Crisis management strategies in the Diet Pepsi and MySpace cases

Crisis Management

Successfully resolved crisis with the help of PR

The following examples proved to be good learning examples for the proposed study.

Diet Pepsi (Wilcox, 2006, pg. 262-263; Hubbard, 2006)

In 1993, Pepsi-Cola had to confront a crisis situation, when a client claimed to have found a syringe inside a Diet Pepsi can. After the story appeared in the media, various claims appeared all over the country, referring to objects such as bullets or even crack cocaine vials to have been found in Diet Pepsi cans.

Pepsi-Cola knew that the objects could not have entered the cans during bottling process and thus decided on a defensive strategy, by claiming "innocent" in the matter. It knew also that proving its innocence would be essential in protecting the brand from further damage.

The strategies used by Pepsi-Cola included:

Attacking the accuser by claiming that the objects were inserted after the cans had been opened with the intention of gaining money from a settlement. The company also declared that would legally accuse those making false claims.

Denying the existence of a crisis - the Pepsi-Cola President, Craig Weatherup, appeared on television and radio interviews as well as in newspaper articles declaring the safety of Pepsi's bottling line, by bringing even video cameras into their factories to publicly show the bottling process and thus insuring consumers that it was practically impossible to insert foreign objects into the cans before they were sealed.

The crisis turned out to be a hoax and the initial accusers were brought to court. Pepsi recovered from the crisis due to an effective crisis PR campaign that insured a successful communication with the public across all types of media, openness to investigations.

Even if in reality there has been no real crisis, it can be seen that even the perception of a crisis can bring significant negative reaction from the public to seriously damage the image of a company.

Conclusion

From the unfortunate situations of PR crisis, one can learn that there are several steps to be executed in properly managing a crisis: first - be prompt, address the public immediately after the discovery of the crisis. Second - maintain honesty - public forgives more willingly an honest mistake than it does with a calculated lie. Third - be informative - rumors appear if no information is given and they can cause more damage to the corporation than the truth. Forth - be concerned and show it with regard to the victims - in this way, people will show more forgiveness. Lastly - maintain two-way relationship because the company can learn about the status of the public opinion by listening. (Wilcox, 2006, pg. 261)

References:

Hubbard, Michael (2006), History Lesson Part II: Diet Pepsi. Retrieved on April 25, 2008 from Crisis Public Relations Blog, http://crisispublicrelations.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html

Sterling, Greg (2006), MySpace, PR Nightmare in the Making. Retrieved on April 25, 2008 from Search Engine Journal, http://www.searchenginejournal.com/myspace-pr-nightmare-in-the-making/2969/

Wilcox, Dennis. (2006), Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics, Boston, MA. 8th Edition.