Crisis Brands Podcast and Transcript

Speaker 1:

Greetings. This is Shanita Baraka Akintonde, professor, author, career coach and marketing shero. I invite you to join me for another special edition of my Marketing Insights podcast series, this one entitled: Brands that Shine when Things are on the Line. In other words, in times of crises. So, marketing maestros, I am here. As we enter into the spring, we marched in like lambs and left like lions. Or maybe you don't march in as a lamb. What do you do? You kind of tiptoe. You tiptoed in as a lamb and you're roaring out as a lion or something like that. Regardless of the semantics, let me keep my sentences simple and say this: We are going to talk today about a subject matter that you may or may not be familiar with, but it is one that is dear to my heart and my head. And let me focus on the latter for a moment.

As an advertising aficionado, a public relations practitioner, and of course, a marketing maven, and in sometimes all three capacities I have dealt with crises. You may have too. But for those who are new to the school of thought, let me rewind the tape a little bit and let you know what I mean by crises. Crises or anytime a product, good or service has something that does not go as planned. It is a need to rewind the tape to set things back on track. In other words, in this podcast, when we talk about crises, what I'm going to share with you all is something that I like to call a stress test, because essentially that's what a crisis is for a brand, a stress test. I use the phraseology of litmus test a lot in previous podcasts, where I talk about when dealing with customers' brands rather than rolling out a new product, rebranding a product, repositioning themselves, et cetera.

Before they do so, they probably should have a litmus test to see what the feel of the audience is before they make such a drastic and major move, like Coca-Cola did back in the day. But for purposes of this podcast, when I talk about crises, I'm going to give you a few thoughts. Now, I have some notes that I'll be referring to because I did research this. But a lot of this comes from my experience, so I'm going to interweave those two things together during our time here today. So, when we talk about crises and how brands can do what they need to do when things are on the line, let's look at it in terms of defining what I mean by crises. It can be a natural disaster. God bless the folks who have been undergoing recently the tsunamis, the earthquakes, the hurricanes that have been rampaging the world.

Don't know if you've been paying attention to that in the media. That's a big deal. It can be an economic downturn, which seems to happen almost every 10 to 15 years or so, definitely at different points in our century and last century as well. It can be global conflicts, such as wars. And I don't have to get into the list of where we are dealing with wars right now as I speak. But brands don't sometimes just survive, which, of course, is part and parcel to what everyone on earth wants to do, especially brands. But many of them thrive. They also position themselves so they become essential. The things that are earning the trust and that important word that we as marketers love, which is what, marketing maestros? Loyalty. The kinds of things that stir up loyalty.

Not to make trivial of this, because crises are important and in some cases they can even be life-changing, but we know that what can come out of a crisis or a problem, on the other side of that is always an opportunity. And so, while brands cannot predict, nor should they be a part and parcel of making a crisis happen, should they be or should they be in the realm or the stratospheric arena of where it does occur, it is an opportunity for them to become brand loyal. So, what makes a brand indispensable in time of a conflict? Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. Let me say that again a little more explicitly. What makes a brand essential, indispensable, needed and necessary like no other in times of crises? Well, we're going to talk about that now in this podcast.

We're also going to talk about how can they stand out. How can they differentiate themselves from all the other brands that may or may not be in the same product category as them? And we're going to dive right into that now. So, let's look first at how a brand makes itself essential in times of a crisis. So, here are a few qualities. And these qualities, just so you all know, can extend beyond crises. And let me say this, marketing maestros, again, if you're new to this podcast, Shanita Akintonde here. I'm a professor, I'm an author, I'm a career coach, and I'm a marketing maven. What that all means in a nutshell is that I have 30 years experience, whether I was an educator in the classroom, teaching this, talking to clients about this, in the fields, in the trenches, dealing with the crises firsthand, which I have experience doing, or again, all of the above.

The perspective that I'm bringing to you all today is this idea of the same qualities that I've seen throughout every single time I've had to deal with the crises. It has not changed. The first is the reliability aspect. The reliability and the trustworthiness aspect. And what you want to do as a brand is you always want to position yourself to be able to pay it forward. So, in other words, don't wait until the... hits the fan, and then try to show your reliability and your trustworthiness. It's too late. You want to have enough vested in that virtual account that customers will already be able to know who you are, and all you need to do is go out and then make the withdrawals.

You can't stack the bank at the same time you need to make a withdrawal, if that makes sense. So, you want to be proactive as brands. Those of you who are maybe new in your positions at work, go back and tell your superiors this. Say, "I listened to Shanita Akintonde's podcast and she says, 'What can we do to be proactive, i.e., preventative, so if a crisis does happen, we have enough social capital that we can make a withdrawal as needed?" That's very important and I'm going to elaborate on that further here in a moment.

The next point is speed and adaptability. Let me talk about speed. You want to be the first on the scene. If a triage is needed, you need to be there with all your equipment already out before your competitors even have time to pack their Jeep and get over there. I don't know why I say a Jeep. You know what I mean. Whatever their vehicle of choice would be. You need to be so in tune to your audience, so in tune to what's happening in the world, that you are already on the scene before the sirens even blare. It's like an invisible bat signal has gone up in the sky and you understand the immediate need. First responders are given that title for a reason. Ensure that your brand is a first responder.

The second piece in terms of being adaptable. You want to be adaptable and trustworthy. I think I may have said trustworthy, but I meant to say adaptable. I'll get to trustworthiness in a minute. Adaptability means this goes again whether there's a crisis or not, but especially in times of crises, because even your response in the real time aspect of you being on the scene and helping to solve whatever the problem is, sometimes in the midst of that you have to pivot and you have to be willing to do that. How many of you have been in situations at work where you may have a new idea, and you're presenting it to someone on your team and they foo-foo it away or say, "That's not going to work," without even looking at the evidence or the reason why it should even be considered?

Well, that's what I call a stagnant mindset. And while that may be not the direct correlation to what we're talking about in crises, what I have found is that people tend to have that same type of mindset. Or should I say, if they have that type of mindset, it will parlay over into crises. So, you need someone on your team, a leader anyway, that is going to be adaptable, flexible, and as I said a moment ago, trustworthy and reliable. The next thing is authenticity and purpose. So, why are you there? Are you there to genuinely help solve the crisis? American Red Cross, when they show up and bring blood bags as needed or take blood donations so that they can share with victims depending on the crisis, I don't think anyone questions why American Cross shows up.

You know when they're there to do their job, why they're there to do it, and what end result, what the outcome will be from that. Well, that same kind of structure needs to be placed around your brand. While taking blood donations is more of a direct act, so it may be a little simpler you're saying to do, because everyone can see visibly and understand what that means, think about ways that that can translate into your brand. Not to bolster American Red Cross too much, but I'll use this analogous terminology. Become the American Red Cross of your brand. Figure out what that synced, and locked and loaded type mentality is that you can use as an overlay, so when people see you coming, they know what you're there for and that's your authenticity and purpose.

And last is clear and compassionate communication. This is also essential. This is more leaning toward my PR side. But as marketers, we know from an integrated approach, everything from messaging to our marketing are all intertwined. And so, when you look at your messaging, you need to ensure that it's clear, if there's direction that people need, if there's something they need to do immediately, if it's a sequential order. Like they say on the airplane, when the oxygen masks drops out of the sky in your face, you're supposed to do what? Put it on yourself first and then put it on your baby or your loved one, or whomever else second. Well, that's clear. It's a step-by-step process.

Same thing needs to happen with your communication in times of crises. While all of these things I'm saying may be, "Okay, Professor Akintonde, we get it. This all makes sense. You're not teaching me anything that's rocket science." In times of crises, marketing maestros, please be aware of something. People's brains sometimes freeze or goes left of center, and by that I mean people panic. Things happen. Normal behavior, normal steps, normal sequential attitudes or logic can sometimes go out of the window, which is why as a brand you're more than a product at that point. You are a person or you're in a position to help, and them sometimes in some cases save lives. And that is why having a scripted even answer, having scripted messaging, knowing and repeating several times what needs to happen is key, because that will help it click for many people in their minds and their brains at the time. I hope this is making sense to all of you.

So, the next thing I want to talk about are some tools that you can use, tools that are cool for school. So, here we go. When you are using platforms, considering that you might have to communicate this virtually, like via Zoom, Microsoft Office, other things like we had to learn about, Slack, during the pandemic, you can transform how you are communicating. I think that's, again, another opportunity as it were that came out of the pandemic or opportunities that came out of the pandemic, were that we had to learn different and new ways to communicate. And so, in doing that, it was transformative. And that way you're not just providing a service in that case, you are making a seamless and even scalable situation occur when the world needed it the most.

So, those products that were offered, while they were already available prior to COVID-19 hitting the world, hitting the planet, they were an example of one that figured it out and knew how to pivot and make things work. The other thing you want to think about are ways in which during crisis you can remain calm in the storm. I have seen so many people, including leaders in some cases, lose their wits. That lends back to what I was saying about clear and sequential communication. If you have it already in place, break glass in case of emergency kind of situation, I think that helps stave that off. I encourage you to have a plan in place and a plan for the plan. So, have a plan A, B, C, and D. Contingency plans for contingency plans.

I use a lot of alliteration, I know, in these podcasts and I make a lot of lighthearted comments, but in this case, please lean in and listen to me very seriously. I have seen also in my experience where the most perfectly crafted crisis communication plan has needed to be tossed out of the window, because again, the people or the situation had some changes occur in real time where that plan wouldn't work. And in that case, sometimes I've seen leaders have a literal meltdown. To not be that leader or not have to witness that as a person on the team, have several plans in your back pocket. What I also recommend is that you role play scenarios. "What do you mean, Professor Akintonde?" I mean what I'm saying.

Literally role play. Think of any worst case scenario that you can think of. Get that person that you know, and we all know at least one person like this, no matter what you say, they have a different retort. "It's sunny outside." "Yeah, but it's going to rain on Tuesday." "Oh, you know what? I think they're going to treat us to lunch this week and they said it was going to be on Tuesday." "Well, it'll probably be the same thing they always get us, Taco Tuesday. Woo-hoo." Grab that person. They should become your best friend for this exercise. Tell them to think of every worst case scenario that they can come up with, and then you role play it out and you think of solutions that you can put into place to solve them.

See, everyone has a purpose. You may not even want to tell them why you chose them. Let them listen to this podcast and they can figure it out. But let them help you, that way you can have every scenario worked out and then role play it and type that into your plan and have it. And once you have the plans, the other things, don't just put them in a bottom drawer or have them locked on your computer screen somewhere, you need to do periodic check-ins. I'll call this the fire drills of destiny. Like we did the fire drills in school, make sure you do a few fire drills on a quarterly basis even with your team so that you are proactive and prepared. There are so many brands that have successfully done this.

The one that comes to mind, and I'm sure all of you're familiar with this, is Tylenol. The Tylenol scare back in the '80s when some... I don't even know what word to use for the individual that committed this heinous crime, so I won't use a word. I'll just say what the crime was, which was that eight bottles of random Tylenol bottles were contaminated with some poisonous pills or poison itself. And some unknowing folk went into the drug store, bought the Tylenol for whatever they needed it for, headaches and et cetera, and unfortunately passed away, because the poison, it was a lethal amount. And the folks took it and they died. And it was an uproar, because who would've thunk it? And Tylenol has always been respected. And it was just a travesty upon travesties, not only for the people who lost loved ones and obviously the people that died, but the company itself. Everything is up in smoke.

Well, this is a case study. And I'm sure if you're a marketing major, you have heard this in class, but bear with me as I repeat it here on this podcast because it's my podcast and I can say what I'd like. The Tylenol rebuttal or how they resolved this remains one of my go-tos whenever I find myself in a crisis. The first thing they did was get the information, obviously, got the details on the state, and city and the store, and they immediately shut down that particular facility. But here's where it gets better. And by shut down that facility, what I mean is they shut down their products being sold in that facility. But then some genius on their team, I'm sure there're books on this and I can go back and revisit it, I think it was their CMO actually who said, "You know what? We need to be bigger than this. We need to remove all the bottles of our product, not only from that store so they can be tested. We're going to shut this down around the country."

So, they took every single bottle of Tylenol product that was being sold in every single store, in every single state, city, neighborhood, et cetera, off the shelves. Billions of bucks, billions of bottles, all of this removed. Then they did something further. They tested, tested, tested. And as they're going through this, they're communicating clearly to the public. They're apologizing for what happened. They're devastated by this shocking news, this devastating incident. They're testing it to find out what occurred. They were able to single it out and realize it luckily was just that one store. But despite that, they had taken everything of the shelves. And this is where they raised the bar. In the process of, of course, trying to bring their product back, which most brands would do.

We know that, because this is the business they're in. You can't sell Tylenol from the trunk of your car. They said, "We're going to make tamper-proof packaging. We're going to bring our product back, but because this lesson has been learned, we're going to make it so that there are steps that you have to take to open the product." So, rather than just screwing off a top, which back in the '80s, everybody, that's what you did. You just went to the store, you screwed off a top, you popped a pill or whatever out, you popped it in your mouth and you were done. It was very simple. But after this travesty, that's where tamper-proof packaging came into play.

So, the fact that you have to squeeze, and squeeze, and then pull out a yard of cotton and then you got the foil on the top, probably not in that order, and then you got more cotton and more foil and you got a sink down with a pitchfork. And it's very complicated to get to your bottle of aspirin these days. If you didn't have a headache, I like to say before you get the bottle, you will before you get into it. But I don't mind. I'm sure you don't either. And if you haven't grown up with it being a different way, you don't know the difference. Because what that did was that made them say, "We're going to make sure you know that we take your safety very seriously and that you as customers are our number one priority."

And guess what else happened? They transformed the whole world of products, because there's not a single product you buy, not only in the product category of aspirin or painkillers that you find that to be the case, which is where it started. So, everybody did it, Advil, Aleve, but now orange juice does it, now nail polish does it. Nail polish remover does it. Now any product you buy, you have a tamper-proof mechanism that you have to go through to get to the end product. Even ketchup has a little thing you got to peel off before you can squeeze it out. That's what I'm calling crisis communication turned upside down. That's crises brands that have it all on the line and can still shine, that is the pinnacle of that for me.

Look that case study up, study it. I think it's one of the best that could've ended totally different. And now in terms of product category leaders, Tylenol has remained at the top of the leaderboard. I could give you other examples. Okay, thanks for asking. I'll give you one more and then I'll be done. Because see, the purpose of this podcast is not only to educate you, which is the number one reason I do it, but also to share with you just how seemingly uncertain circumstances or things that occur can be lifted and changed in a favorable way. So, when you think of a product or you think of a service that is being offered, I know we often think of it in terms of what we consider to be the big brand names like a Tylenol. And I just mentioned to you...

Oh, and I should say this about Tylenol before I give you the next example, last point. The reason why they were able to also successfully have the consumer base not leave them, I mean, people died as I'm saying to you, is because they had put money in that trust account. And by money I don't mean literal money. They had put enough confidence, customer confidence, trustworthiness is what I'm trying to say, in their virtual bank account, that when this happened, they were able to make that withdrawal. And listen, y'all, they needed to make a big withdrawal for this. But because they had already funded that account prior to this happening, that was what the result was.

The second one is my personal experience on a product called McDonald's. You all know I mention them a lot. That's probably because my biggest experience as a marketer has been with that brand. And full of transparency, that is where I worked, got my teeth sunken into a product, literally the Big Mac sandwich, a lot of them, because I did that for over a decade. Branding and working as a branding ambassador, and executive for advertising agencies, and PR agencies where that was my client. This happened also in the '80s. A customer was going through a drive-through. Older woman, ordered a coffee, got her coffee passed to her through the drive-through window. In the process of the waitstaff or the clerk... I don't know why I can't think of the right name. And I just said I worked for them for 10 years, but you all know what I'm talking about.

She wasn't a cashier, but she was a person at the register. She passed the drink out to the customer. And unfortunately, a little bit of it spilled or maybe a lot of bit of it spilled. I don't know the quantity. But enough to scald the woman's leg, her lap with the coffee, because it was hot. And so, you might think, "Well, okay, so clean it up." It wasn't like third degree burns or anything, but it was enough for the lady to file a lawsuit against McDonald's Corporation and she won. Won a significant amount of money. And the reason this case was able to do so well was because the woman claims that when she got the coffee out of the window passed to her and it was given to her, and I guess she was trying to place it in her cup holder, she was not forewarned that it was hot.

I'm just going to pause there, marketing maestros, and say that again. She got a coffee passed to her from a window to place in her cup holder, I'm assuming, or maybe she was going to hold it in her hand. Some people do do that when they drive. But she wasn't told that it was hot. So, she was able to sue, get a substantial amount of money. And so, similar to Tylenol, McDonald's didn't take all coffee off the line or anything like that, but what did they do? Again, you probably read about this if you're a student or a student of marketing in your classes, but maybe not. So, I will tell you. McDonald's went back, this is where the similarity to Tylenol comes into play, and they changed all of their packaging, the wording on their packaging on coffee or any other hot products.

I think just coffee and tea, if I'm not mistaken, are the two warmer hot beverages that they sell. And they have hot and blazing in red letters, exclamation point all over the cup, all over the lid. I mean, anytime you turn that cup around, even if you look at it upside down, which you shouldn't turn it upside down, because that will definitely spill on you, but it says hot. They have the cashier, worker people behind the counter, this is hot that has to be announced as they hand it to you, because of one woman's ability to find a loophole in the system, and make sure that packaging says it, and that people are reminded. And also, similar to Tylenol, other people were able to catch on.

And so, if you have any product, whether it's hot from steam, hot because it may burn your mouth like Caliente, Taco Bell seasoning or whatever, you got to say it's hot. Because if not, a crisis can happen and you can be in hot water. All right. So, those are just two examples I gave you. I also gave you how the brands, when they had things on the line, were still able to shine and pivot. There are examples, maybe this will be a different podcast, in which brands have not successfully done that. And in some cases, they've gone out of business as a result. As I'm talking to you in real time, I may come back with that, because I have some examples of witnessing those situations as well.

But for now, I'm going to conclude this podcast with saying to all of you, make sure you do the things that I mentioned earlier. Be preventative. Don't wait until you need to have the plan in place to try to build the airplane and fly it. That's not the best thing. Have the plane ready, so then you can just jump in that puppy and drive off into the sunset. Also, keep in mind that you need more than one crisis plan. Some people think you just need one. A, B, C and D, at least. Practice those plans, do role play, do role play of role play, practice out worst case scenarios. Trust me, it will come in handy and you will be so glad you did.

And last but not least, if any of this you need further information or instruction or anything like that, then you know where to find me, right here every time I do an episode of my Marketing Insights podcast, or you can reach out to me. You can follow me on Twitter at _@Shanitaspeaks. That's S-H-A-N-I-T-A Speaks. You can follow me on LinkedIn at Professor Shanita Akintonde. Or you can listen and subscribe to all of these podcasts. They are found wherever your favorite podcasts are, such as Google Play, Audible, Spotify, et cetera. Thank you so much. And until next time, which will be our best time. I'm signing off. Bye-bye.