelated embryo transfer error at its Melbourne clinic.
That update reignited national outrage, triggered a fresh round of regulatory scrutiny and sparked a national review into fertility sector accreditation.
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And then came the decision that baffled everyone: the refusal to publicly release the independent review into the incidents.
Forbes told listeners: “I couldn’t agree more with the rebuke from the Federal Health Minister that ‘transparency is the foundation of trust’.
Monash IVF is a reminder that in crisis comms, the sequel matters more than the trailer. If you call something an ‘isolated incident’ and another one pops up two months later, you don’t just lose control of the story, you hand it the microphone.”
He added: “Portraying transparency, regret and acting to prevent repeats is critical, and Monash IVF failed on all three counts.”
For a sector built on vulnerability, ethics and high emotion, the reputational fallout has been - understandably - enormous.
And yes, the competition was fierce. This year’s shortlist also included Optus, after yet another Triple Zero outage, and the Bureau of Meteorology, for its much-maligned website rebuild and rebrand.
The recovery award goes to… Qantas
In a turn no one had on their bingo card, Qantas won the Golden Eye for crisis recovery after a cyber incident compromised customer data.
Co-host Benjamin Haslem said, “Qantas hasn’t made it easy to love them recently, but in this case, they flew the crisis properly. They got out early, kept the updates coming, and backed the talk with visible fixes.”
Rio Tinto earned runner-up recognition for its co-management agreement with Traditional Owners at Juukan Gorge - a long-awaited bridge-building effort after the destruction of sacred sites in 2020.
What this means for Monash IVF
In the fertility sector, trust isn’t a brand pillar - it is the business.
The twin errors, the handling, and the opacity have already created a wave of regulatory pressure and consumer doubt.
As Forbes put it: “In a trust business, that’s lights out.”
The Reputation Eye Awards may come with a wink. Still, the message isn’t comedic: in 2025, poor crisis response doesn’t just bruise a reputation - it invites regulators, rattles customers and reshapes an entire business.
Monash IVF is now the definitive case study of what happens when a crisis isn’t just mishandled… it’s mishandled twice.
