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Crisis response strategies for the feed industry
21 Plays1 year ago
Susan Miller, 5MetaCom's public relations director, shares insights into how internal and external communications should be managed before, during and after an incident.
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Transcript
Introduction to Feed Strategy Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hi everyone, welcome to Feed Strategy Podcast.
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm your host, Jackie Remke, Editor-in-Chief of Watts Feed Brands.
00:00:18
Speaker
This edition of Feed Strategy Podcast is brought to you by FeedStrategy.com.
00:00:23
Speaker
FeedStrategy.com is your source for the latest news and leading edge analysis of the global animal feed industry.
Crisis Communication Strategies with Susan Miller
00:00:32
Speaker
Today we're joined by Susan Miller, Five Medicom's Public Relations Director.
00:00:37
Speaker
She's here to offer tips for how to properly handle external communication after a crisis.
00:00:43
Speaker
Hi Susan, how are you?
00:00:44
Speaker
I'm great, Jackie.
00:00:46
Speaker
Thanks for having me on the show.
00:00:48
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:00:48
Speaker
Thank you for taking the time.
00:00:50
Speaker
So why don't you tell us a little bit about your background in general and then also in the agri-food space?
00:00:59
Speaker
Sure, absolutely.
00:01:00
Speaker
As you mentioned, I'm the director of public relations at Five Medicom.
00:01:04
Speaker
So I work with companies in the B2B space.
00:01:07
Speaker
Sometimes people don't think that's agribusiness, but really it's all types of technical and scientific companies.
00:01:13
Speaker
So it's a pretty broad range of businesses.
00:01:17
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I've worked with a number of companies in the animal health space in terms of technology, in terms of nutrition.
00:01:23
Speaker
And I have a real passion for media relations, but sometimes part of that media relations work
00:01:29
Speaker
comes with crisis situations.
00:01:31
Speaker
You know, they're not always those positive, happy stories that we get to talk about.
00:01:35
Speaker
Sometimes there are some hard questions.
00:01:37
Speaker
So I'm really excited to talk about that today.
00:01:40
Speaker
Right.
00:01:40
Speaker
And I'm sure our listeners will find this discussion helpful.
00:01:44
Speaker
You mentioned that you've dealt with these sorts of situations or a variety of situations
Understanding Crises in Agribusiness
00:01:50
Speaker
before.
00:01:50
Speaker
What are the most common types of crises that you've seen in the agribusiness arena?
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:58
Speaker
Sure.
00:01:58
Speaker
You know, Jackie, crises come in all types.
00:02:01
Speaker
It's everything from chemical spills to fish kills to dust explosions and product recalls, but they generally fall into two primary categories.
00:02:12
Speaker
You have sudden crises, which, as the name implies, typically happen without warning, and they tend to be more common.
00:02:19
Speaker
Workplace accidents are a good example, violence, tornadoes.
00:02:25
Speaker
And then in contrast, the second type of crisis category are those smoldering crises.
00:02:31
Speaker
So some examples of those might be, say, a member of management's involved in a drunk driving incident, or maybe there is some financial malfeasance.
00:02:41
Speaker
In either case, though, Jackie, hope is not a strategy, right?
00:02:46
Speaker
And you've got to have a plan ready to go.
00:02:49
Speaker
And that plan should really consider what I call the three P's, both preparation and a process for getting that plan out there to your audience.
Crisis Preparation and Spokesperson Readiness
00:02:59
Speaker
I want to dig in a little into those three P's and what the communication strategies look like and how they may differ between those two different types of crises.
00:03:12
Speaker
Sure.
00:03:12
Speaker
Well, let's talk about people first.
00:03:14
Speaker
I think that's the most important part is you've got to have the people identified in advance of when all craziness breaks out.
00:03:23
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So determining who those spokespersons are that are going to address your different stakeholders.
00:03:30
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So that could be the media.
00:03:32
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It absolutely has to be your employees, your suppliers, your customers.
00:03:36
Speaker
So identifying those people.
00:03:38
Speaker
But then the second part is preparing them before a crisis.
00:03:44
Speaker
And this is a little easier to prepare with a sudden crisis because you can anticipate that the crisis, I think a little better than some of the smoldering things where privacy and legal issues are involved.
00:03:56
Speaker
But regardless, prepare your people.
00:03:59
Speaker
We do a lot of work at Five Medicom where we work with people to determine, all right, in various scenarios, what is it that we want to say and how do we say it?
00:04:10
Speaker
So we do a lot of workshops, a lot of role playing to help people feel comfortable developing messages that are accurate, brief and clear.
00:04:21
Speaker
And getting around to when a crisis breaks, really acknowledging what's most important that needs to
Crafting Crisis Communication Plans
00:04:28
Speaker
be addressed.
00:04:28
Speaker
You know, the interesting thing about a smoldering crisis is many times they don't come to light, but when they do,
00:04:37
Speaker
The drawback is you have a lot less sympathy or empathy.
00:04:41
Speaker
Everyone can feel bad for the company that was hit by a tornado, but there tends to be a lot less sympathy if perhaps there was some financial malfevens on the part of a company.
00:04:53
Speaker
So those are some differences.
00:04:55
Speaker
And for smaller suppliers or manufacturers who may be
00:04:58
Speaker
have a limited budget for PR or maybe this just isn't on their radar until it is.
00:05:08
Speaker
What are the essential elements of these crisis communication plans that they should have in place?
00:05:14
Speaker
Again, without the resources of working with an agency before something happens.
00:05:21
Speaker
Right.
00:05:21
Speaker
You know, there are some great tools out there.
00:05:24
Speaker
There's some great ad communication departments throughout the nation.
00:05:27
Speaker
But a document that I find is really useful is the crisis communication template developed by Healthy Farms, Healthy Agriculture.
00:05:36
Speaker
And your listeners can find that at healthyagriculture.org.
00:05:41
Speaker
This document helps users identify, first of all, the severity of the crisis.
00:05:47
Speaker
But what I love about it is it provides multiple templates for contacting all the different stakeholders you need to keep in mind, ranging from employees and local officials to
00:05:57
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Dr. Lisa Chavez- legal counsel suppliers media and potentially even consumers and then the thing that makes it even better, and I promise i'm not getting a free resource is.
First 24 Hours: Crucial Crisis Actions
00:06:07
Speaker
Dr. Lisa Chavez- It breaks the template down so that people can look at here's what needs to happen in the first hour, the first three hours.
00:06:15
Speaker
the first 24 and 48 hours.
00:06:17
Speaker
So it's a great free resource.
00:06:19
Speaker
So can you walk us through what those first 24 hours of the response might look like?
00:06:25
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So hypothetically speaking, let's say a contamination issue with a widely distributed additive, how would that be taken care of?
00:06:36
Speaker
Sure.
00:06:36
Speaker
Now, remember, we talked about ideally you will have prepared before the first 24 hours of the incident.
00:06:42
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So you'll already have a media list, a customer list, notification list in place, and just as important, the individuals that are going to be serving as spokesperson.
00:06:56
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The next thing you'll want to do once you've got those lists is communicate with leadership, let them know what your plan is, that you have a plan in place, and then start working on that holding statement.
00:07:07
Speaker
Essentially what a holding statement is, is a document you use while the situation is still being assessed and understood, but you don't know all the details.
00:07:18
Speaker
And typically a holding statement will say, you know, here's what we know.
00:07:23
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For example, a recall has occurred.
00:07:27
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It involves these plants.
00:07:29
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It was announced at this time.
00:07:32
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Here's what we're trying to resolve.
00:07:34
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You know, we're collaborating with these partners in
00:07:36
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supply chain, assess the situation and mitigate the issues.
00:07:41
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And then third, here's what you can expect as it relates to your business interest.
00:07:45
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Perhaps that's a website or a specific 800 number that you call, but just something to get out there because you can bet as soon as word of that gets out, the media is going to be knocking on your door as well as those employees that may have questions.
00:08:02
Speaker
You know, in that first 24 hours, you're working as fast as you can, but do be prepared for criticism, even when you're doing everything right.
00:08:09
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And I was thinking about the incident this summer with the CrowdStrike CEO, who came under a lot of criticism when airlines and banks had issues because of a software update.
00:08:22
Speaker
And LinkedIn just lit up with people saying, it's been 24 hours and he hasn't apologized yet.
00:08:29
Speaker
And if you look at what the guy was doing, he was in triage mode and he made an apology just in the 24 hours, which was when people said it took him 24 hours to make an apology.
00:08:40
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But you need to think about what's the most important thing you need to do, right?
00:08:44
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And I think 24 hours is an acceptable amount of time to make a statement.
00:08:49
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And the other thing that was important was he didn't apologize until he had enough facts that he could assess the company's involvement in it.
00:08:57
Speaker
Sometimes people are too quick to say we're sorry.
00:09:01
Speaker
And perhaps we'll have a chance a little bit later in the conversation to talk about, you know, how do you respond when you really can't comment?
Social Media's Role in Crisis Management
00:09:08
Speaker
You mentioned LinkedIn.
00:09:10
Speaker
How have you seen during your career how social media has changed the landscape of crisis communication?
00:09:18
Speaker
Personally, my greatest fear is going viral for something that I wouldn't want to go viral for.
00:09:24
Speaker
And, you know, kind of looking at that where everybody is connected and sharing their opinions.
00:09:32
Speaker
What strategies do you recommend for managing your online reputation after
00:09:38
Speaker
the worst happens.
00:09:40
Speaker
Yeah, those algorithms have made it ever so much easier to get into trouble.
00:09:46
Speaker
But I think the most important strategy is to monitor what's being said on the social platforms.
00:09:52
Speaker
And ideally, you'll have a digital native involved in listening.
00:09:57
Speaker
You know, there's a lot of great tools out there in the market that will factor in sentiment.
00:10:03
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not only see the content out there, but assess it and identify what may be bubbling to the surface as a more serious concern in the community.
00:10:14
Speaker
And it is serious.
00:10:15
Speaker
The World Organization for Animal Health has reported that social media and agribusiness has the impact both trade as well as food security.
00:10:25
Speaker
So it's not simply a matter of annoying trolls out there.
00:10:30
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It's a real business concern.
00:10:34
Speaker
But you asked, how do you handle that?
00:10:37
Speaker
Certainly you monitor and become aware of it.
00:10:40
Speaker
But there's the old saying about, you know, don't wrestle with a pig because you'll get dirty and the pig will enjoy it.
00:10:48
Speaker
It's really important that you're able to take that conversation offline and to not engage.
00:10:54
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There are certainly opportunities through town hall situations.
00:10:59
Speaker
those can be virtual or in person to have a conversation with the right voices in the room.
Internal Communication and Media Handling
00:11:08
Speaker
What role do you think employees should play in a crisis?
00:11:13
Speaker
Obviously, the PR folks and upper management has some level of media training.
00:11:20
Speaker
How do you prepare everyone else in the company for potential media interactions?
00:11:26
Speaker
Well, I think it's very important that you make it clear when you mentioned media that everyone understands the process for directing those media inquiries to the folks who can have the conversation.
00:11:38
Speaker
So that when that truck shows up at the feed mill security gate, that person there at the guard shack knows who he or she can direct that question to.
00:11:50
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So that goes back to having a process.
00:11:53
Speaker
You know, sometimes people think, oh, employees don't need to know.
00:11:56
Speaker
But those folks go home every night.
00:11:58
Speaker
They have dinner at the family dinner table.
00:12:01
Speaker
They talk at the union hall.
00:12:03
Speaker
They grab a beer at the corner bar.
00:12:05
Speaker
So it's essential that they have some talking points and be communicated to.
00:12:09
Speaker
And as you're communicating with them, let them know here are the channels that you can access to direct those immediate questions.
00:12:18
Speaker
I had an opportunity early in my career to learn from just a great gent in communications.
00:12:25
Speaker
He had previously served as
00:12:27
Speaker
Lee Iacocca's right-hand man for communications with Chrysler when they were going through all of their issues.
00:12:34
Speaker
And he was called in as I was working with an automobile component manufacturer in a fish kill situation.
00:12:43
Speaker
We had the automotive union involved and it was kind of crazy.
00:12:48
Speaker
And management wasn't sure how much they wanted to even tell employees there was a problem.
00:12:54
Speaker
And this gent said, Susan, in any crisis, there are three things you absolutely have to do.
00:12:59
Speaker
You have to tell the truth, you have to tell it fast, and you have to tell your employees first.
00:13:05
Speaker
And across any number of crises I've been involved with, I've seen there's tremendous wisdom in that.
00:13:11
Speaker
So those folks may not be communicating the message.
00:13:14
Speaker
And if you don't tell them, especially now, there wasn't social media in my day, you know, they're going to get it through other channels.
00:13:22
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:13:22
Speaker
How do you balance that need for transparency when there are potential legal consequences or considerations where there might be cases involving potential liability or saying the wrong
Legal-Sensitive Communication Techniques
00:13:36
Speaker
thing?
00:13:36
Speaker
How do you kind of balance that?
00:13:40
Speaker
You know, liability is a topic that I'm going to leave to the attorneys because they know a lot more about that than me.
00:13:48
Speaker
But I think we've all seen those awkward situations, Jackie, on the six o'clock news where the person comes out of the courthouse and they say, no comment, and they immediately look shady.
00:13:59
Speaker
So there is an alternative to no comment, and it's what I call the why plus what formula.
00:14:06
Speaker
That comes down to explaining why you cannot comment.
00:14:11
Speaker
or speculate at that time, but sharing what information you can provide.
00:14:17
Speaker
So let me give you an example.
00:14:19
Speaker
Let's say that you had a spill involving a toxic ingredient, and you're asked if that spill could leach into the grounds and contaminate the ecosystem.
00:14:31
Speaker
You might start by explaining why you can't comment, and certainly you don't want to speculate.
00:14:36
Speaker
You might say, well, as the authorities are still conducting their work,
00:14:40
Speaker
We can't speculate on the situation blank why, but then you get around to the why.
00:14:45
Speaker
What we can tell you is we're collaborating with environmental agencies to assess the situation and prioritize safety.
00:14:53
Speaker
The why plus why is just a really great way of avoiding that no comment.
00:14:58
Speaker
And there are certain things people will always respect.
00:15:02
Speaker
Employee privacy, health, safety, even an abundance of caution will be well received.
00:15:09
Speaker
Great.
00:15:10
Speaker
Now, what are those common mistakes that you've seen agri-food companies make in their crisis communications?
Common Mistakes in Crisis Communication
00:15:19
Speaker
Probably the biggest one is just not having a plan and losing precious time by trying to put a plan together.
00:15:25
Speaker
Another one is over-educating the reporter.
00:15:30
Speaker
And we have a lot of really smart people in agribusiness, nutritionists and veterinarians and
00:15:37
Speaker
Folks that have a lot of detail and sometimes they want to share all of that information with a reporter.
00:15:43
Speaker
But it's important to remember you need to talk at a high level because when you're quoted, especially in print, a very small portion of what you share is actually going to make it onto the page.
00:15:53
Speaker
In fact, the Wall Street Journal had done a study many years ago and they analyzed hundreds of quotations in newspapers.
00:16:04
Speaker
to see how long the average quote is.
00:16:07
Speaker
Any idea, Jackie, how many words make it into the quote?
00:16:13
Speaker
Oh, 10.
00:16:13
Speaker
Oh, that's even worse than what turned out to me.
00:16:17
Speaker
It tended to be around 26 words.
00:16:19
Speaker
So those words go pretty quickly.
00:16:22
Speaker
So, you know, I've seen situations where an expert will come in and give a very detailed explanation and reporters are
00:16:30
Speaker
tend to be generalists.
00:16:31
Speaker
And so they'll, you know, miss really kind of the golden nugget in there and pick up something that was simpler.
00:16:38
Speaker
So I think another common concern is just over-educating the audience.
00:16:44
Speaker
So for multinational feed companies or feed suppliers, how would you adapt these strategies across the
00:16:53
Speaker
culture or countries, cultural differences, different regulations.
Cross-Cultural Crisis Communication
00:17:00
Speaker
How is that typically addressed aside from having, you know, folks on the ground in these regions?
00:17:08
Speaker
Yeah, it is really important.
00:17:09
Speaker
You just hit the nail on the head to work with a local operating company because they're going to have that working knowledge, the relationships with local business, the regulatory officials.
00:17:21
Speaker
So
00:17:22
Speaker
You know, don't try to come in from an ivy tower and manage from a car.
00:17:25
Speaker
The local operating company is huge.
00:17:28
Speaker
But you also brought up, you know, there are the nuances of the culture itself that's so important.
00:17:34
Speaker
And this is a value call, but, you know, sometimes there's a place for humor or even self deprecation.
00:17:41
Speaker
But it certainly has to be more of a lighthearted incident when you use that approach.
00:17:46
Speaker
And I'll give an example.
00:17:49
Speaker
kind of a fun story from way back in 2018 in the UK.
00:17:53
Speaker
There was a logistics issue with some warehouses that left many KFC franchises without any chicken, you know, maybe going into a KFC and there not being any chicken and understandably people were upset.
00:18:06
Speaker
So, and there was grumbling on social media.
00:18:09
Speaker
Well, the company took out a full page ad and they transposed the letters on their iconic red and white striped buckets from KFC
00:18:19
Speaker
to FCK.
00:18:21
Speaker
So pretty provocative there.
00:18:23
Speaker
And then the ad went on to say under that headline, you know, a chicken restaurant without any chicken, it's unexcusable.
00:18:29
Speaker
We plan to do better.
00:18:31
Speaker
So they apologized right there in print.
00:18:34
Speaker
But it played well in the press, quite honestly, I think it got them some exposure as just being an accessible company that owned up to their mistakes.
00:18:44
Speaker
But running out of chicken is a lot different than a fire, an accident or
00:18:49
Speaker
or loss of human life.
00:18:51
Speaker
And that's where at the other end of the spectrum, just kind of the gold standard textbook for crises work comes out of Johnson and Johnson, the makers of Tylenol.
00:19:03
Speaker
And this has been goodness, maybe more than 40 years ago, but the story still stays in the crises PR books.
00:19:10
Speaker
Yeah, because, yeah, they made the decision to pull 31 million bottles of Tylenol from stores after there were seven deaths attributed to cyanide lace capsules.
00:19:22
Speaker
And they thought all along that the products were tampered with at the store shelf level.
00:19:26
Speaker
but they weren't gonna take that chance.
00:19:28
Speaker
They weren't under any requirements by regulatory authorities, but they voluntarily pulled 31 million bottles of product.
00:19:36
Speaker
And I would argue that the halo effect they had from doing that, you know, was just invaluable.
00:19:43
Speaker
It's still just kind of the gold standard of that abundance of caution we talked about.
00:19:48
Speaker
So you need to look at, you know, the local culture, but also how severe is the,
00:19:54
Speaker
is the crisis.
00:19:55
Speaker
And there's a big difference between running out of fried chicken and loss of human life.
00:20:01
Speaker
Excellent.
00:20:01
Speaker
Now, when the crisis is not related to
00:20:07
Speaker
the death of humans or customers or destruction of facilities.
00:20:14
Speaker
What about when it's impacting the health and welfare of animals?
Animal Welfare and Third-Party Relationships
00:20:18
Speaker
So obviously PETA is very active in the other animal rights groups in capturing bad actors and
00:20:29
Speaker
you know, publicizing that as the face of the industry.
00:20:32
Speaker
How should these sorts of considerations be taken into account when communicating with the public and stakeholders?
00:20:44
Speaker
You know, I think it's really important to build relationships with third party trusted sources that can come alongside you.
00:20:52
Speaker
So think about your veterinarian, your university extension office, potentially industry associations that are allied with your business.
00:21:02
Speaker
They can bring objectivity and an independent voice to the process.
00:21:06
Speaker
As I mentioned before, the agribusiness community is full of really smart people.
00:21:12
Speaker
And they're experienced in communicating with these types of groups almost always.
00:21:17
Speaker
So this won't be their first rodeo.
00:21:20
Speaker
You know, these groups have been out there for a long time.
00:21:23
Speaker
And these associations and universities have folks that can come alongside you.
00:21:27
Speaker
That's part of it.
00:21:29
Speaker
I think another thing you can do is, you know, people are going to check out your website.
00:21:33
Speaker
They're going to ask for more information.
00:21:35
Speaker
You know, if you can maintain a library of images, photos, video, B-roll,
00:21:42
Speaker
that show and document good animal husbandry practices on the farm.
00:21:47
Speaker
You know, they say a picture tells a thousand words.
00:21:51
Speaker
It will really help you in supporting your communication.
00:21:56
Speaker
So technology is rapidly changing as far as AI, of course, social media and other
00:22:06
Speaker
macro trends that are impacting the industry and consumers in general.
Emerging Topics: Zoonotic Diseases and Sustainability
00:22:13
Speaker
How are there any emerging trends that you have on your radar that you think could impact existing crisis communication plans?
00:22:23
Speaker
You know, I think two things we need to be cognizant of as we go back to that preparation step and kind of anticipating what problems might
00:22:33
Speaker
arise.
00:22:34
Speaker
One is zoonotic disease outbreaks.
00:22:38
Speaker
You know, it's interesting the CDC One Health page states that three out of every four new or emerging infectious diseases come from animals.
00:22:47
Speaker
And the media always loves something new.
00:22:49
Speaker
So I've seen, you know, reports about all right, crocodile farms are introducing West Nile virus or, you know, minks are associated with COVID-19.
00:22:59
Speaker
I think in this pandemic world, we're going to continue to see
00:23:03
Speaker
a focus on the zoonotic disease threats.
00:23:06
Speaker
And then the second thing is just the continued awareness of environmental sustainability.
00:23:14
Speaker
In the last couple of years, we've been seeing protests from farmers in Europe who are blocking roads and engaging in actions to oppose what they perceive to be draconian environmental legislation affecting their license to operate.
00:23:29
Speaker
So I think that will continue
00:23:33
Speaker
to be an issue for everybody in agribusiness to think about.
00:23:37
Speaker
And, you know, at the end of the day, it comes down to the challenge of crises situations require an ability to communicate with science as well as emotion.
00:23:48
Speaker
And the feed industry has an awful lot of smart people who understand the science.
00:23:53
Speaker
The emotional part can sometimes be a little harder to navigate.
00:23:58
Speaker
Thank you so much, Susan.
00:23:59
Speaker
You've shared a lot of excellent information here.
00:24:03
Speaker
Any other resources or final thoughts that you'd like to share with the audience?
00:24:10
Speaker
You know, I think it all goes back to, in all crisis situations, planning and preparation before a crisis strikes, whether it's a sudden crisis or a smoldering one.
00:24:22
Speaker
can go a long way towards making that very uncomfortable process, maybe not comfortable, but certainly more manageable.
00:24:32
Speaker
Very good.
00:24:33
Speaker
Well, thank you so much again for your time.
00:24:36
Speaker
And thanks to you for tuning in.