Jim Walsh

Most brand and marketing managers will have a detailed plan in place for a product recall at some time. They will also probably be ready for criticism of their advertising or promotional activities.

Some will now even have plans and systems in place to handle a potential crisis arising from digital or social media platforms. But while digital and social media can fan the flames of a crisis the main causes can almost always be traced back to human error or inappropriate, inconsiderate behaviour. For example citing the rules even when this is clearly not the appropriate response if people have been unfairly treated.

The crisis management textbooks are littered with examples of such bad practices or unbending and inflexible attitudes when faced with customer relations issues.

The operatives who didn’t follow proper procedures and caused accidents is one clear example of how a crisis can be caused. But more mundane issues can be similarly contentious.  The following two examples demonstrate how not taking a criticism seriously or not checking that you might be infringing copyright, both led to a costly crisis for the organisations involved.

In New Zealand in 2004 two secondary school students were unhappy with what they considered a disingenuous response from GlaxoSmithKline to their finding of a study into the claims the company made for its Ribena read-to-drink product.

The subsequent actions by the students ended-up costing the brand millions as well as a huge loss of market share.

The two students had set out to test the claim that  ‘The blackcurrents in Ribena contain four times the vitaman C in oranges”.  The students approached the company with their findings. The company’s response to the students was that “It was the blackcurrents that had it (Vitiman C).”   This unsatisfactory response prompted the students to go to the media, the Advertising Standards Authority and the Commerce Commission. The company was brought to court and pleaded guilty to 15 charges of breaching fair trading laws. The result, loads of negative publicity, a damaged reputation, a drop in sales and a spend of over NZ$1m in fines and on advertising to seek to rectify the damage.

Once upon a time launching a new product or service rarely caused controversy. But now, just like the Presidential Election, every claim and every aspect  of the launch will be studied, at least by competitors. And anything not quite right will be highlighted immediately on Twitter, Facerbook, YouTube or through blogs.

Take for example how an apparently straightforward promotional activity almost became a doomsday scenario for a French organization last year.

In January 2010 HADOPI, the French government agency charged with the promotion of copyright protection on the Internet, was faced with the unthinkable. The typeface they had chosen to promote their campaign on posters, film and all other communications, which was called Blienvenue, turned out to be something they had no right to use.  It was an exclusive custom font designed for France Telecom.

The similarity in typefaces only came to light when the HADOPI campaign was unveiled. A designer who had worked at the type foundry where Blienvenue was created 10 years earlier spotted it first and expressed his discovery on Twitter.  His tweet was picked up and word spread among the design community like wildfire and then into the mainstream media in France and surrounding countries.

HADOPI claimed that the logo, which was unveiled as the official logo, was only intended as a draft and had somehow been subject to ‘erroneously digital manipulation’. Three days later the agency announced that it was in a position to present its other, proper version.

Whether it was a genuine mistake or not in this age of instant communication when bloggers get their teeth into an issue, the truth eventually surfaces. In this case French bloggers discovered that the official HADOPI logo had been registered for official (i.e. not draft) use six weeks before its launch. They also found that the second ‘proper’ version was rush-ordered from the foundry on the day of the first unveiling.   Presumably there is a legal case winding its way through the French justice system.

The lesson from both these examples is be prepared and take nothing for granted if you want to avoid a crisis.

Published in Irish Marketing Journal October 2011 http://www.adworld.ie/imjmagazine