Filed under: Customer relations, crisis communications, reputation management | Tags: Austin Quality Foods Toasty Crackers, crisis communications, Food and Drug Administration, Kellogg Co., Kellogg's, Kris Charles, media relations, peanut butter, peanut corp., public relations, salmonella
The huge peanut butter recall that has dominated headlines over the last several days offers a great illustration of how important it is to be proactive and engaged with the media when an incident threatens your organization’s core. The salmonella outbreak linked to Peanut Corp. in Georgia has affected many brands that have had to pull their products due to the contamination, but the Kellogg Co. is one of the biggest food companies impacted, and has garnered the most media attention.
The odd thing, however, is that Kellogg has come out of this looking pretty good, despite having to pull a long list of products from store shelves. The key is how they handled it, and how they communicated their handling of it.
First, they started pulling products from the shelves before there was any report of illness linked to any Kellogg’s products, and they framed it in terms of their highest purpose: We’d rather be safe than sorry; we want to ensure that our customers can remain confident of their safety when they buy a Kellogg’s product.
This is a critical element of branding: every point of intersection between a consumer and a particular brand must be positive in some way. So even in dire circumstances surrounding a salmonella outbreak, Kellogg’s is keeping to the brand values.
Second, and just as important as pulling product early, Kellogg’s has engaged the media actively. This recent story is a prime example, because most of the information comes from Kellogg’s Co. spokespeople and statements, rather than from the FDA:
On Monday, the company based in Battle Creek said that contamination was confirmed by the Food and Drug Administration in a single package of Austin Quality Foods Toasty Crackers with Peanut Butter.
And here:
It was not immediately clear how many packages of Kellogg crackers had been tested, if more tests were being made on other products or if some had already been found not have salmonella, Kellogg spokeswoman Kris Charles said. A spokesman for the FDA said the agency was not providing any new information Monday.
This latter passage is particularly good, because the Kellogg spokesperson is providing information, which contrasts nicely with the FDA’s refusal to comment. Even if the casual reader doesn’t discern such detail, you can be sure the reporters do. In the world of reporting, those who help them do their jobs well and make deadline are heroes; by building up a bank of good will with journalists, the Kellogg spokesperson is laying solid groundwork for future media relations efforts. And, if she’s done her job well in the past, what we’re seeing could be the result of long-time relationships she has established with these journalists.
It’s often the case that crisis situations bring out the worst tendencies of a company, and only those who have a truly superior crisis communications plan – one that they have practiced over and over – will come out of a terrible incident looking good. Kellogg’s is in that position… so far.
Filed under: crisis communications | Tags: crisis communications, crisis recovery, media relations, news templates, press releases, public relations
This story on the Huffington Post is written tongue-in-cheek, but it illustrates the utility of a common crisis communications tool. The story notes that news organizations are gutting their reporting staffs in order to squeeze additional profitability out of journalism, and suggests they could reduce them even further if they used a series of fill-in-the-blank templates rather than actual reporters.
Here are a few examples:
* ________ has asked Treasury officials for federal funds. In a statement,
______ CEO ______ argues that it is only current economic conditions that have brought the _____ industry to its knees. Decades of inept management have had nothing to with these problems, and if billions are not forthcoming, bankruptcy and massive layoffs will be the only alternative.* ________ corporation today announced it is filing for bankruptcy and immediately closing its plants and laying off _____ workers. Company chairman ______ expressed regret. “The ______ billion dollar infusion of cash from the government was not enough to prevent this unfortunate development” he said. He went on to point out that while all severance and pension agreements could not be honored, top executives will still receive their bonuses.
—— has been charged with fraud in connection with the collapse of his —– fund. Prosperous clients like _____ said they have lost millions. —–s of others say their 401k’s have been wiped out and they lost their entire nest egg for retirement. Regulators at the _______ agency said this was a total surprise. “We had no idea” said Chairman ______.
Although these are meant to be jokes, these tools are used regularly as aids during crisis communications situations for two reasons: speed and to overcome the “fog of war.”
The need for speed is obvious; if your organization’s image and reputation are in jeopardy because something has gone terribly wrong, you need to get information out to your stakeholders as quickly as possible, before others are able to start telling your story and framing the issues for you. Having templates ready reduces the time you need to spend crafting a well-worded press release, intranet post, message from the CEO, etc.
Overcoming the “fog of war” is just as important as speed. During a crisis situation, you likely will have dozens of inputs from various sources, all of which are important in some way. By having templates at the ready, with blanks waiting to be filled in, you don’t have to worry about whether you have left out critical information or messaging simply because you’ve been overloaded during the drafting phase.
I remember during one crisis drill, I was caught without my templates and had to wing it during a very hectic simulation that involved an explosion, fire, and fatalities. The first release I drafted for the incident-commander’s review had carefully delineated the incident, how we were responding, and included a reassuring quote from a high-level executive. Fortunately, the incident commander was astute enough to catch the fact that I had left out the date, time, and location of the incident (I had provided the distance from shore, but which shore of which country was not specified!).
So although the HuffPost story is intended to be a cynical joke, fill-in-the-blank templates are extremely useful for organizations that might face crisis situations. A vulnerabilities inventory followed by a scenario analysis can lead to a series of very useful templates that will be a godsend if things go bad.
Filed under: Customer relations, crisis communications | Tags: Angels Secret Embrace, bra, bras, crisis communications, Customer relations, formaldehyde, marketing communications, public relations, rash, Roberta Ritter, Very Sexy Extreme Me Push-Up, Victoria's Secret
One of the worst nightmares for PR people is having to handle a situation that threatens your image as an organization that provides top-notch goods or services to customers. So it’s bad news when one or more customers are vocal and public about criticizing you, and you have to scramble to put together messaging that reassures everyone that you’re on top of things. But it’s even worse news when the criticism comes in the form of a lawsuit… not because the stakes are higher, but because it severely limits what you can say.
Victoria’s Secret is facing just such a situation with some of its core offerings; some of its bras, according to a recently-filed lawsuit, have caused some customers severe rashes and blistering, and the plaintiff’s lawyers are filing it as a class-action.
The truly horrible thing about having to deal with lawsuits like this is that your organization’s lawyers are going to tell you, the PR person, that you cannot, should not, and will not say ANYthing about this situation, or anything related to it, without first running it by them, and in any case, they’re highly unlikely to approve what you want to say. Their reasoning is sound from a legal standpoint, but it’s murder when you’re trying to reassure your customers that you’re committed to doing all you can to track down the problem and make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else. In lawyer-ese, that would be tantamount to admitting guilt.
So Victoria’s Secret has no official statement about the situation on its website, and the only thing we have from them is a quote in the story:
A Victoria’s Secret spokesperson admitted the company had received direct complaints from customers, but added the bras remain on store shelves.
The company said it is investigating complaints and released a statement that said, “We are sorry that a small number of people have had an issue and we want to help them determine the cause.
“Customer safety and satisfaction are always our primary concerns and we take seriously any issues our customers may have with our products,” the statement continued.
And about allegations that formaldehyde was found in one of the bras:
“We have strict quality controls around our products, and we do not use formaldehyde in our bras,” the company said in a statement.
The first part of their statement is pretty standard stuff, but pretty weak, too. If they weren’t faced with the threat of lawyers (both their own and the plaintiff’s) perched over them, they really ought to fall all over themselves to offer replacements and perhaps even offer gift certificates to help sooth those rashes.
Similarly, the issue of formaldehyde is unfortunate, because it put them in the position of having to mention formaldehyde. Even though it’s in the context of denying that they use it, the question remains: Okay, what toxins DO you use in your bras?
Playing a defensive game like this is a real loser for a retail organization, especially with such restrictions on what you can say. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs are under no such restriction, and in fact it’s to their benefit to mouth off as much as humanly possible. They go to the media, they get on TV, they get online, and they yell about their experiences as loudly and as often as possible, even if some or all of what they say is later determined in court to be wild exaggerations. Their goal is to set the tone of the discussion early so that later reporting (and jury pools, presumably) will carry at least some of that flavor that favors their position.
From a PR standpoint, lawsuits are just awful because they dramatically reduce the number of tools you have at your disposal to protect your image and reputation. It’ll be interesting to see how this case unfolds over the next few months, as the judge decides whether this case can go forward as a class-action.
Filed under: Business columns, Customer relations, crisis communications | Tags: business advice, Cheryl Crispen, crisis communications, crisis communications planning, disaster recovery, media relations, Mortgage Bankers Association, Noble Environmental Power, public relations, public relations planning
When something terrible happens to an organization, there are two equally unfortunate responses they tend to have. One is to say nothing to anybody… not the press, not customers, not suppliers, not even employees
A great example of that is a recent situation with Noble Environmental Power. It was rumored recently that Noble was facing financial troubles and would be unable to continue its projects in New York and Vermont. Nobody from the company was easily reachable at their Vermont office, and when he reached a spokesperson at the company’s Connecticut headquarters, the PR guy promised to send a statement and then didn’t.
The second tendency is for the person contacted by the media to say the first thing that comes to mind. A painful example of this approach was at the Mortgage Bankers of America annual meeting in San Francisco recently, where Cheryl Crispen, the organization’s Senior Vice President of Communications, responded to protesters like this: “It was unfortunate that they chose this venue to protest whatever they chose to protest. We believe in free speech, but we believe there is a right time and place for it.”
In one ill-conceived message, Ms. Crispen basically said she doesn’t know about, or care about, the mortgage crisis, and implied that the folks should protest the Mortgage Bankers Association somewhere other than where the Mortgage Bankers Association happened to be holding its annual convention. And maybe they should pick another day, too.
But it’s only natural that the glare of a media spotlight is going to make people freeze up or say the wrong thing, because it’s a terrible situation to be in. I ran crisis communications for a major global energy company for several years, and it made me acutely aware of how uncomfortable it can be to face media and other stakeholders when something serious happens. But there are steps you can take to protect yourself from saying something you don’t mean, or sending the wrong message by saying nothing at all.
The first step is to know what your organization stands for. This might sound like a soft and squishy way to start something as serious as a crisis communications plan, but it’s the foundation of everything you’re going to say later. So if you’re a ski resort, it might be “a safe, fun experience at reasonable cost” when it comes to customers, and it might be, “a place where you are valued for your contributions, and treated as a respected member of our team” when it comes to employees.
And what about suppliers? What about state inspectors and regulators? And the community in which you operate? Your starting point must include what you mean to these different target audiences, because you want to keep these ideas in mind during a crisis — and even have them written down in front of you — to avoid saying something that not only isn’t consistent with who you are as an organization, but makes you look bad at a critical time. For example, if a kitchen fire shuts down one of your restaurants, the first thing you should talk about is your concern for those who were injured, or how grateful you are that nobody was hurt.
You’d be surprised how often that very human response is forgotten by spokespeople or executives during a crisis, because it’s an unnaturally tense situation and requires unnaturally intense preparation.
After pinning down what you stand for to various target audiences, your crisis communications preparation should include a “vulnerabilities inventory.” This is essentially a list of things that could go wrong with your organization and have the potential to interrupt or diminish your ability to conduct business. So if you’re planning crisis communications for a college, a professor getting a speeding ticket on campus would not be on the list, embarrassing though it may be. But the firing of a professor for selling grades or falsifying research results would definitely make the list, as it could negatively impact your image for years.
Once you have your vulnerabilities inventory, you should use them to come up with scenarios. For a power company, for example, your inventory might include two dozen vulnerabilities. When you categorize them, you might find that they fall into three broad categories: customer outages due to infrastructure problems, employee deaths or injuries, and customer outages due to supply problems.
Once you have your categories, you should put together template statements that address each of the categories. The most important function of the templates is to help you remember the information you need to provide, and how you should provide it. So for the outages due to infrastructure problems, a template statement might look like this:
Joe’s Power Company has dispatched repair crews in response to a [describe event] that took place at its [name the facility] at [time of incident]. The incident resulted in the loss of power to approximately [number of homes or businesses]. “Joe’s Power Company is committed to restoring power as quickly as possible to these customers,” said Joe Powers, CEO. “At this time, it is estimated that power will be restored by [name target date or time].” Joe’s Power Company has set up an info line [include number] for customers to call for a recorded message about the latest estimate for power restoration, and its website also includes a section with continuously updated information. Joe’s Power Company is investigating the cause of this incident, and will provide additional information as it becomes available.”
If, as with most organizations, you have a designated spokesperson, it’s important that he or she be the one providing the information so that your messages aren’t mixed. Reporters will try to get an unofficial spokesperson whenever possible, because it can make the story more exciting.
In our power company example, a reporter might talk to a line worker who estimates the power will be back on in 12 hours. But that line worker might not know that it’s going to be more like 24 hours because of other problems he’s unaware of. Then you have mixed messages coming from your company, which makes you look like you don’t know what’s going on. That’s why it’s important that your employees know to refer media questions to the official spokesperson.
Once you have figured out who the official spokesperson will be, you need to make sure that what he or she says is truly the best information available. Even in small organizations, getting clear updates about a crisis situation can be difficult, so lines of communication need to be worked out well in advance. In large organizations, just working out who should provide the information to the spokesperson can be a daunting task, but it can make the difference between looking foolish or looking competent during a tough time.
It’s also worth considering who will be the one with final approval authority. If the spokesperson isn’t the one who can say what information can or cannot be released, then the approver needs to be committed to reviewing anything that’s going to come out of the spokesperson’s mouth.
In terms of how you get your message out, the tacit assumption is that you will be contacted by news organizations that want to get information from you and publish or broadcast it. However, the age of social media provides the opportunity to take some control of your message. Your organization’s website, executive blogs, YouTube, and social or professional networking sites can provide you platforms to get your messaging out without the media filter. But this approach, along with all other crisis communications, requires lots of advance planning for it to work under fire.
And lastly, all your preparations will be for nothing unless you practice your plan over and over, in both announced and unannounced drills. The first few can be painful if you expect great success, so make sure your mindset is focused on learning from mistakes, rather than picture-perfect execution from the get-go. Crisis communications is one of the most difficult types of PR to do, because nobody likes to face up to the uncomfortable possibilities, but a little investment now can save a lot of pain later.
Filed under: Business columns, Customer relations, crisis communications | Tags: Cheryl Crispen, crisis communications, foreclosure, MBA, media relations, Mortgage Bankers Association, mortgage crisis, public relations
The Mortgage Bankers Association, once a quiet, below-the-radar organization whose very name would induce yawns, has been thrust into the harsh glare of the media spotlight while ravenous hordes of reporters try to pick their flesh for useful bits for their stories. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) didn’t see the economic meltdown coming, and are not prepared for the blame they are having to fend off.
The New York Times reports that a protester tried to “arrest” Karl Rove as he sat on stage at a panel discussion during the MBA annual convention in San Francisco yesterday, and screaming protesters filled the sidewalks outside the venue.
So this is a great opportunity to see how an organization under fire officially responds. Cheryl Crispen, the MBA’s Sr. VP of Communications, took the opportunity to voice an opinion shared by dictatorial regimes the world over:
“It was unfortunate that they chose this venue to protest whatever they chose to protest,” Ms. Crispen said. “We believe in free speech, but we believe there is a right time and place for it.”
In one ill-conceived message, Ms. Crispen not only displayed ignorance about what was being protested (evincing an appalling lack of awareness for somebody who’s supposed to know the issues), but also implied that the protesters should protest the Mortgage Bankers Association somewhere other than where the Mortgage Bankers Association happened to be holding its annual convention, and perhaps even on a day that nobody from the Mortgage Bankers Association would be around.
Unfortunately, this quote was not accompanied by any others in the NYT story that would acquit Ms. Crispen of the charges of practicing PR without any skill whatsoever. But a look at the San Francisco Chronicle story about the same event notes some very good messaging from Ms. Crispen:
“It makes us committed to helping every single homeowner we possibly can to stay in their homes, and I feel that energy,” Crispen said. “Nobody benefits from a foreclosure. The borrower, the homeowner, does not benefit. The lender who provided the loan and has been in the game does not benefit. So we, as an industry, are doing everything we possibly can to help those homeowners who are able to stay in their home stay in their homes.”
This, to me, is excellent messaging. It doesn’t address all of the protesters’ concerns head-on, like greed, or the rights and wrongs of the bailout (which are losing propositions for the MBA anyway), but gets to the very heart of what moves people in this crisis: its effect on people’s abilities to remain in their homes. If you hit that message, you take the heat out of all the other stuff.
So there are two lessons here: the first is that you can get burned by a reporter whose story angle is against you, and there’s probably nothing you can do about it. The NYT story quoting Ms. Crispen is a good case in point, since nothing good from her was used. However, I should say that parroting political philosophies espoused by repressive regimes likely isn’t going to help your cause.
Second, when faced with rabid opposition, make sure your messaging gets to the core of the issue and doesn’t take on the stuff you can’t control or can’t win.
Filed under: crisis communications | Tags: crisis communications, Customer relations, Grandpa's Knob, Noble Environmental Power, public relations, wind power
This story is a great example of what not to do – ever – when the media is after you in a negative situation. According to the article, Noble Environmental Power is rumored to be facing financial troubles and is unable to continue its projects in progress. Nobody from the company was easily reachable (and the reporter even described seeing the empty desks from a window), and when he reached a spokesperson at the company’s Connecticut headquarters, the flack promised to send a statement and then didn’t.
Wrong wrong wrong wrong.
Before, the company just looked like it was facing financial troubles, which is understandable in the current economic climate. But by avoiding questions and lying to reporters, they’ve officially passed into the category of sketchy characters, reminiscent of fly-by-night operations that bilk people out of their money and skip town.
Let’s say the company was only suffering a temporary setback, and they pull themselves together and get back to work… what kind of a select board would want to continue doing business with people who leave their offices unattended and won’t respond to questions? What kind of investors would want to keep their money with people who disappear – or at least give the impression that they’ve disappeared – when tough questions are asked?
This is exactly the kind of organization that people, companies, and government entities avoid, so as not to get burned. If they can’t even talk about their troubles, the public won’t assume they’re any better at solving them.
Filed under: crisis communications | Tags: Carl Cushing, crisis communications, meat inspection, media relations, public relations, USDA, Vermont Livestock Slaughter and Processing
From a communications standpoint, a situation can be described as a crisis for a business if it threatens the organization’s image to such an extent that its ability to continue conducting business is impacted. A slaughterhouse that is forced to recall some of its products is an excellent example, as was reported yesterday in the Times-Argus.
The best way to respond to these reputational threats is quickly, forcefully, and with complete honesty, which is exactly how this slaughterhouse owner conducted himself. The USDA announced on Thursday the 16th that E. Coli cases had been linked to meat from Vermont Livestock Slaughter and Processing, and the owner, Carl Cushing, announced a voluntary recall that same day.
His quick response is one element of good crisis communications, and another is what he said. He noted that his meat testing protocols are even more rigorous than they are required to be, and based on his decades of experience as a state meat inspector, he doesn’t know how the contamination was linked to his facility. Nonetheless, he wanted to “overreact” to be on the safe side.
On top of the quick response and messaging, I cannot over-emphasize the importance of making sure the information is readily available to reporters. If Mr. Cushing had hidden from the media spotlight rather than talk to the reporter, the story would have been infinitely worse for his image and reputation. Similarly, if he hadn’t said the right things – in other words, if he hadn’t been completely forthcoming and let us know that safety is his top concern – he would have come across poorly. Reporters smell BS a mile away, and I assure you, that smell comes across in their stories.
This isn’t the kind of situation that public relations professionals point to as a model for proper communications; after all, this issue is still open and could go badly for Mr. Cushing. However, for a first-response, this is top-notch.
Take-away lessons here when your organization is under threat: respond quickly, respond thoroughly, be accessible to reporters (which might even mean seeking them out).
Filed under: crisis communications | Tags: Apple, apple stocks, citizen journalists, crisis communications, crisis recovery, heart attack, ireport, media relations, public relations, Steve Jobs
Crisis communications is a difficult subset of public relations practice. It’s sort of like media relations and various other elements of PR, but compressed into a much smaller time-frame and with much more at stake if it’s done badly. A relatively innocuous example is yesterday’s “news” that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a heart attack.
The news – false from the get-go, apparently – was reported on iReport, CNN’s citizen journalist site, and in the short period of time before Apple quelled the rumor, its stock fell by nine percent. I went to Apple’s website to see if there was a statement there about it, and found there wasn’t one. That tells us that they have a good grasp of how to handle these things effectively.
First, this was only a rumor, and was demonstrably baseless. Therefore, Apple made the decision not to post anything on its website for investor relations, signalling that this is, essentially, a matter that is beneath their response. In the face of declining share prices, this is a difficult decision to make, but it’s the right one; responding to all the patently false BS that winds up on blogs would mean a company has to devote huge amounts of time and money to identifying and responding to absurd lies and twisted half-truths. Plus, responding to them gives them legitimacy, because there’s nothing conspiracy theorists like better than “official” denials of sensational stories; it often just fuels their fire. And on top of that, it also dilutes a company’s core messaging if it allows itself to become distracted by off-message junk.
Second, this situation tells us that Apple has a well-developed cadre of media relations people and a tidy Rolodex full of key reporters (yes, I know Rolodexes are all but non-existent these days, but you know what I mean, right?). So the only news stories you’ll find about this episode are headlined by the fact that the report was false, using words like “bogus report,” “false report,” “rumor,” and “not true.”
That’s good stuff. Plus, the news stories indicate that Apple reinforced its “above this kind of thing” approach by issuing only the barest of statements: “the report is not true.”
The lessons from this episode are to (1) pick your battles carefully, (2) choose your response tactics carefully, (3) have good relations with news media so you can provide them with information quickly, (4) don’t fall into the defensive mindset of feeling like you have to respond to everything out there; the democratization of news has led to a proliferation of pseudo-news and outright lies online, and you could spend all your time denying reports if people get a sense they can get a rise out of you.
