Читать книгу Damage Control (Revised & Updated) - Eric Dezenhall - Страница 15

The first harsh lesson of crisis management is that not all clients are created equal. Some, like Johnson & Johnson, have intrinsic advantages. J&J had a long history of manufacturing popular products, especially those associated with children—“soft” items like No More Tears baby shampoo and baby powder. To be sure, J&J has done much to reinforce this image, but some companies are inherently at a disadvantage by virtue of the products they make. An oil, chemical, firearms, alcohol, or tobacco company in a crisis cannot expect to tap public affection. The objective for “villain” industries under attack is to cauterize the attack, not to persuade people to make associations that contradict what they fundamentally believe.

This is the central problem with crisis management that has been annexed by many public relations hucksters: the delusional and self-serving belief that you can spin a public that does not want to be spun. One can only persuade audiences within the confines of their psychological circuitry. People are more inclined to give a cuddly company like J&J a break than they would, say, the manufacturer of an allegedly carcinogenic pesticide.

Then there’s the issue of consumer control. One of the first things we suggest to a client in a consumer crisis is that they give the consumer something to do, to put the consumer in charge. In Tylenol’s case, the “control action” was simple and inexpensive (despite the specter of being killed by cyanide): Don’t take the Tylenol in your medicine chest until the crisis is resolved, and throw your bottle away.

But imagine telling a woman with silicone breast implants—a product made by a chemical company, no less—to just throw’em out. Not so easy. If you’re worried about mobile phones causing cancer, just don’t use them anymore. Oh, really? Try telling someone who has just bought an expensive sport utility vehicle to get rid of it when its rollover vulnerabilities are exposed. A huge, inconvenient, and costly move. And what exactly could Enron instantly recall upon its collapse? Nothing.