Crises Travel Fast These Days
Domino’s Pizza was rece
ntly the victim of a PR nightmare. Two workers video taped themselves tampering with food. The You Tube video had over one million hits in just a few days.
The company discovered the video after a blogger alerted them. It took Domino’s more than a day to respond. The CEO then posted a video response and, later, a statement on the Web site. A day before the Web site statement, a Domino’s spokesperson stated the chain would not be posting statements on the company Web site for fear of alerting more consumers to a negative story. He added that millions of people view the chain's Web site every day, if only to order a pizza. Such an approach, "would be like putting out a candle with a fire hose," he said.
Domino’s initial decision to keep quiet for fear of bringing attention to the situation is unwise. In school, that is one of the principle PR lessons. Address the situation and explain how you are dealing with it. Cover-ups reflect poorly on the company.
Domino’s slow response has been slammed by PR and marketing circles across the country, yet once they responded the situation was quoted as “textbook” and “a landmark event in crisis management.” It was a slow start but a nice finish.
The Domino’s incident created a frenzy in the blogosphere. According to Advertising Age, the number of blog postings mentioning Domino's has increased nearly tenfold this week, to 227.5 per day, from an average of 27.4 during the past month.
Domino’s also took its crisis management to Twitter, with the handle "dpzinfo." By lunch time that first day, Domino’s had 196 followers. The Domino’s brand used the opportunity to promote positive coverage, thank consumers for kind words and "retweet," tweets from other users supporting the brand during the crisis.
This crisis situation reminds us of the effects of social media on today’s businesses. In a crisis today, you have to be prepared to embrace social media. The crisis can be further fueled or contained using social media.
Domino’s knows its key audience on this issue uses social media – after all, that’s how they saw the video in the first place. They had to meet those audiences in their environments, like Twitter, blogs, Facebook and MySpace.
It is important for companies to include social media in their crisis management plans. The days of sending out nothing but a news release to handle an incident are gone. You can’t just talk at your audience anymore. Now they talk back.
ntly the victim of a PR nightmare. Two workers video taped themselves tampering with food. The You Tube video had over one million hits in just a few days. The company discovered the video after a blogger alerted them. It took Domino’s more than a day to respond. The CEO then posted a video response and, later, a statement on the Web site. A day before the Web site statement, a Domino’s spokesperson stated the chain would not be posting statements on the company Web site for fear of alerting more consumers to a negative story. He added that millions of people view the chain's Web site every day, if only to order a pizza. Such an approach, "would be like putting out a candle with a fire hose," he said.
Domino’s initial decision to keep quiet for fear of bringing attention to the situation is unwise. In school, that is one of the principle PR lessons. Address the situation and explain how you are dealing with it. Cover-ups reflect poorly on the company.
Domino’s slow response has been slammed by PR and marketing circles across the country, yet once they responded the situation was quoted as “textbook” and “a landmark event in crisis management.” It was a slow start but a nice finish.
The Domino’s incident created a frenzy in the blogosphere. According to Advertising Age, the number of blog postings mentioning Domino's has increased nearly tenfold this week, to 227.5 per day, from an average of 27.4 during the past month.
Domino’s also took its crisis management to Twitter, with the handle "dpzinfo." By lunch time that first day, Domino’s had 196 followers. The Domino’s brand used the opportunity to promote positive coverage, thank consumers for kind words and "retweet," tweets from other users supporting the brand during the crisis.
This crisis situation reminds us of the effects of social media on today’s businesses. In a crisis today, you have to be prepared to embrace social media. The crisis can be further fueled or contained using social media.
Domino’s knows its key audience on this issue uses social media – after all, that’s how they saw the video in the first place. They had to meet those audiences in their environments, like Twitter, blogs, Facebook and MySpace.
It is important for companies to include social media in their crisis management plans. The days of sending out nothing but a news release to handle an incident are gone. You can’t just talk at your audience anymore. Now they talk back.
Posted by: registry cleaner | June 16, 2010 at 08:16 AM