Category Archives: risk assessment

Mountain Dew Loses Control, Crisis Management Ensues

Published on 17th May 2013 by . Leave a Comment

How did this mess ever get the green light?

Late last month, PepsiCo joined the ranks of organizations that went too far with edgy marketing campaigns and were forced into crisis management as a result.

The company partnered with controversial rapper and producer Tyler the Creator to produce a new series of web videos, giving him full creative control. The result, which we can’t bring to you because it’s been removed from both Mountain Dew and Tyler’s online channels, depicts a beaten woman being pushed to pick her assailant from a police lineup of young black men and a goat, which threatens the woman until she flees in fear.

The video was instantly perceived as racist and misogynist, and after a rapid backlash that included slams from national media outlets and a deluge of negativity across social media, PepsiCo issued the following statement:

We apologize for this video and take full responsibility. We have removed it from all Mountain Dew channels and Tyler is removing it from his channels as well.

In addition, the company ran a paid Twitter ad, probably a smart move considering the level of negative sentiment that arose on social media following the video’s release:

 

Just as when a recent Hyundai ad depicted a man attempting suicide, it should have been obvious from the start that these commercials weren’t fit to be broadcast.

Before making any decision on whether or not to share something with the public, stop….and THINK! Ask yourself, will this piss people off? If you’re hazy on the answer, go ahead and run it by friends, family, or an actual test audience, and gather honest feedback before taking it into the public arena.

In this case, the obvious answer was an overwhelming yes, which leaves us wondering what Mountain Dew execs were thinking. Or, perhaps more fittingly, if they were thinking at all.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

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Crisis Management Ostrich Alert for Colleges & Universities

Published on 9th April 2013 by . Leave a Comment

You Might Be An Ostrich If…..

If you haven’t already initiated an independent investigation to determine whether or not you could be the next Penn State or Rutgers…you might be an ostrich.

If you know that something which has happened or is happening on your sports programs could seriously harm you in the court of public opinion and you think you can avoid being “outed”…you might be an ostrich.Ono the Ostrich

If you are still cutting athletes or athletic staff moral and ethical slack that clearly violates the standards established for the student body as a whole…you might be an ostrich.

If you’ve watched coverage of recent college crises and thought, “This can’t happen to us!”…you might be an ostrich.

If you think that ethically, legally and/or morally offensive behavior can be rationalized away…you might be an ostrich.

If you think legal risk is more important than reputational risk…you might be an ostrich.

If you think the only opinions that matter are those of only one or two of your many stakeholder groups…you might be an ostrich.

If you have little or no idea what’s being said about you in social media on a real-time basis…you might be an ostrich.

If you have not evaluated your ability to communicate rapidly with all stakeholder groups (strategy, tactics, messages, methods) when the stuff hits the fan…you might be an ostrich.

And, last but most certainly not least, if you think that a college sports program is the only silo at your school that can breed incredibly embarrassing/damaging/illegal activity…you might be an ostrich.

Jonathan Bernstein
President, Bernstein Crisis Management
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com

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The Crisis Show

Published on 13th June 2012 by . Leave a Comment

Talk crisis management with the pros

Tonight marks the first episode of The Crisis Show, a broadcast featuring the talents of Bernstein Crisis Management president Jonathan Bernstein, crisis/litigation expert Rich Klein and social media pro Melissa Agnes. Together, they will provide crisis management analysis for high profile and currently breaking crises around the world, as well as addressing user-submitted questions.

We’ll be streaming The Crisis Show via Google Hangouts to our YouTube channel every Wednesday at 7 p.m. EST (4 PST) starting today, June 13, so join in! If you can’t make it live, all past episodes will be archived right on YouTube for your convenience. Here’s a brief preview:

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

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Forward Thinking Means Better Crisis Management

Published on 13th May 2012 by . Leave a Comment

Plan ahead to protect yourself

When we sit down to discuss crisis management with clients, one of the first steps we take is to have them list what they see as their vulnerabilities. From internal problems like disgruntled employees and mechanical breakdowns, to external issues like supply line disruptions or lost shipments, the list of potential crises is significantly longer than most expect. Not only that, but it’s also constantly shifting as your company changes and grows. How, then, do you stay prepared to battle these crises?

The following quote, from an OpenView Labs blog post by David Calusidan, is an excellent piece of advice:

Constantly assess your primary risks

Forward-thinking companies take a strategic approach to crisis communications by continuously assessing the risks associated with their businesses.  The key to this effort is to establish a risk-aware culture and a process whereby employees can funnel their ideas about potential risks through management to an appointed member of the crisis communications team. For each risk, the team should assign responsibility for continuous monitoring and assessment, taking actions to mitigate risk when possible.

Simply put, and extremely effective. By planning (and preparing) for risks before they become reality, removing the old school block in communication between average employee and executive suite to facilitate crisis spotting, and creating clear-cut roles and responsibilities within the crisis team, you create a well-oiled crisis management machine.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

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French Pirates Go Into Crisis Management Mode

Published on 23rd January 2010 by . Leave a Comment

When your company takes a strong public stance on an issue, displaying any behavior that contradicts that position is very dangerous. If you need proof, look no further than the crisis management French anti-piracy group Hadopi, who was caught red-handed last week using a font which was created exclusively for another business, is being forced to do. This quote from a FontFeed.com article describes what happened after a few type-savvy Web users spotted the similarities:

By the end of the weekend the story was raging like a wildfire, and on Monday it even was a news item on LCI, the news channel of French commercial broadcaster TF1. Of course you have to appreciate the irony – the agency in charge of enforcing France’s new anti-piracy legislation using a pirated proprietary font in its very own logo. Bienvenue isn’t available for licensing, and neither France Télécom nor Jean François Porchez were contacted to request an exceptional permission to use it. It painfully demonstrates the amateurism and general cluelessness of the agency’s communication consultants, and puts Plan Créatif in a very bad spotlight. 

Hadopi’s crisis response created even more of a backlash when their claim that the presented logo was in fact a “sketch,” and not the intended final release, was blown out of the water by bloggers who revealed that the “intended” logo had been created and purchased the very morning it was released.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

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