Case Analysis: Foster Farms

Discuss about the the use of social media in Crisis Communication.

In recent times social media has emerged as one of the most effective means of communication used by an organisation to manage a crisis situation. Crisis Communication is the information shared by organisations with affected individuals before, during and after a crisis (Coombs, 2010).  However, the impact it has differs from country to country and from culture to culture.

In September 2013, an outbreak of salmonella was reported at a poultry farm known as Foster Farms. 278 individuals were affected in California and the bacteria soon spread to other states of USA. Due to US government shut down people tried to reach Foster Farms through Facebook and Twitter for the solution to queries regarding their health and safety.  To address its consumers’ concern Foster Farms adopted a combination of two crisis communication strategies on its social media platform (Chung and Lee, 2016). Crisis response strategy focuses on crisis communication aimed to repair organisations reputation (Coombs, 2007) Technical Translation strategy on the other hand in focused on disseminating information regarding the crisis in order to reduce the feeling of uncertainty in masses (Stephens, Malone, and Bailey, 2005). In this case, managers at Foster Farms used both Crisis response strategy and technical translation strategy.

A study was done on crisis response of Foster Farms for which 20 messages issued by Foster Farms between October 7 and November 15, 2013, on their Facebook and Twitter page were analysed. It was found that Public responded more positively to technical translation strategy as compared to crisis response strategy on social media.  Foster Farms started with crisis response strategy on 7^th October and continued until 18^th October. During this time, the majority public responses were negative. But after October 18^th when Foster Farm switched to technical translation strategy positive public responses outnumbered negative ones.

Risk communication is the dissemination of information or advice from experts to public facing the threat (World Health Organisation, 2018). Uncertainty is a key factor in risk communication. In this case, when the epidemic broke public was uncertain due to their lack of knowledge about salmonella bacteria and unavailability of public health authorities. This feeling of uncertainty gave rise to negative emotions and they expected Foster Farms to provide reliable information. That is why, when Foster Farms adopted technical translation strategy it was able to create positive environment towards its communication efforts.   

Case Analysis: McDonald’s/KFC

It was finally concluded that Foster Farms should have first started with technical translation strategy and then they should have shifted to crisis response strategy. Due to technical nature of crisis with added difficulties caused due to US government shut down had put public in a state of physical and psychological uncertainty. Foster Farm’s communication directed towards reputation repair at such time lead to building up of negative public sentiments towards Foster Farms. On the other hand, when Forster Farm directed their communication towards addressing concerns of customers they received a positive response from them.

On 15^th March 2012, China Central Television relayed a video showing McDonald’s Sanlitun branch selling expired food. McDonald’s did crisis management by immediately closing the operations at the store and then by issuing a public apology on their micro blogging site. On 23^rd November in the same year, China Economic Net reported that Shangxi Lihai Group, one of the KFC’s poultry provider raised chickens to mature in 45 days. In response, KFC said in their micro blogging site that supplies from Lihai group accounted for less than 1% of total poultry supply. KFC further stated that there was no evidence against Lihai Group’s unethical operations. In December the same channel reported improper operations of another poultry supplier Liuhe Group which was accused of feeding hormones to their chicken. KFC initially denied all allegations but finally Chairman and CEO of Yum! China published an apology letter (Zhu, Anagondahalli and Zhang, 2017).

The impact of McDonald’s instant action was very positive on China’s consumers. McDonald’s apology was forwarded 17,394 times and received positive comments on social media.  On the other hand, KFC was highly criticized and attracted negative media attention due to their attitude of denial towards allegations. An Apology which came in January by CEO J. Samuel Su also was not able to turn the negative sentiments around.   

Social media plays an important role in crisis management. Today news of a crisis spreads almost instantaneously on social media and reaches large audiences at once. In order to manage crisis managers should use social media channels and keep a close eye on virtual communities on social media (Goldstein, 2017).  Social Mediated Crisis Communication model provides bases of defining major social media influencers and followers (Austin, Liu, and Jin 2011). As per the SMCC framework, influential social media creators play a key role in information dissemination during the crisis. These Social media creators act as opinion leaders for social media followers. In case of McDonald’s, it was positive tweets by Social media Influencers helped McDonald’s in maintaining its image of a powerful brand in China.

The Role of Culture in Crisis Response Strategy

It can be seen that timely action plays an important role in crisis management, especially when reputation repair needs to be done. In case of McDonald’s their swift response was supported by social media creators which worked in favour of McDonald’s. KFC, on the other hand, tried to reason with consumers by informing them of industry standards and it also tried to deny the existence of such issue. This sent a negative message to consumers and made them think of KFC as shedding off their responsibility.

Cultural Overlays:  Culture plays an important role in developing crisis response strategy. China is a collectivist country as a result communication is focused on maintaining harmony and avoiding confrontation. The no-Comment strategy is predominant in China’s strategy of risk communication. Public places high trusts on Influential Social media users. Chances of a piece of information being accepted as truth are much higher if it is endorsed by someone they know or if it is shared by Influential social media creator. The US on the other hand, places importance to the information being shared in a communication and how well the information is able to reduce uncertainty at the time of crisis (Emery and Tian, 2010). That is why when initially Foster Farms

Communication Style: In case of McDonald’s immediate apology played an important role in managing the crisis situation because given China’s overall food safety issues this apology exceeded consumer’s expectation. KFC crisis, on the other hand, involved details which were perceived to have potential risk to consumer’s health. In this situation, consumers wanted KFC to take responsibility for the unethical practices by their supplier. KFC, however, denied such allegations which further stirred negative emotions amongst consumers which were not reduced even after an apology. Role of communication in China is mainly aimed at strengthening the relationships and they avoid communications which involve confrontation.  The USA being a low context and individualistic country (Hofstede Insights, 2018) communication style is analytical where attention is given to specific details without any influence from surrounding environment. Communication style in the USA is explicit and direct unlike China (Liu, 2016). 

Channels: Social media is extensively used in China to spread information (Chiu, Ip, and Silverman, 2012). In China, if a piece of information is endorsed by an influential social media user or by someone known the chances of such information being accepted are high. From the case of McDonald’s, it can be concluded that impact of McDonald’s social media apology was so strong that report relayed by a state owned media channel was criticised for raising allegations against practices of McDonald’s. In the USA, on the other hand, Social media is a tool for sharing information and consumers are not easily influenced by social media influencers.

The Impact of Communication Style

Conclusion

From this study it can be concluded, that social media has become a powerful tool for communication during crisis and organisations need to pay attention to influential social media creators who can be individuals or virtual communities. Additionally, this report also throws light on these findings:

Firstly, Culture plays an important role in the selection of crisis response strategy. USA is an individualistic and low power distance nation and places great importance to self. In the Foster Farm’s case, when crisis communication was aimed at reputation repair, it increased the level of uncertainty regarding the outbreak and stirred negative sentiments towards Foster Farms. In a similar case with KFC China, consumers only expected KFC to assume responsibility for unethical practices of their suppliers, but when KFC denied such allegations it invited negative responses from social media.

Secondly, in case of risk communication uncertainty plays a very important role. How well an organisation’s crisis management strategy addresses the uncertainty in the minds of its consumers determines its success.

Lastly, while using a combination of strategies, always start with sharing information with the public, this will ensure them of the actions taken by the organisation to address the crisis and equip them with information which they require to be certain about their wellbeing. Never start a crisis management campaign with reputation repair communication as it sends the wrong message to the public

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