By Paul Furiga
Since the Toyota crisis entered the media spotlight, one question has dominated: Can Toyota not only fix its cars, but also its public image, so it can once again be the top manufacturer of cars sold in the United States?
Surprisingly enough, this is not a new question. And the answer to the question is not new either. I should know. The real question should be: Can Toyota repeat history?
Ten years ago, I had the challenge and the privilege of working as a member of a large internal/external communications team on a similar crisis involving a Japanese-owned company accused of manufacturing defects that led to crashes, injuries and deaths.
Watching the news and reading the accounts of Toyota’s challenges today, I am amazed by how rarely the sophisticated pundits reference the Firestone tire/Ford Explorer story that broke in 2000, literally within weeks of the 100th anniversary celebration of Firestone’s founding by one of America’s most famous industrialists, Harvey S. Firestone.
Ten years ago, the media frenzy focused on the combination of certain Firestone tires on Ford Explorers. There were reports of crashes, injuries and deaths.
While Firestone was founded by one of America’s most famous auto pioneers, by 2000, it was a wholly owned subsidiary of Bridgestone, the well-regarded Japanese tire manufacturer. Bridgestone’s purchase of Firestone some years earlier had saved the company, and with it, thousands of U.S. jobs.
All of this, much like the thousands of 100th anniversary materials that were never distributed by Firestone, mattered little as the media frenzy swirled around the Japanese-owned tire company with the famous American name.
I am not the person to compare the business facts that confronted Firestone with those confronting Toyota. However, I do have the perspective to compare how the companies have approached their similar communications challenges, and how Bridgestone/Firestone handled its challenge in a way that aided the company’s restoration.
It’s impossible to overestimate the cultural differences between Japanese and U.S. public standards of corporate accountability, even after the passage of a decade. In watching the relatively slow speed and scant content of the initial Toyota reaction to media reports, I experienced déjà vu. When our team began work with the leadership at Bridgestone/Firestone, they were unprepared for the ferocious public drubbing they took beginning on day one.
The added finger-pointing of Ford quickly blaming the Japanese tire company for the entire crisis was also something uncommon in Japanese corporate behavior. While this factor is not part of the Toyota crisis, it’s worth noting as an additional challenge that Bridgestone/Firestone leadership faced.
Like a boxer stunned by an initial punch he didn’t see coming, Bridgestone/Firestone at first found itself in a reactive mode, responding to attacks that came so fast and furious that it was challenging to break through the noise to respond. But over time, the company developed an effective strategy to manage the crisis.
It’s surprising to me that, unlike the lessons that American manufacturers of over-the-counter medications learned from the Tylenol tamperings in 1982,Toyota apparently has not learned much from the crisis that faced Bridgestone/Firestone ten years ago.
Let’s be clear: A crisis of the magnitude facing Toyota cannot be resolved overnight. It took Bridgestone/Firestone years to strategically and tactically address the firestorm that engulfed the company. Many people lost jobs, plants were closed, lawsuits were litigated and gutsy business decisions were required to restore Bridgestone/Firestone’s standing in the marketplace.
But the role of sound communications in the restoration of the Bridgestone/Firestone brand is readily apparent. I am not saying that everything Bridgestone/Firestone did with its communications was perfect. However, Toyota had ten years to learn from this example and apply the good or not-so-good.
Here are some examples:
- When in Rome . . . Early on, Bridgestone/Firestone put its top executives, who were of course Japanese, into the searing American media spotlight. This didn’t go as well as it could have, and to the company’s credit, it moved John Lampe, an American who came up through Firestone ranks, into a role as the face of the company. Toyota has moved its U.S. president, Jim Lentz, into this role but not until after an initial round of interviews that repeated the Bridgestone/Firestone pattern of a decade earlier. To succeed in this crisis requires a fluent storyteller.
- Actions not words . . . One of the first things Toyota did is unleash a massive advertising campaign proclaiming that it had identified and was fixing whatever might be an issue with its cars. Unfortunately, reports of new problems continue to hit the news. The campaign, however expensive and well made and heartfelt, is not helping. The anecdotal impression is that the problem isn’t fixed and it’s too soon to say it’s over. In crisis communications, it’s much better for someone other than you to say it’s over. Proclaiming your own victory (even in the context of an apology) seems inauthentic to many. Toyota’s story has to be seen as authentic before it can be believed.
- The long and winding road . . . It took Bridgestone/Firestone years to recover from the challenges it faced in the Explorer tire crisis. John Lampe and the executive team patiently communicated with multiple audiences and demonstrated by walking the walk that the company was coming back. This requires two-way engagement and constantly “reading the audience” to make sure your message is not only getting through, but engaging audiences in a dialogue that leads to understanding. Toyota can’t erase in a month or a quarter or a year what reputation damage has occurred. The communications strategy must be built for the long term. It’s hard to see, even for someone who’s worked in crisis communication for years, that the Toyota strategy is intended for the long haul. This has to be transparent and clearly stated, especially in the social media environment that engulfs American society in the 21st century.
For me, the vindication of the hard work that the Bridgestone/Firestone team undertook was this Feb. 19, 2003 headline in the Wall Street Journal: “Deflated: How Goodyear Blew Its Chance to Capitalize on a Rival’s Woes.” The article by Tim Aeppel provided a variety of reasons for Firestone’s rebound from its near-death crisis.
Again, regardless of how you might personally view the Bridgestone/Firestone effort, it provides lessons for Toyota.
In his play The Tempest, Shakespeare wrote that the “past is prologue.” The philosopher George Santayana wrote that, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Both quotes suggest that repeating the past can have dire consequences.
But repeating the past can also lead to success. Whether Toyota is paying attention to the Bridgestone/Firestone lessons of a decade ago is hard to tell. For everyone involved in this crisis, I hope the answer is yes. What do you think?
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Paul Furiga is president and CEO of WordWrite Communications.
March 15 2010 | Communications and Media and Public Relations and Storytelling and social media | 1 Comment »
By John Durante
For the last 18 months I have been legal caregiver for my failing 87-year-old aunt. Last year she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Her condition has recently worsened to the point where, against her protestations, I have moved her to a home specifically designed to care for patients like her. Her situation is eye opening, poignant, sad and exhausting to her, me and other family members lending support.
But all of this is a proverbial “walk through the park” when compared to our daily challenges with interpersonal communication. On a recent day, when my aunt chastised me for failing to replace the batteries in her slippers (trust me these are slippers without batteries), I sought some support group assistance. There the group leader introduced me to “therapeutic lying”.
Controversial even within mental health treatment and eldercare circles, therapeutic lying literally instructs well-intended caregivers to consider untruthfulness as a frequent communications management tactic. It’s part of an overall approach I’m now learning, which stresses redirection of Alzheimer patient questions, oversimplified talking points, a minimum of questions to the patient and the burying of linear logic and conventional reasoning in framing dialogue. As an example, if a caregiver is asked by the patient why her long-deceased parents are not visiting her one might reply, “Because they are at a place where they can’t come to see you right now.”
I am slowly warming to this tactic. My resistance has not been so much existential angst to “lying” as it is has been in adopting a 180-degree shift in the way I have long rolled as a marketing and communications professional. In my core work here at WordWrite in helping to develop StoryCraftingSM, my focus has been to create PR, marketing and business communication approaches which steer away from the traditional “sleight of hand” techniques that have long dominated our industries. I’ve relied heavily on my core professional competencies of market researcher and armchair social scientist to make these left-brained contributions. I have consistently advocated for these approaches — in both professional practice and how we informally communicate with one another. And now, all of this is hampering me in surviving my daily care-giving challenges.
It also forces me to revisit the never-ending internal struggle to separate ourselves from our work. But communication (even for communication professionals) is not just about work. It is about how we think, learn about ourselves, interact with the external world, and express our thought. And now (as my aunt’s thinking is riddled by a sad, organic disease), I must change my own form of thought expression to communicate with her. I will, and along the way, I hope to become educated about the special cases where inauthenticity (”therapeutic lying”) is needed. But I think I’ll hold fast to the idea that professional PR practice is not one of those special cases.
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John Durante is senior marketing associate for WordWrite Communications.
March 08 2010 | Communications and Healthcare and Media and Public Relations | Add a Comment »
By Deanna Ferrari
Ask any social media “expert,” and they will tell you that listening is the first and most important thing to do when entering the world of online communications. Recently, public relations pro Sarah Evans wrote the blog post “Tips for building a small business social media strategy” with quotes from Chris Brogan, social media advisor and author, and Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company. They both stressed the value of listening. But what if you’ve mastered the art of listening and have the context and conversation to execute – what’s next? The simple yet other critical component of social media: maintenance.
Imagine buying a beautiful, healthy plant. Now imagine not giving it adequate sunlight or water. What happens? It dies. A simple concept, yet so many “newbies” jumping into social media for their businesses fail to see the connection between a plant and say, a Twitter page. You set it up, you see where your audience is, you have a plan, then all of a sudden it’s six days later and you’ve only sent one tweet. Then you wonder why no one is engaging in dynamic dialogue with you and you haven’t gotten any sales leads.
One concept we stress with our clients at WordWrite is the importance of maintenance when it comes to social media. Step one is developing a weekly guide. This guide is essential in gaining success from a social media channel such as Facebook. The guide outlines how many times per day or per week you’d like to make updates, and includes a plan to reply to comments and tweets. That way, you develop a schedule and get into a routine that grows your social media profile. Another important component is keeping your content relevant. You may have done initial research, which is good, but ongoing research is key. Set aside a few hours per week to not only maintain your social media presence, but to also see what your audience is saying across all the channels in which you or your organization participate. You can use some of that time to research industry news and trends to post articles and add value to the conversation. Also, see what others are doing to gain valuable ideas of what works, what doesn’t, and what you might be able to do for your own network.
As Chris Brogan also says, now you’re ready to lay the framework down. And remember: Without maintenance, neither your plant nor your Twitter page will be able to grow.
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Deanna Ferrari is an account executive for WordWrite Communications
March 04 2010 | Business Growth and social media | Add a Comment »
By John Durante
One of my favorite guilty pleasures this time of year is watching all the old award-winning movies in preparation for this year’s round of Tinseltown celebratory bacchanals.
While recently viewing the stunningly good Network (1976), I was struck by how what once was a mockery of inauthenticity, is now itself authenticity! When it was first released, Paddy Chayefsky’s film screenplay was a biting satire of American corporate news and how it manufactures content. The film was meant to be art as a cautionary tale. Though when you view it through the prism of current story manufacturing standards (and worse) audience cynicism, Network now appears more like historical artifact. The movie offers a perspective as to how news storytellers and their corporate kingpins manufactured reality during an analog era filled with polyester clothes. In doing so, Network’s predictive accuracy about the morphing of real and not real has even exceeded its incredibly high cinematic hyperbole.
And we are the worse for it.
As art, movie newscaster Howard Beale is provocative. But as the character archetype for a today’s bevy of pseudo-journalistic poseurs, pitchmen (and women), and ham-handed ax-grinders from both sides of the political aisle, the “real-life” impersonations of the fictional Beale leave us both slack-jawed and ignorant. Our chin has struck the floor. We are disbelieving of the chutzpah we so frequently see from perpetrators in the name of news and analysis. Their “stories” are so hollow that there is barely enough heft to be cotton candy for our minds. And we are ignorant because our modern cognitions about the contemporary stories of the day are cotton-candy-like (barely). On too many issues for which the separation of real and not real is essential, we are absent of even the depth that Beale and his fictional UBS parent employed to make sure that is all fine by us. What can you say when Jon Stewart of The Daily Show is ranked as one of the most credible journalists in today’s media?
And here’s what really sucks.
All of this is has set the standard for authenticity in the marketing communication world in which businesses seek to generate real value. Authenticity in crafting stories and delivering business value is fine. But the temptation is to ask: Wouldn’t it be better to do something to get more attention? You know, be a little outrageous, maybe like Howard Beale?
Of course the answer to these questions should most often be a resounding no. But this is rarely heeded. My brand is not well understood? My R&D outcomes need to be positioned differently? Well OK, but that lacks the kind of pizzazz I want. Let’s be outrageous!
And on and on it goes, where nothing short of grabbing an audience by their mental lapels seems to be worth the marketing effort. And like all lapel-grabbing, any benefit is extremely short-lived.
This means that the Beale tale or “art becoming life” is just another daily marketing challenge where we must decide between professionalism and pandering.
But our constant toying with this ever-flexing line of real and fake stories means it becomes increasingly difficult to know (or even passively recognize) the real from the not real.
Marketers know this is a problem, and so do the businesses that hire them. Most important, so do the audiences that marketers and businesses hope to engage. This is a fundamental reason why trust in advertising is at a nadir and why social networks have become a go-to venue for honest, though not comprehensive, appraisals of products and services.
As a marketer or business leader, the next time you wish to channel Mr. Beale and are “…as mad as hell and can’t take it any more,” think about all of this and channel something else. Move that anger into advocacy for authenticity about the way we work and the stories we tell.
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John Durante is senior marketing associate for WordWrite Communications.
February 25 2010 | Communications and Media and Public Relations and Storytelling and social media | Add a Comment »
By Jason Snyder
Tiger Woods’ first statement about his multiple affairs at 11 a.m. Friday, Feb. 19, came about 80 days too late. Although he said many of the right things, he would be in a better public position today had he said them immediately after news broke.
Tiger said he was deeply sorry for the irresponsible and selfish behavior in which he engaged and asked that people one day believe in him again. But the things he was critical of — fabricated domestic violence stories, things written about his family, the media’s persistent digging for information — all could have been quelled months ago.
Even before Tiger made his statement, it was clear his strategy for the day was in keeping with his poor overall crisis plan: say as little as possible and hope for the best.
Effective crisis communications involves getting in front of the issue to proactively manage it, not a silent, elusive, evasive strategy that attempts to control it.
The morning of his mea culpa, an editor from People Magazine said Tiger “has done a masterful job of keeping everything under wraps.” It was difficult to tell whether she was a publicist on his payroll or a true journalist, but I know most reporters’ barometer of skepticism climbs high when their questions are met with silence. And I know for sure journalists don’t like to be manipulated or controlled, as Tiger did to them with his “press conference” ground rule of no questions.
The Golf Writers Association of America sure doesn’t like that. Kudos to them for boycotting the contrived event, where the hand-picked audience watched Tiger read his script in a controlled setting.
Under those parameters, many will ask where’s the credibility in not answering questions and not allowing the press if your apology is authentic and sorrow is genuine?
And these are just a few of the missteps Tiger has made over the past three months. What in your mind are the biggest? What, if anything, should he do differently?
Tiger may go on to win millions more and rise once again to the top of his game. But he will always have an asterisk hanging over him as the sex-addicted celebrity who believed silence would make everything go away. It was and is the wrong strategy for anyone who hopes to repair an image that is in danger of being forever tarnished.
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Jason Snyder is vice president of WordWrite Communications.
February 19 2010 | Communications and Media and Public Relations and Storytelling | Add a Comment »
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