Posts Tagged ‘Damage Limitation’

Johnson & Johnson is doing what a company should be doing during a crisis. The top brass have decided to voluntarily recall the Tylenol Arthritis Pain Caplets due to complaints of mouldy smell that can cause nausea and sickness.

The Food and Drug Administration is a strict watchdog when it comes to complaints. The website has “Report a problem” tabs where anyone can make a complaint. If anyone’s on the watch it’s the FDA and so a company like J&J wouldn’t want these complaints to snowball into a reputation management nightmare.

The prudent thing to be done is to make a recall of the suspected lots, claim that “these are minor problems”, assure people “there is no cause for worry” and finally fix the problem. J&J has done just that.

We recommend this follow-up action: Keep up the positive content on the brand and ensure company reputation does not take a beating. Put out news everywhere that recalls are being made and that the problem is being fixed. Even follow up with news of freshly tested new batches of meds in the days to follow.

This is damage limitation at its best and crisis management that actually works!

The 12-day strike called by Unite union looms large this holiday season putting hundreds of thousands of people and their travel plans in jeopardy. As British Airways fears the backlash, forums are swamped by passengers venting their anger against the insensitive approach of more than 13000 cabin crew who have voted for the strike.

The strike is planned in protest to the proposed pay and job cuts that BA has planned to ease its pension deficit of £3.7 billion which is likely to more than double to £8 billion this year. Unite union’s 13000 cabin crew are expected to join the strike even though they are paid double that of other airlines like Virgin.

In a bid to get the union to call off the strike and save its reputation, British Airways have resorted to legal action. “The airline called on Unite to call off the industrial action by 2pm today. The union has not done so and BA is now seeking an injunction to prevent the strike from going ahead,” the flag carrier’s chief executive Willie Walsh said in a statement last night. The legal action is taken on the grounds that there were irregularities in the strike ballot.

The papers are full of articles citing passenger anger at the strike which is to begin on December 22nd to Jan 2nd 2010.  Would you plan your holiday booking with British Airways after this fiasco? Chances are you will not, if this issue does not resolve well.

It would almost be impossible to recover from this bad reputation for BA. The service industry is constantly dogged by bad reviews, bad press, and negative forums and an internal crisis like this will be nothing short of a disaster for BA’s reputation.

Damage limitation is what is being resorted to and BA plans last-ditch talks to solve the issue.

Bad press, damage limitation, PR, crisis management, brand protection, call it what you like, the minute you put online in front of any of these phrases changes the requirements of a company who can help.  So who do you need to help mange your reputation on the net?

When you find you have negative content appearing in the search engines where do you go?   Sure negative comments can be a positive thing if you have had a serious issue and have shown to have dealt with it after listening to your customers.  More often than not however it can be an ex employer, competition or customer who has taken a particular disliking for the company and very difficult to show you have dealt with the complaint.

Reputation Management is about showing your company in the correct light and create understanding.  It is unlike advertising, whose main goal and focus is to generate sales and awareness.  Like PR, reputation management should be a planned exercise, with the goal of making the public, customers and suppliers see that the company understands the needs and wants of all parties involved.  You can’t do this if there is only negative content showing on the first page of the search engines.

How you go about producing this positive content must be done honestly and in a manageable structure, otherwise you could take the wrong path.  See this example from the NY Times

Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company, has reached a settlement with the State of New York over its attempts to fake positive consumer reviews on the Web, the New York attorney general’s office said Tuesday.  The company had ordered employees to pretend they were satisfied customers and write glowing reviews of its face-lift procedure on Web sites, according to the attorney general’s statement. Lifestyle Lift also created its own sites of face-lift reviews to appear as independent sources.

One e-mail message, discovered by the attorney general’s office, told employees to “devote the day to doing more postings on the Web as a satisfied client.”

So it’s important that you get the right advice, having an online reputation management strategy can save you a lot of time, effort and money.  Leaving it till its a big issue can sometimes hurt you and damage your reputation beyond repair.

Stephen Fry is a great example of a celebrity who could easily protect his own reputation on-line with a bit of guidance.  Stephen has a massive following of almost 1 million on Twitter which is growing daily.  With that many people following it’s easy to use it as a PR machine if done correctly.  The issue with the Internet is anything you say is picked up and replicated 100′s if not 1000′s of time, so thought has to be given when you have such a high, dominating presence on the net.  Social networks can be your best friend or your worst nightmare depending on how and what you do.

With a little work Stephen Fry could banish pretty much any negative content ever showing in page 1 of Google’s search results and never worry about 3rd party comments.  At least Stephen knows people are reading what he is saying unlike most of mortal human beings…  Keep up the good work!!!

Celebrity Damage Limitation

Shows like the X Factor always bring it home when things are not preempted, especially when it comes to damage limitation and reputation management online.  The contestants are thrown into the light and the public which is fuelled by the press can be very cruel indeed.  You only have to see the blogs, social network sites going after contestants like John and Edward and Danyl Johnson.

Any celebrity will attract good and bad reviews, but the difference is when it starts to get nasty.  A Celebrity’s name is everything, its their brand, their product and their reputation and therefore protecting it and making sure you have damage limitation both off line and online is crucial.

People perception of a celebrity is everything, especially when it comes to advertisers looking for someone to represent them.  The two biggest issues with the Internet are one, because things are written then people assume it to be correct even when it is not (look at wikipedia to see examples of that) and the second reason is because any negative content stays on the Internet 24 / 7.  Papers and magazines have a shelf life 1 day to 1 month, however the Internet is different, it’s on all the time.  Quite often the advise from the experts in PR and damage limitation is just to ignore negative publications and it will go away.  The Internet is completely different, if you ignore negative content it can get momentum and start becoming much more of an issue.  How you deal with online negative content is crucial because you also don’t want to deal with it in the wrong way as it can also be like poring fuel on a fire.

We specialise in celebrity damage control and reputation management online, if you want to protect your name or need help with negative results appearing in the search results then please get in touch with us confidentially.

Call: UK +44(0)845 862 1893

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