What to do in a CRISIS?!
You are the head of corporate communications for a company that produces one of the nation’s most popular snack foods. The company prides itself on making products that are both delicious and nutritionally sound. In your advertising you brag of using only natural ingredients with no artificial flavorings or other additives.
Recently a rumor cropped up on the Internet asserting that a leak from a nearby nuclear power plant has made most of your company’s snack foods radioactive. Officials at the nuclear power plan say there has been no such leak. Despite this reassurance, the company has noticed a small decline in sales. To make matters worse, a producer from a nationally syndicated tabloid television show has called and wants to know whether it is true that the company’s snack food products glow in the dark.
What are you going to do?
(excerpt from Public Relations: A values-driven approach)
To be honested, if I was not a seasoned PR practitioner, I would probably be freaking out about what was going on. First of all, the snack foods could possibly be glowing and/or making its consumers glow, and second of all, I have a nationally syndicated tabloid television show about to leak the information that may/may not be true. I might have panicked a little.
This is where crisis communication comes in.
I would call the appropriate people to handle the research to determine a few things. The first thing to do is to confirm, again, if there is/is not a leak coming from the nuclear power plant. That is something I would want to double-check because that is kinda big deal. The second thing I would get check out is the snacks. I would get the people who check the snacks for quality to check out whether there is something wrong with them just in case. The final thing I would get someone to get research on is anything that is mentioning the company in social/news media. There has to be a reason why people are not buying the product.
After notifying the correct people I would then spend the time putting together a plan to notify the public, if the leak is not true, that it was a false statement and that nothing is wrong with the snacks that our company is putting out. I would definitely make a plan to go on the television show to clear things up as well. We don’t want anything out there to ruin our reputation. Of course if there was a spill a different crisis plan course of action would take place.
For help with Crisis Communication in a company there are few things you can do:
One is this webinar that is offered to help companies with their crisis communication.
Another is this company that helps train companies to be able to react in a time of a crisis.
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