When Twitter goes wrong ....

I'm rather fond of McDonald's as a company. My first job aged 16 was with them - I survived the whole of the first day so I got all five stars! They were a good company to work for in 1984 and I think they have undertaken some excellent repositioning and communications work in the last ten years too.

In this social media age, many companies rightly seek a dialogue with their customers and try to tell real 'people' stories to show the human face of the corporation. But there is danger too as the massive amount of coverage of McDonald's cock-up last week from the likes of the Daily Mail to the Huffingfton Post and the bloggersphere demonstrates:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/9034883/McDonalds-McDStories-Twitter-campaign-backfires.html

Having critics hijack your hashtag isn't new of course but McDonald's apparent naivety is interesting. Theirs was a 24-hour campaign to insert paid promoted tweets into the streams of Twitter users. Promoting your tweet exposes you to everyone, not just your supporters, making it more likely to attract unwanted attention.

Generating a response from the large number of critics who will never credit McDonalds's for anything shouldn't have surprised them. But within two hours, the company pulled #McDStories, saying that the effort "did not go as planned. It was negative enough that we set about a change of course"!

Did they not have someone monitoring their Twitter account 24/7 who could respond to and engage with criticisms and so dispel myth and counter negatives? That requires a person with knowledge, authority and communication skills - not that week's work experience person.

key lessons?

- have a meaningful objective for your social media engagement
- plan carefully
- resource it properly
- have a plan 'B' for if things go wrong

Andrew Caesar-Gordon

UPDATE 26th January

Here's an emailed statement from McDonald's social media director, Rick Wion:

Within an hour of pulling #McDStories the number of conversations about it fell off from a peak of 1600 to a few dozen. It is also important to keep those numbers in perspective. There were 72,788 mentions of McDonald's overall that day so the traction of #McDStories was a tiny percentage (2%) of that.

With all social media campaigns, we include contingency plans should the conversation not go as planned. The ability to change midstream helped this small blip from becoming something larger.

Costa Cruise’s potentially dangerous blame game strategy

As I glanced through the statement issued by Costa Cruises in the wake of the dreadful Costa Concordia accident, I noticed how it ticked the golden rules for crisis communication: concern and empathy for human life in para one; actions to address the situation in para two; messages about minimisation of environmental impact in para three.

So far, so good. And then, in para four, I read this:

“preliminary indications are that there may have been significant human error on the part of the ship’s Master, Captain Francesco Schettino, which resulted in these grave consequences”

It is the earliest and most explicit attempt to blame an employee for an incident that I have ever seen, and at best, I view it as an extremely high risk crisis management strategy.

Here’s why:

it creates the impression of a business willing to jump to conclusions before all the facts are known, rather than keeping a cool head
it infers that the business’s top priority is protecting its own commercial interests and will use any means to do this, rather than focusing all attention on the human impact at this early stage
it implies a separation between company and employee which could be seen as artificial
it portrays an unflattering picture of a large business prepared to cast an individual employee adrift when the going gets tough
it creates further fuel for an extended crisis – controversy – as the captain denies the accusations

And what if investigations conclude that the captain was not to blame? In this situation, Costa Cruise’s early pronouncement would be hugely damaging to reputation.

Effective crisis management is of course about using all means at your disposal to protect corporate reputation. But that doesn’t mean applying the most expedient and pragmatic message without careful thought. Statements and pronouncements from media spokespeople must be delivered with a clear understanding of not just the immediate term impact, but also how the business wants to be regarded a year later.

As a final point, history shows that businesses which pin crises on “human error” have frequently created the conditions in which human error is likely: insufficient training, a culture of profit before safety or an environment in which front-line employees are afraid to voice concerns, are all conditions which make a “human error” much more likely.

So, even if Costa Cruise’s allegation turns out to be true, it may still not be enough to protect its reputation.

Jonathan Hemus

We Have A Crisis - Let's Hide!

Crises are rarely singular in nature. They escalate; they often become multi-dimensional. Journalists dredge up stories you thought were history; they constantly find new angles to the story and seek to unearth more information than their competitors.

If you need evidence that when you are hit by crisis, the archiving power of Google is used by journalists to make things worse for you, have a look at this 13th November story in The Telegraph about the botulism contamination in a Premier Foods jar of loyd Grossman sauce this week:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8887446/Korma-sauce-recalled-after-botulism-outbreak.html

From a single jar of Korma sauce, the story dredges up the 2005 Sudan 1 food scare which saw 350 different Premier Food products pulled from shelves and the company's recent corporate woes after a falling out with Tesco over price increases that "hit Premier's profits hard and the company's share price collapsed."

And the final line of the article?

"Premier Foods were unavailable for comment."


Andrew Caesar-Gordon

RIM - Blackberry - How not to do a crisis interview

This morning's interview on the Today Programme by Stephen Bates, UK Managing Director of Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of the Blackberry smartphone, demonstrates nicely how not to do a crisis interview and how delivering practised 'key messages' can sound so cringing.

Blackberry's service crashed at the start of the week and while the fault was eventually fixed, the backlog of messages created chaos.

Right at the start, Evan Davies handed over to the business presenter, Simon Jack, with a comment how Blackberry users 'like us' had been paralysed. Evidence if you needed it that RIM has been upsetting journalists who are customers and humans too.

Bates goes straight into the first question ("is this problem sorted?") with a technical discussion of what went wrong with some jargon - "throughput" and "RIM infrastructure" - thrown in for good measure. He's not thinking about his audience who don't care about the technical problems of Blackberry - he has an inside-out perspective, not the other way round as it should be. If members of the audience are Blackberry users, what they want first off is an apology and a sense of when this will be resolved; if they are not Blackberry users then it's unlikely they will be at the end of this interview!

Answering a follow-up question, he gets down into detail. We are told about "stabilising the network throughput" and "core switching within the RIM infrastructure". He should be addressing the question simply with "A backup system failed and we've sorted it but the important thing is that ......." thus moving to some positive content. He has already left it too late to exert control over the interview and failed to engage the audience emotionally.

The next question is about how RIM is "testing the patience of customers" and referencing the social media storm that has engulfed RIM (21st century - think social media!). We finally get an apology but it doesn't sound sincere, not least because at this point he rushes to tell us his obviously pre-prepared 'key messages' about Blackberry as a product.

Apologies need to demonstrate remorse and repentance to be credible. And be personal. It could have been easily done: "As you can imagine, I have a Blackberry phone too and so have been unable to use it. Therefore I fully understand our customers frustration and I am truly sorry for this service failure. But we have sorted the problem and as soon as the backlog of messages is cleared in x time they can expect the normal great level of service that makes Blackberry such a crucial phone for 70 million customers".

Halfway through this three minute interview, and the exasperation of the journalist is clear. He takes issue with everything Bates says (e.g. "well you're not there yet", contradicts him and a little later interrupts Bates' claim that Blackberry is reliable with "you'll forgive me but this has not been a reliable system"). At least someone is on the audience's side here!

Then the inevitable question - repeated when Bates avoids it - about compensation. By avoiding the question, Bates sounds evasive but he makes it worse with his attempt to 'bridge away' to what are obvious corporate key messages about Blackberry's popularity and utility. I'm guessing that he was media trained before the performance. If so, it was badly done.

And then, surprise, surprise, the inevitable question about the competition (what with the iPhone 4S going on sale today) which is again ignored as Bates bridges back to some more clunky, corporate key messages.

So what techniques should you adopt for crisis interviews? First express concern and reassurance - apologise if necessary. Empathise; be human. Second, be clear about the action taken or being taken in the context of what the positive outcomes will be for those affected. Third, offer perspective - yes, your positive messages but make them emotionally engaging, not a list of what you consider your achievements to be. Its your brand narrative you should be bridging to - not corporate messages.

Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Blueprint For An Apology

As reported in the Huffington Post this week, on Tuesday Vanity Fair magazine released an excerpt of their upcoming Johnny Depp cover article, hoping to generate buzz ahead of it hitting newsstands. In the short passage, the actor made a rare misstep, comparing participating in photo shoots to being raped. "Well, you just feel like you're being raped somehow," he said. The statement raised eyebrows and drew criticism, leading Depp to quickly issue a statement of apology and regret.

"I am truly sorry for offending anyone in any way. I never meant to. It was a poor choice of words on my part in an effort to explain a feeling," Depp said in the statement. "I understand there is no comparison and I am very regretful. In an effort to correct my lack of judgement, please accept my heartfelt apology."

As one commentator wrote on the Huffington Post's forum under the story:

"Bad analogy, Mr. Depp, but that apology is HOW an apology should be made. First, he apologized "for offending anyone", not the mealy mouthed "IF I offended anyone". Clear difference being that he acknowledged that what he said was offensive. Second, he said he "never meant to" offend anyone. No intent, no "I was misquoted" or "misunderstood".

Third, he admitted to a "poor choice of words" to try to explain a feeling. Not, "you didn't understand what I was trying to say". He said, in essence, "what I said was wrong". Fourth, he acknowledges that his feelings in this matter are in no way comparable to the feelings of a rape victim. He did not try further explain the unexplainable. Finally, he expressed the desire to "correct my lack of judgement" and, again, apologized.

Couldn't have put it better myself. Which is why I haven't tried!



Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Has the fat lady sung?

Crises are easier for organisations to handle if they are clearly the 'victim' of someone else's malicious actions. They tend to get a sympathy vote and the benefit of the doubt from the media and the public.

Product recalls due to sabotage (as in the case of Tylenol in 1982 - look at the Electric Airwaves Resources page for a case study on how Johnson & Johnson handled this), aircraft hijackings and the like come into this category.

But this does not mean that effected management and communicators can be complacent. The media tends to cover crises through three stages of questioning: What has happened and why? What action is being taken to resolve it or ensure it cannot happen again? Who is to blame? Sometimes these phases follow rapidly on from one another. Sometimes they are more drawn out.

In the case last month of Nurofen Plus, the company may well have been a victim of sabotage. Nobody has suffered from taking any incorrect pills (unlike the Tylenol scare where seven died). Reckitt Benckiser has not yet been blamed for any human health consequences although it has been criticised for slow and scant public information in an age of social media immediacy.

But at some point it will probably be revealed how the tampering occurred. Then the media will start to ask questions about the security of the pharmaceutical supply chain. What internal processes existed to prevent this happening? Was management alerted in the past to this being a threat and what actions did it take? Might there be management culpability after all?

Nurofen communicators will surely be preparing to get ahead of the curve; taking action now to reinforce brand narratives and messages with key stakeholders. It might not come but there is no harm in readying themselves for a potential second round to this affair.

The game may not be over yet.


Andrew Caesar-Gordon

Cautious crisis communication by Nurofen Plus is risky strategy

If you heard that your regular painkiller could have been replaced with antipsychotic drugs, you might be a little concerned. So concerned that you might want a little more information to put your mind at rest.

That is the scenario facing purchasers of Nurofen Plus following an announcement from the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) that some packs contain not the expected Ibuprofen, but Seroquel XL, an antipsychotic drug used to treat conditions such as schizophrenia.

Go to the Nurofen website and there appears to be no information about the incident. Move on to Nurofen’s Facebook page and there’s a great quiz, but no information about the product contamination. Turn to the website of Reckitt Benckiser and still you won’t find any advice from Nurofen or its parent company.

So, instead, you pick up the phone and call the consumer helpline listed on the Nurofen website. Unfortunately, news of the incident hit the BBC around 6pm and the helpline shut at 5pm.

Businesses which want to reassure their customers and retain their loyalty during and after a crisis need to communicate with them. That means being geared up to communicate via company websites and social media. It means having the capability to man your customer helpline 24/7 if necessary. Failing to do this leaves customers in the dark, potentially fearful and with your reputation in the hands of the commentators who are prepared to provide information. It’s a high risk crisis communication strategy.

Update

Twelve hours later and a terse statement is now available on the Nurofen website, but it contains little information or reassurance. At 8.06am the customer helpline is still closed and people are beginning to post to the Nurofen Facebook page, for example “Never mind the competitions , what about informing the public of the anti-depressants found in your packs?”. No information about the problem can be found on Nurofen’s Facebook page. People are also making their views known on Twitter. More expansive crisis communication would surely be in Nurofen’s best interests?

Update 2 (26 Aug)

Nurofen has now announced a recall of all stock in retail outlets: a more expansive communication approach is now surely essential. It has been a good war for Neal Patel, head of corporate comms at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, who has been the main communicator throughout this episode. But where has Nurofen or Reckitt Benckiser been?


Jonathan Hemus