The Effects of Communication on “There’s a Syringe in My Pepsi Can Crises” Introduction In most cases a crises occurs at the most unexpected times. The crisis seems to take the organization by surprise and is usually reached due to a lack of a control and response system. This is apparent in the case study “There’s a syringe in my Pepsi can! ” Effective communication is the key to successful communication to the Pepsi crises. (Center, 2003) Case Background.
In this case the consumer claimed to have found a hypodermic syringe in a can of diet Pepsi. This was quickly followed by many similar reports from around the country. Pepsi immediately produced and distributed information showing that it was impossible for a foreign substance to make its way into the canning process. The president and other top managers made themselves available to the media where they explained the company’s safety measures in the canning process. Public fears were dealt with and the crisis was diffused.
(Center, 2003) Targeted Public In this case the most important publics targeted were the consumers, the press and the employees of Pepsi. The public that Pepsi was targeting was both internal and external. The internal public would consist of all Pepsi’s employees. It is important that the employees of Pepsi be confident in the product they their employer is trying to sell. If that level of confidence is not established then it would be difficult for an employee to stand behind their company’s product.
The external public targeted would consist of any individual or organization who drinks or purchases soda and the press. Individuals or organizations that purchase or drink soda need to be targeted in order to keep the business of these individuals. The press needs to be targeted in order for Pepsi to maintain a positive outlook through the media. A crisis of this nature could result in individuals choosing to purchase different brands of soda over Pepsi for the fear of finding a syringe in their Pepsi can and the press promoting Pepsi in a negative nature.
Impact of Communication This case shows that Pepsi has an effective crisis management team who did their job. This was displayed through the fact that they earned the respect of there clients and employees through effective communication. Good crisis management was used by the company taking action to get back on track as early as possible with out losing a significant amount of customers or sales due to the incident. Pepsi was able to communicate with its public effectively because of its PR campaign.
Vice President of Public Affairs Becky Madeira was able to address the news media, customers, consumers, and employees as well as local Pepsi-Cola bottle with its “One Clear Voice” approach, which informed the public of proper facts and any new updates as they arose (Center, 2003). In my opinion the communication with the public was handled as effectively as possible. PR Communication Tools Pepsi’s PR campaign involved four principles, putting the public safety first, establishing and fixing the crisis, communicating with the internal and external public on a regular basis, and taking responsibility for fixing the crisis.
The company’s strategy was to reassure the public that this was not a manufacturing crisis, what was happening was not occurring inside Pepsi’s plant (Center, 2003) The PR team used specific PR communication tools to accomplish these principles. The PR coordinator Madeira, used specific techniques to inform, influence, and motivates the public such as video news releases (VNR), press releases, charts, audio tapes, diagrams of the production process and photos for external and internal distribution.
The benefit of the VNR was that it proved to be the most effective approach to communicating with the public. The VNR was the quickest and most efficient way to communicate Pepsi’s message with the public. The risk of the VNR is that the information is out there for viewing and can not be taken back or altered. In the future some other approaches for crisis management to consider would be guiding the company through a series of worst case scenarios such as flash flood or even a terrorist attack, the company can offer checklist and field proven action tests for a quick result.
The PR department should instruct all manager and corporate executives on how best to prepare their teams for a crisis and how to deal with customers, employees, and the media in the aftermath. (Center, 2003) Alternative Option I believe that Pepsi handled the crises in a professional manner when addressing the publics. The techniques used in this article were adequate in the manner of getting the information out to all the publics. I do feel that maybe immediately following the first incident it would have been beneficial to notify the public of the syringe that was found.
Possibly getting out the information of the possible syringe finding to all the publics involved and the fact that the investigation was started immediately would have resulted in a more positive nature for Pepsi. This might have had a greater impact on the following occurrences. This information would have let the publics that filed false findings know that Pepsi was taking the matter seriously and that the investigation would eliminate the possibility of the syringe coming from within the plant facility.
Impact of Today’s Technology In the event of a crisis bad news travels fast with today’s technology. In this day and age the press has an easier and faster way of getting news to the public. The actions of crisis management have to be prepared and implemented faster now then ever. If this same crisis with Pepsi were to take place in today’s day and age and was handled in the same manor by the public relations team, then I believe the outcome would remain the same. I believe that originally the best measures possible were executed.
Conclusion Pepsi’s public relations teams established a successful strategy using effective communication between the organization and public. Madeira, managed to build an effective and comprehensive blueprint to actually avoiding potential disaster situations. This concept should be adopted by other organization to guide a company through the aftermath of a disaster. There is serious need to actively engage in crisis prevention where the first step is the prognosis of when, why, and where conflict will erupt.
These techniques do more than secure the structure of a business. They show managers and leaders how to rebuild the spirit of their employees, so that the business can be restored quickly and maybe even result in an organization that would be stronger than before. (Center, 2003).
References Center, Allen H. , Jackson, Patrick. 2003. Public Relations Practices. Managerial Case Studies and Problems, 6e. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Pearson Education Company. Retrieved October 30, 2006 from the University of Phoenix EResource MGT 438.