Fire Fighters

E-mail hoaxes can have drastic effects on a company’s standing

Think of how much e-mail you receive each day. Now think how many your office and others receive every single day in the vicinity. Imagine how horrifying it must be for a marketer to hear that a vicious hoax about their brand is circulating via e-mail. The hot message doing the rounds on the web recently was of a tooth being kept in a beverage bottle and vanishing due to the chemical reaction. Imagine the kind of effect this would have on the company’s standing in the market!

The effectWhat happens to the company’s image or for that matter to the perceptions of consumers and others who are connected with the company?

• Loss of loyal customers.
  
• Negative publicity
  
• Effect on overall product range
  
• Competitor’s advantage
  
• Retailers and other intermediaries refuse to stock products

The PR machine of the company intervenes quashing what is being said or rather mailed. However with the web being unregulated and no body as such to govern what is being said or done, how does a company fight it out in the big bad net world? Someone with a destructive frame of mind can cause serious damage to the value of your brand! Looking at it from another point of view, it is not the people who send such messages but the people to whom it is being sent that matter.

Indians are comparatively new to the Internet. They are not advanced enough in the e-mail culture to dismiss such things as fake. A storeowner selling that beverage would be less likely to ignore his customers who demand answers based on the e-mail they receive. The speed at which e-mail allows mass communication is another problem. With a click of the mouse, half the country would think something is wrong when it isn’t. While a brand’s PR team could be quelling a handful of customers’ fears, another one thousand could be receiving the same message.

Look at the hoax spread about KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken). In January 2000, an e-mail was circulated to ten thousand making unfounded and baseless accusations about its production process. The e-mail falsely claimed that the company had cut production costs by breeding artificial birds with no beaks, feathers, or bones. It is such e-mail that can ruin a company’s reputation.

Restoration

If your brand is subjected to an e-mail hoax, what can your PR do to retaliate?
Make sure that every point of contact in the company has a clear statement to make. This should ward off the issue from your company by alluding to similar problems of other companies, and then state that the hoax is untrue by providing enough evidence.

The statement should convey a positive brand image thereby erasing all doubts in the minds of the consumers. For instance, KFC asserted, “ Our chickens are reared in traditional environment with no use of genetic manipulation or artificial nutrients.”
Offer your story to a paper. Build good press coverage, providing facts hence deterring media frenzy.

Businesses should encourage consumers to request brand information, what goes on in the making, the list of ingredients to minimise the effect of slander.

Regularly enhance the packaging copy about ingredients used in the product.

Get someone specialised in that field to endorse the product.

Influence opinion leaders and widespread media through conviction and if possible taking them on a tour about the manufacturing process.

Gaining an Advantage

The business of using e-mail constructively is still in its infancy. The net is a grey area in the context of personalised mails that cannot be tracked. Nothing can be done about it! Other than a code of ‘netiquette’ there seems to be little to restrain cyber-terrorists from spreading defamatory claims. Companies must be constantly aware of the possibility of attack and be prepared to defend themselves in an instant.

Related Reading:

1. “Crimes and Misdeminors”(1287)
Daniel Kadlec
Time, New York, October 2000

2. “Don’t be e-hoaxed”(1288)
Chris Taylor
Time, New York, 08 November, 1999.

3. “Ask Bill Gates”(1289)
Bill Gates
Management Today, London, September 1999.