Is ‘An abundance of caution’ undermining business communication?
By Craig on Jul 1, 2010 in Blog guests & critiques, interviews, Issues & crisis management, Public relations, Strategic communication | View Comments
This is a guest post by Tony Jaques*, an issue and crisis management specialist with extensive corporate experience. He has been widely published in academic and business journals and is a thought leader in his field.
As managers take a new approach to deciding when to launch a product recall, public relations professionals need to reassess how they are communicated. And how to avoid meaningless phrases like ‘abundance of caution’ which hinder organisations from communicating clearly, and effectively positioning themselves, with their stakeholders.
Two recent American recalls suggest companies are raising the bar (or perhaps that should be lowering the bar) when brand protection seems to outweigh the possibility of harm to the public.
Shrek drinking glasses
In early June food giant McDonald’s announced a recall of more than 13 million souvenir glasses in the United States and Canada produced to mark the launch of the new Shrek movie. The recall followed discovery of toxic cadmium in paint used to decorate the glasses. The level of cadmium was within all federal and state legal safety limits, but above new guidelines being developed by the US Consumer product Safety Commission.
As a result, McDonald’s that announced the voluntary recall was determined “in an abundance of caution.” Meanwhile the local producer of the glasses insisted the glasses were safe and, rather unhelpfully, described the recall as “an internal decision by McDonald’s”.
Spaghetti and meatballs
Two weeks later, Campbell’s Soup announced it would recall nearly 15 million pounds of canned spaghetti and meatballs because of “possible under-processing” (whatever that means). The company said there was no information that any under-processed product had reached their mainly American consumers, whilst the US Agriculture Department said it had received no reports of illnesses from consumption of the products.
But Campbell’s announced the recall “in an abundance of caution”.
Now it must be said that the Shrek glasses incident arose just two weeks after a high profile recall of Chinese-made Mylie Cyrus-branded jewellery with high cadmium levels way above the legal limit. Similarly, the Campbell’s spaghetti incident came right on the heels of successive health scares involving e-coli and then salmonella in lettuce.
PR needs to work more effectively
It is important to stress that no-one would question for a moment the need to protect the public against legitimate risk. But maybe corporate communicators need to find a better way to explain when companies are seemingly taking an ultra-cautious approach.
There is no doubt that public expectation about corporate performance is changing when it comes to protecting health and the environment. At the same time the rise of 24/7 news coverage and social media has increased the speed and the corporate risk of consumer backlash.
For example, the Tylenol recall of 1982 is often still held up as a ‘gold standard’ of how to manage a product recall. But in that notorious case – back in the days before the development of the internet and the blogosphere – the company took almost a week to announce a recall, despite seven people dying from consuming deliberately poisoned headache tablets.
Any company today which allowed such a delay would not be praised, but would more likely be pilloried by the media and crucified by the online armchair experts for being slow and unresponsive.
However, given the current speed and brand exposure of product failure – or perceived product failure –corporate communicators need to find much better ways to explain to a sceptical public why products have been recalled, especially in cases where the risk is minimal or virtually non-existent.
Now this is Tony Jaques
Finding a better way
The McDonald’s Shrek voluntary recall announcement was well written and provides a good example of how it should be done. But the news media ignored most of their careful wording and lazily latched on to that idea of ‘abundance of caution’.
But what the heck is an abundance of caution? While some lawyer may think those are useful words, it is really one of those silly formula phrases which have no real meaning – like ’full and frank discussion.’
Corporate communicators need to encourage management not to hide behind clichés, but to speak openly to the public.
My suggestion is: “We are not required to recall this product, but we believe it is the right thing to do.” I am open to any other suggestions or improvements.
What are your thoughts on Tony’s proposition that fear of stakeholder retribution is prompting companies to communicate illogically? What are better approaches companies can apply in situations such as he has identified? What attitudes/mindsets are best for companies to take in situations such as this?
*Dr Tony Jaques is Managing Director of the Melbourne consultancy Issue Outcomes P/L which specialises in issue and crisis management and risk communication. He also publishes the regular online issue and crisis newsletter, Managing Outcomes, which anyone can subscribe to, and can be contacted at tjaques@issueoutcomes.com.au
