When we think about crisis media management we naturally think of things that have gone disastrously wrong.
Terrible accidents, environmental spills, product recalls, redundancies, natural disasters and large-scale IT failures are among the likely causes of a crisis.
But as bizarre as it sounds a crisis can also be triggered by success.
Bear with me here.
Take a look at last week’s Build-a-Bear promotion which offered parents the chance to buy a bear, which can cost in excess of £50, for the price of their child’s age.
Sounds like a good deal doesn’t it? And it proved hugely successful. In fact, it was so successful it had to be abandoned amid safety concerns, reports of riots and scenes of chaos as parents with young children reportedly queued for up to eight hours.
So while the marketing team were probably high-fiving each other on a job well done, the comms team were scrambling into full-blown crisis mode.
And at a time when there were arguably some more important stories around, the teddy fiasco created plenty of unbearable headlines.
Build-A-Bear ‘pay your age’ offer abandoned amid chaos BBC News
Build-a-Bear boss apologises after pay-your-age sale causes chaos The Guardian
Get stuffed, say parents caught up in chaos over Build-A-Bear offer The Times
And social media did not make for pretty reading either:
BREAKING: Queues CLOSED at Build-a-bear Workshop in Leeds - and those in line will have four-hour wait: https://t.co/5HvpbFenRY
— YorkshireEveningPost (@LeedsNews) July 12, 2018
@buildabear @emma1885 angry and fuming, we are working parents, my wife is having to drive 100 miles after work to get to a store to take up the offer, and now we have a 2 year old in meltdown she's not getting a bear, perhaps your MD wants to consul her @BBCWatchdog #buildabear
— Dave A (@geekonaleashuk) July 12, 2018
Build-A-Bear Workshop: Where Dream Crushers Are Made. Here’s how angry parents responded to Build-A-Bear’s failed event: https://t.co/ujdVp84bhD
— Jennifer Magas (@Soul0fWit) July 13, 2018
For those who don’t know, build a bear held a pay your age event in the UK and US so the price of a bear was determined by the kids age and there were literal riots in every shopping centre in the UK, police everywhere with staff members getting assaulted FOR A BEAR!!!!!
— Laura (@LauraaaReddy) July 12, 2018
That “pay your age” @buildabear is chaotic and 10 times worse than Black Friday. They have no idea what they’re doing , they’re blocking fire exits, workers are fighting with people , everyone is yelling at each other . It looks like a fucking riot ! #ontariomills #tameyourpeople
— Izanagi (@choochoo_lok) July 12, 2018
So what can we learn from the incident?
Hope for the best, plan for the worst
No-one wants to think about the worst that can happen, but with any event or promotion it is important to think about what could go wrong as part of the planning.
Build-A-Bear has said that it ‘could not have predicted’ the reaction the promotion received. But good crisis media management is about expecting the unexpected and considering all the different outcomes.
Failing to consider and plan for negative outcomes can not only hurt an event or promotion but it can also cause longer term damage to the reputation of the brand.
Listening
As we mentioned above, Build-A-Bear believes the chaos its promotion generated could not have been predicted.
But there were clues that it was generating a large amount of interest. On the morning of the event The Sun ran a story headlined ‘Build A Bear ‘Pay your Age Day' is Today’ and there were similar versions across a number of regional publications in the UK.
On the day itself, there were huge queues outside the stores and shopping centres a long time before they opened, and there was a lot of social media chat about the length of those queues. But Build-A-Bear didn’t post anything until 10.40am, by which time it had lost control of the story.
When KFC ran out of chicken earlier this year, it controlled the crisis through its use of social media and in particular through listening to what its customers were saying on those channels.
The fast-food chain subsequently said that it could see the media angles that were coming by listening to what was being said on the likes of Twitter, and were able to react accordingly.
Statement
We don’t want to kick a bear when it is down, but its response to this crisis media management incident was pretty poor (and I’m not going to even mention the insistence on having the ‘g’ in guests permanently in capitals).
**Urgent Alert:
— Build-A-Bear Workshop (@buildabear) July 12, 2018
Per local authorities, we cannot accept additional Guests at our locations due to crowd safety concerns. We have closed lines in our stores. We understand some Guests are disappointed and we will reach out directly as soon as possible. https://t.co/aSFfPCcfsG pic.twitter.com/WZJ53tOAEH
While it acknowledged that customers were ‘disappointed’ it did not apologise for its poorly executed promotion.
Instead, the focus was very much on the excuse that the issue could not have been predicted.
It said: “We feel it is important to share that, based on the information available to us before the day began, we could not have predicted this reaction to our Pay Your Age Day event.”
If you’ve been stuck in a queue for hour upon hour, I doubt whether you really care if the chaos could have been predicted or not.
What you would like to see is a ‘sorry’ and some action to show how the issue can be prevented in future.
On our crisis media management courses, we show how statements should show compassion, action and reassurance.
Multiple spokespeople
But its response wasn’t all bad.
The company’s chief executive Sharon Price John gave an interview in America where she added some much-needed empathy to the narrative.
Speaking to NBC Today she called the problems caused by the sale ‘heart-breaking’ and said the retailer would extend the promotion through the summer.
She said: “I am sorry that we were not able to provide the service that we wanted.
“We are doing our very best and we are staying very focused on making sure that we do the best we can to make it right for people.”
Even if she did repeat the line about being unable to predict the demand, this did at least add some human warmth to the response.
But this is the only interview I can find for a crisis which covered the UK, America and Canada.
Organisations should have a number of spokespeople with recent media training that they can call on during a crisis media management incident.
If the crisis spans different regions and countries they should look to have spokespeople available across all those locations who can help meet the media demand.
Learn from the mistakes of others
We often include case studies in this media training blog because we feel they offer lessons which others can learn from.
Build-A-Bear would not have needed to have done too much research to find other examples of promotions which have been a victim of their own success.
Recent examples have included the 'Nutella riots' after French supermarket chain Intermarché offered a 70 per cent discount on Nutella, bringing the price down from €4.50 (£3.90) to €1.40
(£1.20). And who can forget the chaotic scenes of Black Friday in 2014?
You can find out more about planning for a crisis in our book – ok it’s an eBook. It includes a checklist to helping you identify the right spokesperson, messaging templates and a risk register to help you identify your organisation’s vulnerabilities. Click here to get your free copy.
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