Mattel and Countrywide show the good, bad and ugly of crisis communications.

An interesting piece in the Los Angles Times compares how Mattel Inc., the country's biggest toy maker, and Countrywide Financial Corp., the nation’s top mortgage lender, responded to severe crises situations last week.

Mattel faced its second product recall in two weeks, having to pull in some 19 million toys because of lead paint and other safety issues.  The company’s response has been textbook crisis management: clear facts and continuous communications, broad outreach to all stakeholder groups, plenty of media access to the top executive.  There’s even a dedicated web site on the recall that includes detailed information and a personal video message from CEO Bob Eckert.

Countrywide, on the other hand, faced the highest level of foreclosures and delinquencies in many years.  How did it respond?  The company “all but shuttered the doors at its Calabasas headquarters, offering scant public comment even as news turned worse and customers rushed to its bank branches to close their accounts,”  reported the LA Times.

Reportedly, Mattel — a consumer company that has faced many recalls in the past — had a hundred-page disaster plan that mobilized and directed the company’s crisis communications.  Countrywide, on the other hand, seemed like a deer in the headlights, leaving its good name in the hands of a company spokesman who told reporters there was “no way” they would be able to interview the CEO.  (The company’s web site currently includes an almost dismissive little statement from the president, stuck in the bottom right corner.)

The contrast in crisis response and communications style is an education for every executive.  Watch which company gets the benefit of the doubt and retains goodwill among news media, stakeholders and consumers — and which company’s brand takes a beating from which it may never fully recover.
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