Archive for the ‘crisis communications’ Category

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7 Lessons From Maple Leaf Foods’ Crisis Communications

08.08.25

Toronto’s Maple Leaf Foods has been front and centre in the Canadian media over the last week after being linked to the illness and death of several consumers. This weekend, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Public Health Agency of Canada determined that a strain of listeria bacteria afflicting the consumers matched the strain identified in some Maple Leaf food products.

According to the CBC, the outbreak "…has been linked to 12 deaths out of 26 confirmed cases of the disease in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan."

The company’s response to the crisis has been fascinating, not least because its openness has caught the attention of the media.

A few notable points about the response:

  • Use a prominent spokesperson: Once it became clear that Maple Leaf Foods was linked to the outbreak, CEO Michael McCain wasted no time in getting out in front of the media and telling the company’s side of the story.
  • Publicly apologize: McCain, as CEO, personally apologized for the tragic incidents in a video that played on mainstream TV, and that the company posted to YouTube:
  • Be Proactive: Once the link between Maple Leaf Foods and the listeria outbreak was confirmed, the company moved to recall all 220 packaged meats produced at the affected plant.
  • Fix the problem: In a release this evening, the company says it "…continues to actively meet with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), in addition to external industry experts, to determine the details of the food safety protocols under which the facility will be reopened." The company has also "…assembled industry leading experts to consult and advise us on several physical and operational enhancements being considered."
  • Use appropriate messaging: The company has kept to several well thought-out messages (as noted by Boyd Neil):
    • "Going through the crisis there are two advisers I’ve paid no attention to. The first are the lawyers, and the second are the accountants. It’s not about money or legal liability, this is about our being accountable for providing consumers with safe food."
    • This is a terrible tragedy. To those people who have become ill, and to the families who have lost loved ones, I want to express my deepest and most sincere sympathies. Words cannot begin to express our sadness for your pain."
  • Be consistent: The company has been consistent in its messaging:
    • "We believe it is important to take these broader preventative actions to respond to this situation promptly, comprehensively, and in the best interests of our consumers" (August 20 news release)
    • "We know this has shaken consumer confidence in us. Our actions will continue to be guided by putting their interest first" (August 23 news release)
    • "Our actions are guided by putting public health first." (August 24 news release)
    • "We remain steadfast in our belief that our actions must continue to be guided by what is in the best interests of public health" (August 25 news release)
    • "…our management of the Listeria outbreak will be motivated by one thing only – the best public health interests of Canadians and specifically, our customers." (MapleLeaf.com)
  • Be open: The company is acknowledging the seriousness of the problem. The homepage of the Maple Leaf Foods website features a full-page update with information from the company along with links to information on the recall. Compare that to the Menu Foods pet food recall last year, where the company denied responsibility.

Maple Leaf Foods homepage

We should absolutely remember that this stems from tragic events and that people died during this. It’s difficult to tell how badly Maple Leaf Foods will be affected; 12 deaths is a tough pill for people to swallow and communications can only solve so much.

From a crisis communications perspective, though, it’s difficult to see where Maple Leaf Foods has put a foot wrong. It looks like the company had a plan for a scenario like this and, now that the worst has happened, they’re implementing it.

What’s your take?

(Disclosure: Maple Leaf Foods is a client of Fleishman-Hillard, a competitor of my employer Thornley Fallis)

Posted in: crisis communications, issues management

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Metallica Update: Post ‘Em All

08.06.12

A quick update on the Metallica situation – as I wondered in my earlier post about the Metallica/blogger review situation, it looks like this was a giant mis-communication that blew up in the band’s face. Metallica released a statement on their website:

“…once we re-surfaced on Tuesday after a few weeks on tour in Europe, we were informed that someone at Q Prime (our managers) had made the error of asking a few publications to take down reviews of the rough mixes from the new record that were posted on their sites. Our response was “WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record. . . that makes no sense to us!””

The band has apparently taken matters into their own hands, and posted links to the reviews themselves. Good call, guys.

The only thing missing from their statement is an apology for the screw-up. Who knows, perhaps that happened privately. It might have been better for them to come out and say it publicly though.

Regardless, I did chuckle at the thought of “…a few rounds of managerial ear spank and sentencing everyone at [management company] Q Prime to 20 push-ups each…”

</blogostorm>

Posted in: blogger relations, crisis communications, public relations

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Metallica: …And Censorship For All

08.06.11

Metallica has done it again. Forget going after people pirating their music; this time they’ve gone after people writing about it… after inviting them to hear it.

The Story So Far

MetallicaHere’s how the story goes: Metallica representatives recently played tracks from their upcoming album to a bunch of critics/bloggers/journalists (depending on whose take on this you read). They then (surprise surprise) blogged about what they heard.

As Wired’s Listening Post blog reports:

“At no point was the writer ask[ed] to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The Quietus and other websites ran pieces on the album, but were quickly contacted by Metallica’s management via a third party and told to remove the articles.”

Blogostorm

Surprise surprise – a storm has erupted in the blogosphere:

You don’t need to be a brain surgeon to tell how Metallica is coming across in these posts but in case it wasn’t clear, here’s a quote from the CNet piece:

In the wide world of music, our level of distrust first begins with the RIAA, but Metallica is running a close second.

PR Disaster

It’s hard to imagine a worse PR disaster for a band that, until this point Metallica had seemed to be warming to the Internet recently.

They’ve allowed their tunes to be sold through iTunes, they have a cool new website, Mission: Metallica and Ethan Kaplan, head of technology at Warner Bros records (who was behind the new site) gushed about some of their latest efforts at mesh 2008 recently. It seems, though, that they still have a lot to learn.

However, Metallica lost much of their credibility with fans after going after Napster a few years ago – a move that still looms large in peoples’ minds (and was the first thing out of the mouths of my colleagues when I discussed this with them today).

On top of that, consider that this revolves around an event where writers were invited to listen to the new songs, without a non-disclosure agreement… and that their reviews were largely positive by all accounts.

Recovery?

How can the band dig its way out of this situation?

Before thinking about that, you need to ask yourself a couple of important questions:

Should they just move on?

Is this situation salvageable? Given the apparent contradiction in their approach to this situation so far, perhaps it’s best for the band to ride this one out and learn from their mistakes.

Do they need to respond?

Metallica has a die-hard fan base. They’ve been around for 27 years now, and many of their fans are long-time listeners that, quite frankly, won’t be put off by a few bad articles in the press. Let’s face it, they’ve been getting those since they put out the ‘Load’ album back in the ’90s.

Still, some of the comments I’ve read recently seem to indicate that they’ve even managed to annoy some hard-core fans. Perhaps some damage-control is in order.

What To Do?

Knowing that they’re unlikely to go the Nine Inch Nails route, what could they do?

Go One Better?

Why not let those the writers listen to the full album once it’s done (along with an assurance they can write about it)? No bribing, just an honest attempt to make things better.

Personally I think this might be problematic. There’s not a lot of trust in Metallica right now, as I discussed earlier. What’s more, I’m not sure these publications would give them a second chance. The horse may have already bolted on this one (insert Ride the Lightning pun here).

Apologize

Someone, somewhere has screwed up. Maybe the band didn’t know about the advance listening and freaked out. Maybe two people in the record company got their wires crossed. Maybe someone forgot to arrange for a non-disclosure agreement. Who knows.

If the band wants to say anything about this situation, they need to apologize first. Whatever went wrong, they need to figure it out and apologize to the people involved. Don’t point fingers at the writers or make excuses. Just say sorry.

That’s my take on this one. I’m not sure I can see a way for Metallica to come out of this looking good. Their options seem to be to either ride this one out or to risk re-stirring the pot and apologizing.

I think the damage may be done. Perhaps the ‘duck and cover’ approach might be better here. What do you think?

Can you think of a way Metallica could salvage this situation?

Posted in: blogger relations, crisis communications, public relations

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American Airlines’ Reputation Crisis

08.04.11

American Airlines has received a lot of negative attention recently.

In January a snowstorm in Chicago caused the cancellation of numerous flights. This week the airline cancelled over 3,000 flights (more than 600 today alone) to conduct wiring checks on the planes, stranding more than a quarter of a million passengers.

aa_adTo add to the airline’s misery, its pilots union went on the offensive as the Allied Pilots’ Association took out a big ad in USA Today to attack the airline’s management. The ad links to a new site called Tell Your AA Story, which claims to be “produced by a group of concerned American Airlines employees.”

The site encourages passengers and employees alike to share their stories of dissatisfaction with the union and with American Airlines management, although it warns:

Note: your message will be sent to AA management, but we cannot guarantee that they will read, much less respond, to your concerns.

Double trouble. The airline is facing a major reputation crisis.

American Airlines’ Response

So what is American Airlines doing to address the situation?

Offline Response

According to PR Week, the company has mobilized its entire communications team (a whopping seven people) and prioritized “direct engagement with passengers on the ground.” In addition:

AA held multiple press conferences for reporters, one of which included a b-roll of an inspection of an American Airline plane, as well as photos demonstrating the wiring in question.

So far, so good. Helping reporters to understand what’s going on is a good idea.

[American Airlines' VP of corporate communications Roger] Frizzell acknowledged, however, that the person waiting in the airport doesn’t care why the planes were grounded, just that his or her life was disrupted, so the company needed to address that in its communications.

Again, good. They understand that excuses won’t cut it. Another note in the story, though, made me raise my eyebrows.

Frizzell told PR Week that American “passed out press releases to consumers waiting in the airport to keep them informed.”

Wait, what? That’s your idea of direct engagement?

Ok, to be honest I’m not sure American could have come out on top in terms of the passengers at the airport. I’m not convinced that handing out press kits is the way to go though, especially when the releases don’t fit the messaging that your VP of communications is using:

These inspections were necessary to ensure compliance with a Federal Aviation Administration directive related to the bundling of wires in the wheel well of the MD-80 aircraft.

Online Response

The company’s website doesn’t put the best face on the situation, either.

There is a (understated) message at the top of the American Airlines homepage: “Aircraft Inspections Affect Some AA Travel.” The content of the next page, though, does very little to convey any sense of caring about its customers. Apart from a perfunctory message at the top, the rest of the page is very functional and to-the-point. “Sanitized” is the word I’d use. The page shows customers how to get a re-fund, how to re-book and how to get to the company’s press releases.

Say what you will about how JetBlue handled its crisis last year, it did provide a somewhat personal response through a video message by its CEO David Neeleman. It wasn’t the best response in terms of the execution or timing, but the right idea was there.

American Airlines, on the other hand, has done little in this area. It wasn’t until yesterday that CEO Gerard Arpey apologized for the debacle – three days after it started. Even then, as others have pointed out, he didn’t apologize for the inconvenience to customers, just for his failure to ensure safety standards are met. What’s more, his apology doesn’t appear anywhere on the American Airlines website.

Overall, their online reaction gets a failing grade from my perspective.

Conclusion

American Airlines is in a tough position. This isn’t a crisis that communications alone can solve. Also, to be fair, they’ve done several things right:

  • Focusing on the customers on the ground
  • Multiple press conferences
  • Educating reporters about the situation
  • Keeping people up-to-date with what’s happening.

However, there are a lot of things they could do better:

  • Find a more personal, less sanitized way of keeping people on the ground informed
  • Make sure everyone is singing the same tune
  • Make the website about the people, not just the process
  • Get out there sooner
  • Have the CEO apologize for what matters to customers
  • Put the CEO’s apology up on the website.

What do you think? How could American Airlines have communicated better in this crisis?

Posted in: crisis communications

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How Do You Define ‘Media’ In A Crisis?

08.01.26

Huntsville flood I recently witnessed the government’s emergency management operation in action when flooding in the Ontario community of Huntsville left roughly 120 homes under 5 feet of water in early January.

I was the communications guy at the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre. While we never moved from a monitoring role, it was fascinating to see things click into gear.

Skip forward to last Thursday. I sat in on my final ‘legacy’ from my old job – an excellent course on crisis communications that I organized last year before moving on.

It’s fair to say I’ve thought a lot about crisis communications (more formally, "emergency information") recently.

During the course, the instructors repeatedly mentioned the need to monitor conversations online, both to prevent issues from worsening and to ensure you’re aware of what people are saying during an actual crisis.

However, they were very clear that when it came to the media attending news conferences and reporting on a crisis, you should only allow accredited, traditional media to attend.

Noticing the apparent contradiction, I asked the instructors if they saw their definition of "media" expanding or blurring over time to include bloggers or other "citizen journalists." Did they see a move towards dealing with new forms of the media in a crisis?

The answer: a firm "no."

Normally I would argue quite strongly with a response like that. However, I can see two valid sides to this issue in an emergency situation.

Side 1: Stick To "Traditional" Media

Crises and disasters can be chaotic. You need to maintain control of the situation. Not in the traditional "control the media" sense of the word, but in the "keeping order" sense. By vetting journalists, you can prevent people who are intent on disrupting things from getting access to the scene.

Furthermore, in a major incident you may already have more journalists on the scene than you can deal with. If you have 600 journalists present but only have the capacity to take 300 on a site visit, adding 400 "citizen journalists" to the mix only complicates things and dilutes your efforts among more people. (I made those numbers up)

Side 2: Work With The "New" Media

We’ve already established that you’re monitoring blogs, messages boards and the like for coverage of the situation. In an ideal world you’re responding to it, too. Why not give them access to the situation? These people are worthy of note, but only after they’ve criticized you?

I could take issue, too, with the idea that allowing the great unwashed public into the situation constitutes a serious risk. Media aren’t given free access to everything – centrally they’re still located in a designated area away from the operations centre and on-site they’re in a similarly-controlled location.

My Take

I’m not too sure where I stand on this question. On one hand it grates that citizens aren’t seen as trustworthy. On the other hand, if even minor incidents like Huntsville can be difficult to coordinate then it is essential to keep things running as smoothly as possible.

(Note: I use the word ‘minor’ only in terms of scale – the Huntsville flood wasn’t minor or insignificant for the people affected, responders on the scene or those of us responding to the emergency)

What do you think? Are we right to limit access to a crisis to professional media in the name of security and stability, or does emergency management need to change its definition of the media?

(Photo credit: Stephen Hernen)

Posted in: crisis communications, media

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AlertMap: Cutting-Edge Emergency And Disaster Information Tool

08.01.17

If you’re even remotely interested in emergency information, check out AlertMap. This disaster-focused mashup pulls together data from some 600 sources to provide an amazingly valuable service.

The tool, from a Hungarian non-governmental organization, is an exceptional source for up-to-date worldwide disaster information .

AlertMap displays 55 categories of emergencies and disasters from fires, to avian flu, to biological terror attacks. Sources include the U.S. Geological Survey, the World Health Organization, the International Volcano Research Centre, and asteroid information is even provided by NASA.

20080117-1

Clicking on an icon takes you to more information on the location, severity and status of the incident.

For example, I noticed an "epidemic hazard" shown in Toronto (turns out it was about 8 passengers of an Air Canada flight from Tel Aviv being quarantined recently), I clicked on the icon. This took me to an event summary screen with basic information on the incident and a whole series of tabs with more details.

For example, I was able to see the population within 20km of the incident location (4,612,191), the airports, ports and nuclear power plants within 100km and a Google map of the area.

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Right now, AlertMap is tracking about 50 recent incidents in addition to 13 earthquakes within the last 24 hours and 27 active volcanoes.

You can export much of this information easily. While the Google maps (bizarrely) aren’t embeddable, there are plenty of easily accessible RSS feeds and you can export data to Google Earth. For the less tech-savvy, you can get immediate email alerts of breaking incidents.

This is a topic I’ve become increasingly interested in. Last year I presented on California’s use of web 2.0 in response to the California wildfires, and my new job involves work in this area too.

Have you come across any resources similar to this? What are your favourite emergency information tools?

Posted in: case studies, crisis communications, web 2.0

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Hyperlocal Media Coverage Of California Malibu Fires

07.11.27

While researching my presentation for the recent Talk Is Cheap unconference, I came across a fantastic post by Mark Glazer. Alongside discussing the response of media outlets to the first set of fires, Glazer noted the lack of hyper-local coverage of the fires.

What many people who are evacuated really want is simple information on the condition of their home and neighborhood.

He also quoted Dan Gillmor, director of the Center for Citizen Media, who said:

I suspect it’ll be startups, not news organizations, that figure this out…But this is squarely in the sweet spot for traditional media if they understand their missions.”

Now comes news of more fires in western California, this time around Malibu. These fires were much smaller than the ones in October, but news organizations once again went to town with interactive maps and other new-media coverage.

Related to Glazer’s post, though, Fox News found Gillmor’s "sweet" spot and went hyper-local on its map, pinpointing individual houses that were damaged or destroyed.


View Larger Map

 

Very impressive, but again, where was the state government in this?

Ok, these fires weren’t so big so maybe didn’t warrant coverage on their homepage. Surely there’s something up on their Fire Season site though, right?

Wrong.

The only evidence of any fires on their homepage was a link to a news release in their long list of releases.

(Ok, that page does link (yet again…) to a video (not to a player – to the video file directly) and a ‘photo essay,’ but I’m not impressed.)

Another missed opportunity for the state and another home run by the ‘traditional’ media.

Posted in: crisis communications, media, social media, web 2.0

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California Wildfires – Using New Media to Communicate In A Crisis

07.10.23

Immediacy is one of the great things about new media/web 2.0.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the coverage of the devastating wildfires down in California recently.

I’m fully aware that crisis communications must focus on traditional channels – TV, radio, print – in today’s media environment. However, quick and responsive new media tactics provide the ability to communicate directly with citizens that those channels do not.

Allen Stern at CenterNetworks wrote a great post about web 2.0-based coverage of the fires on Monday. His post provides a useful list of the ways some people have used new media to post up-to-the-minute information on the fires.

I’m going to focus on my perspective of how corporations have used this technology to respond.

What The Mainstream Media Is Doing

Here are a few of the best examples of ‘new media’ use from the mainstream media:

What California Is Doing

To my surprise, the state of California has a very useful resource at www.calfires.com (although it seems to be up one second, down the next due to high traffic). However, while the resources are useful, I’m surprised at their lack of uptake of new technologies on the website.

The site does have an interactive map. However, on close inspection it turns out that the map is actually from the KPBS News site mentioned above.

Why didn’t California take the bull by the horns and turn its own site into a communications hub during the crisis? Why not do what the news outlets did and use this technology to provide up-to-the-minute updates?

What California Could Do

In addition to what the state is currently doing, it could :

  • Create its own interactive map with the latest updates from citizens and let news organizations embed that in their sites
  • Let citizens upload their own photos and integrate them into the map
  • Set up a blog and a Twitter feed (and integrate them) to give the latest updates on evacuation orders, all-clears, etc.
  • Create an RSS feed (or feeds) to push updates out to people
  • Aggregate news from mainstream outlets to provide a one-stop newsroom
  • Write clearer news releases
  • Do this all centrally, bump their generic information down or off their state’s homepage and give more space to updates on the fires.

Why?

Because they have the necessary website traffic

Google "California Wildfires." Two of the top five links are government websites.

Heck, we don’t even need to wonder if people are going to the government’s website – their CAL FIRE Incident website crashed under the increased traffic.

The LA Times twitter feed, at time of writing, has 96 followers. The San Diego Union-Tribute Help Blog doesn’t even have subscriber stats on Google Reader.

With the traffic going to government sites, they could push information out much more effectively to many times more people.

Because they have the necessary resources

Newsrooms have limited staff. The government, however, has far more extensive resources. Add in the potential for citizen contributions and you have a powerful tool for emergency information.

Because now is not the time to bury information

In a crisis like this, information should be front and centre. The less searching people have to do, the better.

This also goes for news release-writing. If you’re announcing a new toll-free hotline for donations, don’t bury the phone number in the third paragraph (however, check out how their ‘email/share’ button works – interesting). Put it right at the top.

Because no-one will complain about having to look a little harder for vehicle registration information right now

I’m not a crisis communications expert (although hopefully some of you are and I’d love to hear your comments). However, I do know that when the President declares a state of emergency for your state and 750,000 people flee their homes, your list of "highlights" on your home page should not include:

  • Small business seminars
  • A jobs website
  • A link to a DMV video on YouTube
  • A kids’ website

Sure, these are all valuable initiatives but I really don’t think they need to take up space on the homepage right now. While the crisis is full-blown, the state could dedicate a lot more real estate on its main homepage to providing useful information to its citizens.

——-

California is doing a decent job of providing information online to its population in the midst of a crisis. However, with a bit of innovative thinking, they could do a lot more.

Posted in: blogging, crisis communications, Google, media, social media, Twitter, web 2.0

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The Front Fell Off

07.08.16

Forget media training – here’s a great video parody of a CEO in full damage control mode, courtesy of comedians John Clarke and Bryan Dawe. Enjoy:

(Thanks to David Griner, via Presurfer, for drawing my attention to this)

Posted in: crisis communications, pr, public relations

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Utah Mine Collapse – A Communications Crisis

07.08.16

Unless you’ve had your head in a box recently, you know about the Utah mine collapse and the desperate search for six miners trapped inside.

Bob MurrayThe owner of Crandall Canyon mine, Robert Murray, isn’t known for being shy, and this is no exception. The outspoken Murray has been front-and-center since this crisis began.

A lot of people have written about the troubling aspects of this story like Murray Energy Corp’s safety record or suspicion that mining techniques caused the collapse, rather than seismic tremors as the company has claimed. They’ve done it way better than I could.

I’m going to put all those topics, and my distaste for Bob Murray in general, to one side and focus on the way that he has handled the mainstream media. It seems to be a case study in how not to handle a crisis. Here are three examples:

  1. Putting out unsubstantiated statements: From the outset, Murray put himself out in front of the cameras. Ok, that part is fine. Trouble is, he started making statements without anything to back them up. Seems that while the rest of the world is trying to work out what caused the collapse, Bob Murray knows for sure that it wasn’t the mining techniques used.
  2. Going off-message: Murray did relatively well at the beginning. His compassionate, caring messages got a lot of pick-up. Briefly. Unfortunately, before too long, Murray went off message. Way off message. Attacking the media, slamming the fight against global warming and defending the coal industry aren’t the right way to get people on your side. You know it’s bad when federal officials ask to take over your press conferences.
  3. Getting emotional: Showing emotion in front of the camera isn’t always a bad thing. If it’s the right emotion, that is. In this case, compassion, caring, concern. Those were the right emotions to show, and Murray showed them initially. As time goes on though, anger seems to be the more prevalent emotion. Not cool.

This was never going to be a good news story for Murray Energy Corp. The best they could hope for was to minimize criticism. Unfortunately, Bob Murray has become a lightning rod for criticism, most of which is directed at his handling of the situation rather than any potential cause of the situation itself. Time to get out of the limelight.

Also check out this brief analysis from Kathy Kerchner.

If you want an example of good crisis management, check out Mattel.

Edit (8/16): I just read BL Ochman’s less-than-glowing review of Mattel’s video message about the product recall. She makes some good points about Mattel’s business practices, but I give them credit for using multiple media to get the message out. She’s right about posting it on YouTube, though!

Another Edit (8/17): Turns out, another tragic collapse occurred at the mine as I wrote this post. Two thoughts. First, my best wishes go out to the rescue workers, their families and anyone else affected. Second, Bob Murray was noticeably absent from today’s news coverage.

Posted in: crisis communications, media relations, pr, public relations

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