Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

Now it’s General Mills' (NYSE:GIS) turn in the barrel: it just announced a voluntary recall of five million frozen pepperoni pizzas sold under the Totino’s pizza and Jeno’s pizza brands.  That's a lot of dough.  Reason: possible E. coli contamination of the pepperoni.  Eeeeuuuwww, indeed. 

There comes a time when almost every consumer product must confront the dreaded “crisis”.  For a food company, especially, the word “recall” inspires every conceivable fear and dread.  After many years in media-relations and corporate marketing, I’ve spent my fair share of time in the hot seat of spokesmanship.  Of course it’s not fun, but it goes with the territory.  Rather than see this as a disturbing trend, however, knowing how media-types love to see the world as a pattern of trends, and recalling the many recalls of so many products recently, I view it as an encouraging sign.   I also see it as an opportunity, ironically, to build the brand: show how much you care about consumer safety and product quality.

Facts are that early warning systems, rapid response and rigorous recall policies are de rigeur today as never before.  This is good.  It doesn’t break the brand promise, it reinforces it.  General Mills is a world mark.  An institution. That it is voluntarily recalling suspect packages so swiftly should reassure, not alarm.  

As far as crisis management, the tried-and-true principles apply here as well: make a high-level representative available throughout the crisis, share all details as they become available, and under no circumstances convey any whiff of news management.   Which is absolutely ironic since this is exactly what you’re doing: staying ahead of events, and not letting them manage you.  Managing is not obfuscating.

Lastly, and perhaps most important: create a page on your web site where people can engage with senior executives in real-time, hand-holding conversations.  Crisis management is all about looking like you’re managing the crisis and not the other way around.  Above all, it’s about not looking like you’re censuring the information surrounding it.  

People are going to talk about the contaminated pizza whether the pizza makers talk with them or not.  Better to be talking with them, early and often, than be talked about for not talking.