A crisis in your industry can become a PR problem for your company too.
This is particularly true in food-borne illness situations. Media coverage of government warnings and companies pulling products of grocery shelves all add to the public's fears about what they eat. Every product in a category becomes suspect, if not guilty by association.
When the FDA recalled deadly spinach from one area of California, consumers stopped using the vegetable almost completely. That followed with a virtual boycott in 2008's tomatoes scare, though the government never proved a link. The investigation later fingered cilantro and peppers.
The salmonella outbreak and food recall caused by Peanut Corporation of America has generated similar panic. Though the company's production is only a small percentage of an $800 million industry, national sales of peanut butter have dropped 25 percent.
In response, big brands like Jif and Peter Pan are taking the typically unthinkable position of repeating a very nasty negative. They're using newspaper ads, media publicity, coupons, web sites -- anything to convince consumers that they're the good guys.
Search "peanut butter" and you might see this astonishing banner ad:
Forget wholesomeness and great taste. Today's marketing message is that our product won't turn your insides into a festering cesspool.
With 1,000 tainted peanut products already identified, this crisis could set a recall record for human foods.
And for some companies, that makes the ugly hard sell necessary to keep their innocent brands from being seriously maimed.
. . . . . . . . . .
