New school damage control is to admit it up front, apologize profusely, take strong measures to prevent reoccurance.
But not before exhausting every attempt to keep it hidden and then some transparent denials.
But not before exhausting every attempt to keep it hidden and then some transparent denials.
No. PR firms these days have a "How to handle a crisis" guideline or procedure and what you described is not in it.
Examples of successful crisis management[edit] Tylenol (Johnson and Johnson)
In the fall of 1982, a murderer added 65 milligrams of cyanide to some [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tylenol"]Tylenol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] capsules on store shelves, killing seven people, including three in one family. Johnson & Johnson recalled and destroyed 31 million capsules at a cost of $100 million. The affable CEO, James Burke, appeared in television ads and at news conferences informing consumers of the company's actions. Tamper-resistant packaging was rapidly introduced, and Tylenol sales swiftly bounced back to near pre-crisis levels.[19]
When another bottle of tainted Tylenol was discovered in a store, it took only a matter of minutes for the manufacturer to issue a nationwide warning that people should not use the medication in its capsule form.[20]
[edit] Odwalla Foods
When [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odwalla"]Odwalla - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]'s apple juice was thought to be the cause of an outbreak of E. coli infection, the company lost a third of its market value. In October 1996, an outbreak of E. coli bacteria in Washington state, California, Colorado and British Columbia was traced to unpasteurized apple juice manufactured by natural juice maker Odwalla Inc. Forty-nine cases were reported, including the death of a small child. Within 24 hours, Odwalla conferred with the FDA and Washington state health officials; established a schedule of daily press briefings; sent out press releases which announced the recall; expressed remorse, concern and apology, and took responsibility for anyone harmed by their products; detailed symptoms of E. coli poisoning; and explained what consumers should do with any affected products. Odwalla then developed - through the help of consultants - effective thermal processes that would not harm the products' flavors when production resumed. All of these steps were communicated through close relations with the media and through full-page newspaper ads.
[edit] Mattel
[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattel"]Mattel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] Inc., the toy maker, has been plagued with more than 28 product recalls and in Summer of 2007, amongst problems with exports from China, faced two product recall in two weeks. The company "did everything it could to get its message out, earning high marks from consumers and retailers. Though upset by the situation, they were appreciative of the company's response. At Mattel, just after the 7 a.m. recall announcement by federal officials, a public relations staff of 16 was set to call reporters at the 40 biggest media outlets. They told each to check their e-mail for a news release outlining the recalls, invited them to a teleconference call with executives and scheduled TV appearances or phone conversations with Mattel's chief executive. The Mattel CEO Robert Eckert did 14 TV interviews on a Tuesday in August and about 20 calls with individual reporters. By the week's end, Mattel had responded to more than 300 media inquiries in the U.S. alone."[21]
[edit] Pepsi
The [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi"]Pepsi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] Corporation faced a crisis in 1993 which started with claims of syringes being found in cans of diet Pepsi. Pepsi urged stores not to remove the product from shelves while it had the cans and the situation investigated. This led to an arrest, which Pepsi made public and then followed with their first video news release, showing the production process to demonstrate that such tampering was impossible within their factories. A second video news release displayed the man arrested. A third video news release showed surveillance from a [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convenience_store"]Convenience store - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] where a woman was caught replicating the tampering incident. The company simultaneously publicly worked with the FDA during the crisis. The corporation was completely open with the public throughout, and every employee of Pepsi was kept aware of the details.[[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]Wikipedia:Citation needed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]] This made public communications effective throughout the crisis. After the crisis had been resolved, the corporation ran a series of special campaigns designed to thank the public for standing by the corporation, along with coupons for further compensation. This case served as a design for how to handle other crisis situations.[22][[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"]Wikipedia:Citation needed - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]]
[edit] Examples of unsuccessful crisis management
[edit] Bhopal
The [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster"]Bhopal disaster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] in which poor communication before, during, and after the crisis cost thousands of lives, illustrates the importance of incorporating cross-cultural communication in crisis management plans. According to American University’s Trade Environmental Database Case Studies (1997), local residents were not sure how to react to warnings of potential threats from the Union Carbide plant. Operating manuals printed only in English is an extreme example of mismanagement but indicative of systemic barriers to information diffusion. According to Union Carbide’s own chronology of the incident (2006), a day after the crisis Union Carbide’s upper management arrived in India but was unable to assist in the relief efforts because they were placed under house arrest by the Indian government. Symbolic intervention can be counter productive; a crisis management strategy can help upper management make more calculated decisions in how they should respond to disaster scenarios. The Bhopal incident illustrates the difficulty in consistently applying management standards to multi-national operations and the blame shifting that often results from the lack of a clear management plan.[23]
[edit] Ford and Firestone Tire and Rubber Company
The [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford[/ame]-[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firestone_Tire_and_Rubber_Company"]Firestone Tire and Rubber Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] dispute transpired in August 2000. In response to claims that their 15-inch Wilderness AT, radial ATX and ATX II tire treads were separating from the tire core—leading to grisly, spectacular crashes—Bridgestone/Firestone recalled 6.5 million tires. These tires were mostly used on the Ford Explorer, the world's top-selling sport utility vehicle (SUV).[24]
The two companies committed three major blunders early on, say crisis experts. First, they blamed consumers for not inflating their tires properly. Then they blamed each other for faulty tires and faulty vehicle design. Then they said very little about what they were doing to solve a problem that had caused more than 100 deaths—until they got called to Washington to testify before Congress.[25]
[edit] Exxon
On March 24, 1989, a tanker belonging to the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon"]Exxon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] Corporation ran aground in the Prince William Sound in Alaska. The [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez"]Exxon Valdez - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] spilled millions of gallons of crude oil into the waters off Valdez, killing thousands of fish, fowl, and sea otters. Hundreds of miles of coastline were polluted and salmon spawning runs disrupted; numerous fishermen, especially Native Americans, lost their livelihoods. Exxon, by contrast, did not react quickly in terms of dealing with the media and the public; the CEO, [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Rawl[/ame], did not become an active part of the public relations effort and actually shunned public involvement; the company had neither a communication plan nor a communication team in place to handle the event—in fact, the company did not appoint a public relations manager to its management team until 1993, 4 years after the incident; Exxon established its media center in Valdez, a location too small and too remote to handle the onslaught of media attention; and the company acted defensively in its response to its publics, even laying blame, at times, on other groups such as the Coast Guard. These responses also happened within days of the incident.[26]
These are issues which every company with potentially catastrophic processes, products, or plants needs to answer with a special team of "worst case" analysts. Such analysis then has to be transformed into a response plan. Where the issue involves government — and in most cases it will — the company needs to coordinate its planning with federal, state and local authorities. After 9/11, many companies analyzed these issues with respect to terrorist acts at their facilities or terrorist acts which, if not directed at the company, could still have significant impact on people, facilities, information and supply chain.
Yet, many experts in crisis response and crisis management would say that without practice, without simulations, these response plans merely gather dust and are not effective when the hundred-year event occurs. In the military, war games can be a vital tool for learning how to respond to crisis situations. We need a "war game" mentality in the private sector to address the severe conceptual and operational problems in crisis response and crisis management which the Gulf Spill and the Japan nuclear events so starkly illustrate. Ben W. Heineman, Jr.
Ben Heineman has held senior positions in business, law, and government, is a senior fellow at Harvard's Law and Kennedy Schools, and is author of High Performance With High Integrity (Harvard Business Press, 2008)
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