Kendall Jenner would very much like to be excluded from this narrative*

Screenshot taken from @BerniceKing's Twitter account

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t seen or heard about Pepsi’s controversial campaign where the company co-opts social justice protests, with particularly tone-deaf allusions to the Black Lives Matter movement. You really have to go out of your way for Bernice King (daughter of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.) to comment on your advertisement. All in a day’s work for members of the Kardashian-Jenner family.

PepsiGate

The Pepsi crisis has been covered in more depth with a specific focus on crisis management. Opinions on Pepsi’s response to the backlash vary, and I’d say it ultimately depends on which aspect you focus on, be it defending (👎) or pulling (👍) the ad – Ilse Weergang and Kim van Loon, respectively. But let’s back up. Pepsi isn’t the first brand to have hijacked a social issue. Pepsi isn’t even the first cola company to do so. In 1971, Coca Cola debuted a similar campaign depicting peace at a time of protests against the Vietnam War. If you didn’t see it on Mad Men, I’ll include it here. In fact, let’s have a look at both commercials. 

 

 

I’d like to buy the world a … frame

Okay yes, Coca Cola had the good fortune to run this ad in a world without Twitter, I know. However, other coverage on the Pepsi ad has been quick to make the comparison, stating that Coca Cola succeeded where Pepsi failed. But – barring the effect of scathing tweets – why?

Weergang and van Loon both refer to framing effects, particularly how Pepsi’s ad suffered from negative frames constructed by the public. However, if media content includes the proper cultural resonance and narrative fidelity, the message should be interpreted as intended [1].  

The devil is in the details

Frankly, in a society rife with racism and police brutality against people of colour, the image of a privileged, white woman walking up to a police officer and handing him a Pepsi to resolve a conflict doesn’t exactly scream ‘truce’. Though, one might (rightly) say that Coca Cola’s utopic message isn’t narratively sound either. It all comes back to public perception. A recent study shows that how media content depicts a CSR-message determines the public’s evaluation of the company. A strategic depiction results in “stronger company hypocrisy and negative communication intentions towards the company;” a double-whammy for Pepsi [2].

Why would the public perceive Pepsi’s ad as a strategic CSR-message? Adding insult to injury, Pepsi positioned their product as the ‘treatment recommendation’ to the conflict [1], intentionally constructing a narrative that trivialises social activism efforts. Intent is important here, as it implies that this crisis could have been prevented. This incurs severe feelings of anger and blame, which go on to drive the public response [3]. In contrast, Coca Cola positioning their product as a “tiny commonality between all peoples” can be considered as much less problematic.

So, did Coca Cola know something then that we’d do well to remember now? And is there really any way of knowing how well received the ad would be in today’s socio-political climate? 🤷‍♀️ But then maybe that’s the point: keep cultural contexts in mind, all ways, always. 

* With special thanks to Taylor Swift.

                 

[1] Van Gorp, B. (2007). Bringing culture back in: The constructionist approach to framing. Journal of Communication, 57(1), 60-78.

[2] Shim, K., Chung, M., & Kim, Y. (2017). Does ethical orientation matter? Determinants of public reaction to CSR communication. Public Relations Review, 43(4), 817-828.

[3] Zhou, Z., & Ki, E. J. (2018). Does severity matter?: An investigation of crisis severity from defensive attribution theory perspective. Public Relations Review, 44(4), 610-618. 

                

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.

A re-visit to the Pepsi Ad starring Kendall Jenner

On September 28, I wrote a blog on the Pepsi Ad starring Kendall Jenner. A similar blog was posted byKim van Loon. However, it seems that we don’t see eye to eye whether Pepsi responded correctly or not. To give you a quick freshen up. Below you can watch the Pepsi Ad. And if you want to read more about the backlash the ad got, please check my previous blogpost.

                                         Pepsi Ad starring Kendall Jenner. Credits: YouTube – Kendall and Kylie

What we agree on

In both our blogs we reflected on the role of the audience, stating that nowadays the audience can frame news. In de case of the Pepsi ad, this meant that the audience added a negative connotation to the content. This negative frame was then viewed by many other viewers, which created a crisis situation (vander Meer, 2018).

One way of quickly figuring out the responds of the audience is by checking Twitter. Twitter provides with an excellent way to keep up with real-time updates and thus feedback to your content (Eriksson,2018). In the case of Pepsi, twitter was used a lot.

Where we disagree

Where we disagree on is the response given by Pepsi. Kim van Loons blogpost states that Pepsi did well by responding with an apology within 24 hours. But that is not what Pepsi did! Their first response backed up their ad. Obviously, this respond cannot be found on the Pepsi website anymore, but here are two sources: 1 2.

So, their first response was to deny that there was a crisis situation. According to Coombs(2015) denying any responsibility to a crisis situation, is a way to respond to a crisis. However, in this case, it is not. Denial is used when there is a misinterpretation which links an organization to a crisis, for example a name mix-up. In the case of Pepsi, that is just not the way to go.

Pepsi’s second response indeed was the right response. They apologized and stated that they didn’t intend to create controversy. However, they also added an apology to Kendall Jenner to their statement. I think apologizing to Kendall Jenner is a good thing, but it should have been done in private. Adding the Kendall Jenner Apology created backlash and could have created a brand-new crisis. It is safe to say that the goal for Pepsi with the apology was definitely NOT to create a new crisis.

Concluding advice

A lot can be learned from the way Pepsi handled the crisis. Even though they responded quickly, they did not respond adequately. I would strongly advice Pepsi, and any organization for that matter to respond quickly but wisely. I believe it is better to respond in 36 hours with the right respond, than to respond within 24 hours with the kind of response that only adds fuel to fire. Obviously, the Pepsi ad is an excellent example, but this advice could be used by PR professional everywhere.

About:

Ilse Weergang has a BA degree in Musicology, and is currently enrolled in a MA Entertainment Communication. She likes to make and listen to music and she enjoys the outdoors.

More into Pepsi’s crisi

  

The advertisement of Pepsi featuring Kendall Jenner that was released last year 2017 for the campaign “Live for Now” in YouTube, sparked a lot of conversations in several media and fields. The reaction of the public towards it was rather critical because the ad had references to the Black Lives Matter and the Women’s March movements. The public criticized the use of serious social issues for a brand profit and the trivialization of the struggle of people.

Source: PR Week

Of course, Public Relations professionals paid attention to it and analyzed the whole process of Pepsi’s handling of the crisis for the sake of knowledge and learning, some from a negative perspective, other from a positive one. For instance, in her reflection, Van Loon (2018) points out that Pepsi dealt properly with the crisis because they reacted fast.

The matter of time of reaction is of great importance in crisis communication because the social media have dramatically speed up the way the information is circulates. Social media in general and Twitter in particular are the first channels in which the event disseminates at a very high speed causing the crisis (Sung & Hwang, 2014). (Sung & Hwang, 2014). The biggest problem for the organization with the early spread is that the event is interpreted and framed by the public and this frame is disseminated together with the event information (Van der Meer, 2016). Obviously, when this frame is negatively valenced, there is a crisis.

Therefore, speed and negative framing of the information disseminated via social media are the main reasons for a company to react as fast as possible, because as soon as there is information from the company, the buzz starts to disappear (Sung & Hwang, 2014). Nevertheless, still today there are signs of not full recovery of Pepsi’s damaged reputation because the purchase consideration is at the lowest since 2015, according to study.

On the other hand, Weergang (2018) considered that the reaction was incorrect because Pepsi firstly reacted in a defensive manner and, afterwards, apologized and pulled the ad. Even though the final strategy followed the appropriate steps by Coombs’s Situational Crisis Communication Theory (2007) that Van Loon stated, those came too late. Again, it is a matter of time, but, from this perspective, the problem is a first bad reaction that could have invalidated the crisis communication strategy.

As the expert Ewald van Rooij, director of Lindblom indicates, it is very important for an organization to have a plan of action in place taking into consideration several possible types of crisis and react according to the appropriate strategy as soon as possible. However, the actions and the people must all be aligned with the strategy. Unfortunately, the defensive first step of Pepsi was not aligned with the following response strategy to apologize and it caused more negative reactions that, apparently, further efforts could not totally solve.

In conclusion, the two main threats to take into account for a proper handling of a crisis are the speed of the social media and the framing of the information by the public but if the alignment of all parts under the same strategy is not correct, the crisis will not properly be solved.

About the author:

Carla Navarro is a Social Sciences traveler, from a not finished BA in Sociology to a nearly finished MA in Communication Science passing by a completed BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology and a MA in Visual Anthropology. She feels that this will be her last stop and will finally put her knowledge into a proper job, although she decided to start a music documentary festival in Amsterdam.

References:

Coombs, W. T. (2007). Protecting organization reputations during a crisis- The development and application of situational crisis communication theory. Corporate reputation review, 10(3), 163-176.

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.

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

Van Loon, K. (2018). How Pepsi handled its PR crisis. Public Relations, Media and the Public. Retrieved from: https://publicrelationsmediathepublic1819s1.blogspot.com/2018/09/how-pepsi-handled-its-pr-crisis.html

Van Rooij, E. (2018). Guest lecture crisis communications [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from: https://canvas.uva.nl/courses/3068/modules

Weergang, I. (2018). A controversial Pepsi ad starring Kendall Jenner. . Public Relations, Media and the Public. Retrieved from: https://publicrelationsmediathepublic1819s1.blogspot.com/2018/09/a-controversial-pepsi-ad-starring.html

Doritos, crisis flavored

Doritos, de smaak van crisis

Originele Doritos afbeelding: ubisafe.org. Credits: Sonny van den Berge

In de blog van Esmee Hoppenbrouwer, geschreven op 28 september 2018, wordt aan de kaak gesteld of het handelen van chipsmerk Doritos in een recente crisis juist is geweest. Daaruit zijn meerdere punten van aandacht naar voren gekomen: PR-professionals moeten in tijden van crisis met een snelle en krachtige reactie komen, waar de nood voor zo'n reactie eigenlijk al voorkomen had kunnen worden door een zorgvuldiger optreden van de CEO. Punten die in een crisis cruciaal kunnen zijn en wellicht iets meer uitleg en aandacht verdienen.

CEO heeft prioriteit

Ten eerste speelt de CEO in het Doritos 'schandaal' wellicht de grootste rol van betekenis. Door het uiten van het vrouwonvriendelijke bericht wordt de CEO onder een vergrootglas gelegd: vanaf dat moment wordt de berichtgeving over deze persoon alleen maar groter. Daarbij komt volgens Jin en Yeo (2011) kijken dat het imago van de CEO, die door de toegenomen berichtgeving veranderd kan zijn, invloed heeft op het ontwikkelen van loyale relaties met de klant. Het optreden van de CEO is dus cruciaal voor de toekomst van een organisatie. Uiteindelijk blijkt dus dat een crisis zowel kan ontstaan, eindigen, staan of vallen door een statement van een CEO, waardoor de rol van deze leider niet onderschat moet worden.

Tik, tak, tik, tak

Ook de aard van de reactie van Doritos was van belang in de crisis: deze zou zo snel en zo sterk mogelijk moeten gebeuren. Waar dat qua kracht logisch lijkt, is het aspect 'tijd' complexer van aard. Van der Meer (2016) stelt in zijn dissertatie dat het tijdens een crisis belangrijk is om de verschillende frames van aandeelhouders op één lijn te krijgen. Meer tijd zorgt er dan voor dat de situatie beter begrepen wordt. Dit staat haaks op de opvatting van Esmee betreffende het Doritos schandaal dat er zo snel mogelijk met een antwoord gekomen had moeten worden. Juist dit contrast in aanpak en reactie laat zien dat het aspect tijd van grote waarde is en dus zorgvuldig bekeken moet worden. Ze zeggen niet voor niets: "time is of the essence" en "de tijd zal het leren".

The Doritos triangle

Nog altijd wordt voornamelijk Twitter gebruikt om als organisatie te communiceren met stakeholders in crisistijd (Sung & Hwang, 2014), wat op zich de mogelijkheid tot snel reageren al aanbiedt. Echter, wachten met reageren kan voor een CEO lastig zijn omdat deze de controle over de situatie wilt behouden. Daarmee komt naar voren dat de begrippen CEO, crisis en reactie met elkaar verbonden zijn: waar een crisis is, is een CEO en waar een crisis is, komt een reactie. Je zou kunnen zeggen dat er een driehoeksverhouding bestaat: het ene begrip beïnvloedt de ander.

Dan kan het haast geen toeval zijn dat Doritos chips precies dezelfde vorm heeft..

Over
Sonny van den Berge is een master student Corporate Communication aan de Universiteit
van Amsterdam. Naast studeren loopt hij stage bij Bynder, een vooraanstaand
technologiebedrijf in Amsterdam en werkt hij bij Philips op de afdeling corporate
communication. Voetbal is zijn grootste passie, wat zich uit in voorliefde voor de voetbalclub
AFC AJAX.

Effective crisis communication: Social media versus traditional media

A fellow communication science student, Tyler Pilgrim, recently wrote an interesting blog post: ‘Twitter can be a lifesaver if used correctly’. This blog explains the power of Twitter during times of crisis, such as natural disasters. But maybe even more interesting, at least for PR professionals, is the power of Twitter, or more general social media, for organizations in times of crisis.

In the past decade, the development of information and communication technologies has turned our world, and the world of PR practitioners, upside down. Especially the rise of social media has changed the flow of information, which also affected crisis communication (Sung & Hwang, 2014). This blog describes how PR practitioners should use social media in times of crisis in order to improve the effectiveness of crisis communication, but also why they should not forget the traditional media.

  

The importance of social media

The first, and maybe most important, thing that PR practitioners need to do, is constantly monitor what is happening online in order to recognize possible crisis signals as early as possible. Subsequently, a quick response is essential because the dissemination of information on social media is faster than the speed of light, and than traditional media (Sung & Hwang, 2014). Public frames regarding a crisis, that are built on social media, play an important role in defining a crisis and, subsequently, affect the evolution and impact of that crisis (Van der Meer, 2016). Even though those online frames may not always be accurate; they can have far-reaching consequences, making a quick response crucial. If interested, an example of how far these consequences can reach, read a previous blog of mine.

 The importance of traditional media

Despite the fact that social media gained significant importance for crisis communication, traditional media should not be forgotten.  A study of Sung and Hwang (2014) showed that social media mainly play a role in the initial stage of a crisis. However, once reports regarding a crisis appear in the traditional news media, these are more important than social media and ‘set the agenda’. The traditional news media are still powerful agenda-setters and opinion leaders (Sung & Hwang, 2014).

PR practitioners should take into account that traditional media are considered to be more credible information sources than social media are, at least in times of a crisis. Traditional media are (still) proven to be more effective crisis communication tools than social media (Eriksson, 2018).

So, for all PR practitioners: use social media to scan and monitor what is happening online in order to recognize crisis signals as early as possible, but don’t neglect traditional media in the crisis response. Regarding the crisis response and crisis communication, social media should be used as a complement to the traditional media, since the public perceives traditional media as more credible and as the preferred source of information during a crisis (Eriksson, 2018; Van der Meer, 2016).

About the author:

Kim van Loon is a Corporate Communication master’s student at the University of Amsterdam. She works at her own company ‘Van Loon Communicatie’ as a Dutch linguistic, corrector and translator. Topics of interest are: Dutch language, PR, crisis communication. 

Academic sources for this article:

Eriksson, M. (2018). Lessons for Crisis Communication on Social Media: A Systematic Review of What Research Tells the Practice. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 1-26.

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.

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