Recipe for crisis management?

Image courtesy: SXC

Today, in our Corporate Communications class, some of my classmates presented case studies on crisis handling/ reputation management. Cases in point were: Cadbury's salmonella story, Toyota Prius, and Dasani bottled water by Coca Cola. Although we all debated the finer points of why these brands suffered the crises they did, the discussions brought to light the question of "is there a template for crisis management?" As our course leader said, and I wholeheartedly agree, if crisis management, and reputation handling was so simple, surely multinational organisations would buy a book, and we would all be condoning their follies. But as it turns out, there isn't really a recipe. There's no set method that tells you what to do exactly. Like my classmate pointed out with the Cadbury case, it was also a question of timing: summer time when chocolate sales are usually low in the UK 

Every single case study we discussed today brought up the phrase "immediate response". In my last post on crisis communication, I questioned how is an organisation to react when the people within it don't know what's going on? This time, we go beyond such an obvious question. Here's we ask: when do we sound the alarm bells,being PR professionals within an organisation? At what point, does it make sense to approach the higher-ups, and say, "Oops! We have a problem!" It also brings up the issue of cultures, as is always the case with any PR story! With Toyota, people said that part of the reason it didn't react "in time" was because of the in-house teams that were advising the company. It was only after substantial public outcry, did they hire an agency in the US. Compare that with Peugot's quiet recall  of cars made with Toyota during the same period, which although was a mere safety measure, it was a pragmatic to check nonetheless.

While all these are points that one should consider while examining any PR disaster—and there are many where a brand's existing reputation has provided that essential buffer—Toyota in particular strikes me as a reverse case. Cars have failed before. But this one came across as terrible...why? One of the reasons that struck me was, aside from the delay in response, perhaps the very values that people buy into with Toyota were shaken. Safety, trust and security...when a brand doesn't deliver on its promised values, perhaps it's a bit like shooting yourself in the foot, no? 

But as they say, we can at best learn from other people's mistakes, and hope to make even lesser ones of our own.