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October 21, 2007
Brands in crisis
Jon Entine and Rick Miller at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) have written a short paper on Managing Brands Under Siege. The paper lays out a three-pronged approach:
* Employ due diligence to assess potential liabilities and take action. The assessment should be completed before a crisis occurs. And, it should be done in conjunction with a company's manufacturing organization, legal and communications counsel, and insurance carrier.
* Aggressively take responsibility for the problem. If your brand is on a product, it's your problem in your customers' eyes. This is especially true when a company makes products for children. Parents are fanatical about their children's safety--and rightly so. Go above and beyond what is required by law to protect the brand by adding a margin of review, such as independent testing, which Mattel and Disney have announced they will begin. This may offer a huge opportunity for more high profile brands. Although they are the most vulnerable because their products are easily identifiable, bigger brands have more resources and technical expertise to monitor the train wreck that is China's supply chain, and subsequent recalls, and cultivate public trust.
* Establish a credible narrative with customers and the media, and put a human face on the issue. In a recall, this is the CEO. People want to know what happened, why it happened and what the company is doing to never let it happen again--and that the person at the top is personally involved.
Good advices -- especially the part of going above and beyond what the law requires. And this is from a generally anti-government think tank.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at October 21, 2007 10:47 AM
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