Volkswagen's crisis approach

Corporations can experience a wide range of crisis emerging from reasons of economic, cultural, environmental, technological struggle, or conflict with internal & external stakeholders. A crisis may result in a range of negative effects, but mostly of reputational and financial nature. As corporate have an acknowledge life cycle (Sung & Hwang, 2014), it is imperative for a successful crisis response strategy (CRS) to tackle the different stages of a crisis (from breakout to resolving) with the appropriate communication strategies. PR professionals, as much as research, has had an impressive focus on what makes a successful CRS. In the following I will briefly discuss the Volkswagen case in the light of Painter & Martin's (2017) hermeneutic analysis of Volkswagen's public statements.

A global crisis

In September 2015 the Volkswagen AG was publicly noticed for violating the Clean Air Act by manipulating some of their diesel vehicles’ software to activate emission controls while in the emission laboratory. In the following, VW conceded that more than 11 million vehicles worldwide are subject to the software manipulation. To put this into perspective, just recently the costs have been estimated to reach about 30$ billion.

The crisis communication of Volkswagen is an interesting case, as opposed to classical CRS research suggesting completeness and assurance to be connected with effective crisis management (Reilly, 1993), we find a ‘rather reactive, defensive approach in information flow’ by denying and downplaying the crisis throughout all their stakeholder communication (Painter & Martins, 2017, p. 216).

Volkswagen's crisis management & image restoration

Furthermore, in their analysis of Volkswagen’s crisis communication Painter & Martins find patterns of downplaying the issue, using euphemistic language, with a strong focus on looking forward to future investments, employed to reduce the significance of the crisis. The overarching tone was that once the technical issues are resolved, Volkswagen and its stakeholders can return to ‘business as usual’. In terms of attribution, Volkswagen mostly relies on internal attribution of the crisis, making certain individuals (i.e. former CEO Martin Winterkorn) and certain departments or processes responsible for what has happened.
As a corporation Volkswagen has only taken limited degrees of responsibility (ibid), while it has focused its communication on ‘streamlining’ work processes in the respective departments (i.e. software development), and admitting to major deficits in their overall communications and transparency and promised to improve on these issues through policy changes.

In the case of Volkswagen, we have seen that they take a rather reactive and defensive approach, waiting for court decisions to be made, before acting on their CRS. This is in contrast to previous research (Reilly, 1993) suggesting a more preemptive and transparent approach to CSR. However, the case of Volkswagen is indeed a special one, as it represents a case of a global crisis and hence normative CRS approaches might not apply. Currently, the financial penalties are starting to hammer down on the corporation, and with their defensive approach it is yet to see if Volkswagen manages to slip out of such unprecedented crisis. Additionally, the current research is based on all of Volkswagen’s own communication. Future research could address if these communication efforts have been fruitful, and if the image restoration and crisis management strategies employed have indeed reached the public opinion.

References

Painter, C., & Martins, J. (2017). Organisational communication management during the Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal: A hermeneutic study in attribution, crisis management, and information orientation. Knowledge and Process Management, 24(3), 204-218.

Reilly, A. H. (1993). Preparing for the worst: The process of effective crisis management. Industrial & Environmental Crisis Quarterly, 7(2), 115-143.

Sung, M., & Hwang, J.-S. (2014). Who drives a crisis? The diffusion of an issue through social networks. Computers in Human Behavior, 36, 246–257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.03.063
 

How to lose rides & alienate people: Uber versus Lyft

Screenshot taken from Uber's official Twitter account

Social media has become an extension of our lives. The world is at our fingertips 24/7, whether it’s to find out which Disney princess you are (you’re welcome)* or to get emotional about politics, or, if you’re me, both. When a certain someone’s “travel ban” went into effect January 2017, thousands turned to Twitter to protest (#NoBanNoWall). Notably, New York’s City’s cab drivers went on strike in solidarity. And Uber … turned off surge pricing? 

Shortly after, #DeleteUber went viral, as users reacted to the company’s attempt to make a profit during a time of public crisis.

When it rains (#DeleteUber), it pours (#DownloadLyft)

Uber’s then-CEO Travis Kalanick’s (non) apology surprisingly didn’t help; the public wasn’t convinced by Kalanick’s ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ approach. Uber dropped the ball, that doesn’t have to be insurmountable. But there’s dropping the ball and then there’s scoring an own goal. At the risk of being divisive, with all commercial and reputational consequences thereof, Lyft’s co-founders penned an empathic response to the ban that resonated with the public. Uber’s failure to read the room at a critical time paved the way for competitor Lyft to come out on top in the court of public opinion. 

Screenshot taken from user @EliBraden

From public crisis to corporate crisis

Let’s take Uber’s tweet out of context for a moment. No surge pricing = cheaper fares = good, no? Maybe, if not for timing and momentum. Flipping the focus of an issue onto yourself rather than the matter at hand is a special feat that has been under-researched. However, we come close to understanding this case when looking at a recent study on crisis interpretation as a result of source information.

While Van der Meer’s [1] study focuses on sources (in)directly related to the crisis, Uber came out of left field and created its own crisis. Though unrelated to the ban, the immediate, widespread outrage towards Uber is exactly what Van der Meer talks about. Particularly, rapid development and diffusion of online communication technologies have changed the nature of mediated communication and, consequently, public response to crises.

Unanticipated publicity 

This is further explained by the emotion-cognition dual-factor model of crisis communication [2] The model demonstrates that the relationship between crisis information processing and crisis emotions is influenced by framing effects and online emotional contagion. Another study finds that negative crisis emotions in particular incite online emotional contagion; specifically, indignation increases the likelihood of online word-of-mouth [3]. Thus, when the public constructs a negative frame around a crisis, they are more likely to propagate their opinions in online spaces, adding fuel to the fire. This explains Uber’s unanticipated online publicity, and illustrates why the effect of crisis emotions is an important factor for crisis communication 

There is no pleasing everyone, so that’s not something we can blame Uber for — personal politics aside. The biggest issue here? Uber focused on damage control, where Lyft recognised customers’ concerns. Public relations professionals need to better understand the “terrain around motivations, values and emotions,” [4] how this influences attitudes and behaviour, and, subsequently, reputation management.

* I’m Cinderella, in case you were wondering.

            

[1] Van der Meer, T. G. (2016). Public frame building: The role of source usage in times of crisis. Communication Research, 45(6), 956-981.

[2] Lu, Y., & Huang, Y. H. C. (2018). Getting emotional: An emotion-cognition dual-factor model of crisis communication. Public Relations Review, 44(1), 98-107.

[3] Roh, S. (2017). Examining the paracrisis online: The effects of message source, response strategies and social vigilantism on public responses.Public Relations Review, 43(3), 587-596.

[4] Trayner, G. (2017). Why values matter–how public relations professionals can draw on moral foundations theory. Public Relations Review, 43(1), 123-129.

             

Fairouz Kasri is a Persuasive Communication Master’s Student at the University of Amsterdam.She plays various roles in the management of projects at SWOCC, the Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Brands and Brand Communication. She’s passionate about ABBA, politics, pop-culture, women’s rights, and youth leadership development.

Tweeting under the influence

Image courtesy of The Associated Press

Imagine a single Tweet had the power to cancel a multi-million dollar primetime television show, resulting in a loss of hundreds of jobs, piss off a pharmaceutical company, and cause a loss of a projected $60 million dollars in ad revenue. Sounds crazy right? Well unfortunately, this really happened. This all stemmed from one single Tweet that comedian Roseanne Barr broadcasted, putting the television network, ABC, into a communication crisis overnight. While this almost seems like unsolvable disaster, ABC came out on top due to their strategic crisis mitigation efforts (we’ll go over these later) in which they literally received standing ovations.

So, what happened?

Roseanne Barr had a hit show in the United States in the 90’s titled ‘Roseanne’. The ABC network decided to revive this hit in 2018, bringing Roseanne back to a primetime television spot. After a two month record smashing debut, the show’s star Roseanne sent several racist Tweets comparing African Americans to apes. This put the media into an instant frenzy. Rosanne later blamed the sleeping pill, Ambien, for obscuring her judgement. You won’t get off that easy, Roseanne! Within hours, ABC viewers as well as celebrities (including those on the show) took to Twitter to voice their opinion condemning the actress and ABC for the views posted by Barr. ABC reacted by cancelling the show immediately, removing the hit TV series from immediate circulation.

Image from Twitter.com

2 reasons ABC set the bar on efficient crisis management

“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” - ABC President Channing Dungey

1. ABC reacted fast...really fast. The racist Tweets went out in the middle of the night when most of the United States was asleep. Once ABC caught wind of what was happening, the President of ABC released a press release at 10:48 PST the same day announcing that the show had been cancelled. Reacting to a crisis quickly is key as stakeholders expect fast answers [1] and it allows the organization to crush speculations or rumors that may begin to circulate [2]. In this case, stopping rumors and controlling the conversation was key as many celebrities began posting their criticisms of the show’s star on social media. This very public discourse could have lead to frames being built by influencers which may have impacted the public on how they viewed ABC [3].
2. ABC took a strong stance on the issue. ABC immediately utilized a strong strategic stance of corrective action, in which the company vowed to make an immediate change [4]. The cancellation sent a sense of shock to the public in which they were not expecting. The organization prioritized its value of not condoning racist remarks over the massive loss of revenue, something that helped shape ABC of having strong character and values.

As communication professionals, we should aspire to react like ABC did in times of crisis. The organization was fast and made hard decisions quickly, which was received quite well by the public. Had the organization been slower and had a different outcome, ABC could have been in the doghouse with viewers boycotting the network for endorsing a celebrity with bad judgement and ignorant views.

PS: As an honorable mention, I have to say I also quite enjoy Sanofi’s (The maker of Ambien) reaction to the incident:

image from Twitter.com

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About the author:

Tyler Pilgrim is a Communication Science Research Master’s student at the University of Amsterdam. Tyler is originally from the United States (No, he didn’t vote for Trump), but has been on this side of the pond since 2015. You can find him on Twitter here: @the.

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[1] Coombs, W. T., & Holladay, J. S. (2012). The paracrisis: The challenges created by publicly managing crisis prevention. Public Relations Review,38(3), 408-415. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.04.004

[2] Alfonso, G., & Suzanne, S. (2008). Crisis Communications Management on the Web: How Internet-Based Technologies are Changing the Way Public Relations Professionals Handle Business Crises. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management,16(3), 143-153. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5973.2008.00543.x

[3] Van der Meer, T.G.L.A. (2016) Public Framebuilding: the role of source usage in times of crisis. Communication Research 2016

[4] Benoit, W. L. (1997). Image repair discourse and crisis communication. Public Relations Review,23(2), 177-186. doi:10.1016/s0363-8111(97)90023-0

Doritos voor vrouwen! Afgekraakt op Twitter.

Doritos voor vrouwen! Afgekraakt op Twitter. 

(Bron: Ranker, 2018)

Afgelopen februari ontstond er een grote PR-crisis bij het chipsmerk Doritos. De CEO van het bedrijf vertelde in een interview dat ze bij Doritos van plan waren om chips op de markt te brengen die speciaal gericht is op vrouwen. Volgens de CEO houden vrouwen niet van het lawaai dat een chipszak maakt en willen vrouwen hun vingers niet in het openbaar aflikken. Het merk wilde dan ook met een vrouwvriendelijke versie komen.

Crisis op twitter

Dit leidde onmiddellijk tot veel kritiek op de sociale media. Mensen vonden het belachelijk als Doritos met vrouwvriendelijke chips zou komen. Vooral op Twitter liet men duidelijk hun mening horen. Dat de discussie vooral op Twitter los ging is in lijn met eerder onderzoek (Sung & Hwang, 2014). Hieruit blijkt dat Twitter het meest gebruikte medium is voor het posten van meningen omtrent een crisis.

Reacties van het publiek

De meeste reacties op twitter hadden als boodschap dat het vreemd is dat vrouwen geen Doritos chips mogen eten en dat dit tegenstrijdig is met de ontwikkelingen van de afgelopen jaren om te zorgen voor gelijkheid tussen mannen en vrouwen.

(Bron : Time, 2018)

Echter heeft de CEO van Doritos nooit gezegd dat vrouwen geen Doritos chips mogen eten. Zij gaf enkel aan dat het bedrijf merkte dat vrouwen het kraken van de chips en het aflikken van hun vingers niet fijn vinden. De twitteraars proberen dan ook het merk als vrouwonvriendelijk te framen. Een verklaring hiervoor is dat de manier waarop een bericht geframed wordt sterk verbonden is met de cultuur in een land (van Gorp, 2007). In de Amerikaanse cultuur vinden mensen het over het algemeen belangrijk dat mannen en vrouwen gelijk behandeld worden. Wanneer men het gevoel krijgt dat een bedrijf andere normen en waarden heeft voelen zij zich aangevallen en gaat men hun kritiek uiten op twitter door hun mening op een bepaalde manier te framen.

Reactie van Pepsi Co

Zes dagen na de uitspraak van de CEO kwam het moederbedrijf van Doritos, Pepsi Co, met een twitter reactie op de crisis. Hierin stelde zij het volgende: ‘Doritos heeft al chips voor vrouwen, deze heten Doritos’. Hiermee gaven zij aan niet meer met een nieuwe Doritos speciaal voor vrouwen te komen. Doordat het zes dagen duurde tot het bedrijf met een reactie kwam werd het een veel grotere crisis dan wellicht nodig was. Uit onderzoek blijkt namelijk dat het voor een bedrijf bij een crisis belangrijk is om met een sterke en snelle reactie te komen (Thelwall & Stuart, 2009). Zes dagen wachten is dan ook echt te lang. Daarnaast besloten ze enkel een reactie op Twitter te geven. Inmiddels was de crisis al zo groot geworden dat het ook in talkshows besproken werd. Pepsi Co had er dan ook goed aan gedaan om met een duidelijker statement te komen.

Belangrijkste les

De belangrijkste les die PR-professionals hieruit kunnen halen is om in tijden van crisis met een sterke en snelle reactie te komen of om ervoor te zorgen dat de gehele crisis voorkomen wordt door je CEO zich te laten inlezen in de cultuur van je doelgroep. 

Over de auteur: Esmée Hoppenbrouwer is een master student Persuasieve communicatie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Ze heeft een grote interesse in Public Relations en in milieubewust adverteren. Over dit laatste schrijft ze ook haar master thesis.