Meta Title: Learning From the Crisis Management Success Stories That Rock!
Meta Description: Discover essential crisis management stories that offer lessons for handling challenges. Learn from examples and gain insights into good strategies & actions!
There’s a high likelihood that at some point your company, which could be a finance, hospitality, or gaming platform just like the 7Slots casino, will at least face some sort of challenges. It could show up as an unlikely event, like a natural disaster or a global pandemic. Maybe a viral internet challenge where your product becomes a dangerous new prop could tarnish your company’s reputation.
If you don’t have a robust plan for navigating brand adversity in the unlikely event a major problem occurs, the success stories of some companies enumerated in this article can be a useful guide for tackling any future emergencies.
What Are Some of the Leading Cases to Admire?
A bad management strategy can ruin the reputation of your brand for good. Luckily, countless cases of past crises were handled and solved successfully; these are some of the most outstanding and effective crisis communication cases of the last few years:
- The Tide Pod Challenge;
- Burger King’s Not-So-Meat-Free Burger;
- KFC Runs Out of Chicken.
The Tide Pod challenge
One of the more bizarre corporate adversities of the past decade might be the Tide Pod controversy. While the corporation might sometimes not be guilty of the root cause of their business adversity, many are largely culpable. For Procter and Gamble, this was absolutely the case.
The Tide Pods laundry detergent capsules’ crazy experiments posed a challenge to the Procter Gamble crisis team. Eating Tide Pods might be part of the challenge, as YouTubevideos already regularly showed teens snacking on the detergent pods. Procter and Gamble reportedly had to step in to address the deadly challenge, which quickly spread across social media.
Crisis Management
This was an external disaster; however, the damage could not have been more severe. The crisis communicator still had to work fast to mitigate the image of the company. The commercial that ran as part of the crisis communications plan had to feature a well-known sportsperson. They also had to display warnings on the website to inform visitors of the health concerns related to the use of the detergent.
The Tide Pod problem is a classic example of an unforeseen emergency: nobody could have anticipated that kids would suddenly think it was fine to eat Tide Pods. However, the Proctor and Gamble response also illustrates the utility of getting ready for the unforeseen.
They took action by addressing something that, besides not causing the problem, they could not control. They went beyond the passive stance of waiting for the problem to be addressed. Besides, the company acted promptly and proportionally before the problem got out of hand, managed any repercussions on a minimal scale, and shielded its business brand and mission.
Burger King’s Not-So-Meat-Free Burger
Veganism might be the world’s largest food revolution to date; in fact, second-generation faux meat has a lot to do with the rise of plant-based diets. Fast food chains such as Burger King even have a plant-based menu – the company debuted its plant-basedImpossible Whopper in 2019.
Tragically, we discovered that the Impossiblein the UK was not vegan-friendly, and it was grilled on the same grill as beef burgers and came with mayonnaise. Suddenly, loyal customers were reacting. The activists sued despite the company name-checking Optionson their site, in their small print, saying that the new burger is not vegan.
Crisis Management
Designed to rapidly quell a misapprehension that fast-food chain Burger King’s plant-based burger was intended for the use of meat eaters (it was not, the crisis-communications plan stipulated), the message cast the Impossible Burger not as a guilty pleasure for those torn between altruistic ideals and carnal indulgence but as a faux-meat product geared to flexitarians, those choosing to eat less meat.
The case was dismissed. The disclaimer enabled Burger King to pre-empt objections and deal with problems before they got out of hand. Moreover, the company adds: While Burger King is proud to offer the Rebel Whopper, the cooking and preparation procedures in Burger King restaurants may not provide separation between meat, poultry, and fish items prepared on the same broiler, grill, or fryer, preventing against any possible cross-contamination.
Examples like this one in crisis communication illustrate a principle that applies across environments – something should be prevented before turning into an adversity because often, the best strategy is prevention.
KFC Runs Out of Chicken
KFC faced a frightening public relations disaster at the start of 2018. Its secret ingredient – literally – chicken, ran out after a problem with its suppliers. With little alternative, the brand had to close more than half of its takeaways in the UK.
Handling the Crisis
The response to the KFC chicken shortage is a great example of PR crisis management. The social media was integrated into the management plan. KFC used them to set up contact channels and provide regular updates to their clients.
They took ownership of it, expressed remorse, and answered every question or concern a client may have raised. The business also launched a PR campaign to counter the negative report and recover the brand’s reputation with the public.
This is a perfect example of what a good strategy can do for a brand – KFC took advantage of the moment to move quickly, converting a negative incident into a positive PR moment. They kept a steady hand, in that the tone was amusing and impassioned.
Inspiring Crisis Management Success Stories to Admire
The best examples of crisis management demonstrate that successful crisis management demands agile thinking, candor,communications finesse, and acceptance of responsibility. These firms not only mitigated the damage but also leveraged their crises as opportunities for learning and growing.
Firms can increase their future resiliency and enhance their longer-term performance through continuous learning from their experiences and from how they can prepare better and respond more effectively to future events.
