Issue: Taco Bell handles an E. coli outbreak
Commentary by: David

On December 12, Taco Bell launched a print counter-offensive against the E. coli outbreak that has sickened customers in the Northeast United States, bit deeply into Taco Bell’s business nationwide and made it the butt of late night talk show jokes. As the Associated Press reports:

LOS ANGELES – Taco Bell Corp. launched a newspaper ad blitz and sent its president on a string of media interviews Tuesday to persuade customers that its food is safe — even as the cause of the E. coli outbreak linked to the fast-food chain remained a mystery.

In an open letter to customers published in USA Today, The New York Times and other newspapers, Taco Bell President Greg Creed said he would support the creation of a coalition of food suppliers, competitors, government and other experts to explore ways to safeguard the food supply chain and public health.

The executive underscored the safety mantra in media interviews, telling Associated Press Television that he had assured his daughter, a college freshman in New York, and her friends that Taco Bell food is safe.

“I can assure you, I would not tell my daughter that unless I absolutely believed it,” Creed said.

Taco Bell spokesman Rob Poetsch said the safety issue was not limited to the Mexican-style food chain.

“Based on the information we have today … we believe that this issue is not isolated to Taco Bell and that there is more need to ensure a safe food supply from the farm to the table,” he said.

This move comes before the FDA has completed its investigation of the E. coli outbreak. Dr. Dean Acheson at the FDA’s center for Food Safety told the Associated press today that lettuce was the most likely culprit (green onions having been incorrectly fingered earlier in the week but later cleared) but that the lettuce had not yet been traced back to its source.

The branding issue here is whether Taco Bell is responding appropriately to this crisis. And, more broadly, how brands ought to react to these types of crises in order to maintain brand loyalty.

On the first issue, we believe that Taco Bell may be getting ahead of itself. This is an unusual problem. As we discuss below the normal mistake that companies thrust into the media spotlight make is that they fail to respond quickly enough. The Internet and the blogosphere in particular has dramatically shortened the news cycle to the point that near-instant response is required to maintain public trust.

Taco Bell’s mistake is to announce that Taco Bell’s are ‘safe to eat in’ before the FDA finishes its investigation. Why? Without knowing the exact culprit for the outbreak (although industry experts point out that the cause is often never pinpointed), Taco Bell cannot give consumers a reasonable reassurance that it will not reoccur. It is true that Taco Bell has extensively tested its food and changed produce suppliers. And it is fair to assume that contaminated produce is responsible for this outbreak. However, until Taco Bell knows the source of the E. coli, the company cannot know if the food preparation process contributed to the spread of bacteria.

This is a slippery slope. For if Taco Bell is correct that it was tainted produce that sickened consumers the sudden PR move can still backfire? Why? Because Taco Bell cannot afford a second incident and if any food handling procedures at the chain make it more likely that future outbreaks will hit Taco Bell than competitors, the chain has sealed its own coffin.

The broader question arising from Taco Bell’s misfortunes is how other companies should respond to an emerging crisis. This advertising blog recently had a chance to speak with two marketers with Earthbound Farms, who were at the center of the spinach contamination crisis earlier this Fall.

These marketers were well educated and prepared for the crisis. They recognized that the Johnson & Johnson/Tylenol case was the classic prototype for successfully handling a tainted product issue. They also knew that Kryptonite had suffered during the ‘break my lock with a Bic pen’ scandal because they did not respond quickly enough to consumer and media concerns. And they had a crisis plan in place before the crisis actually broke. What they did not realize is that even since the Kryptonite incident, the pace of media escalation has quickened considerably. Tainting scandals, particularly those involving public health, do not linger for a week or more on the back pages of newspapers before they become big news. They reach blogs instantly and those blogs are followed by television reporters. This afternoon’s FDA announcement can make CNN or Fox news by prime time.

To respond effectively to a crisis, brands need to have a plan which can be implemented in a matter of hours. It should include the following steps:

1. Accept Responsibility – Even if events subsequently prove that the brand was blameless in an outbreak or tainting scandal (think of the finger found in a Wendy’s salad which was planted by a customer, for instance), stonewalling will hurt the brand. It is far easier to act as if it is a problem you’ve created and take responsibility for making it right. If later events prove the brand was blameless, its ethical reaction to the problem will increase brand loyalty. If it was the company’s fault then the brand will retain consumers with its forthright, straighforward acceptance of responsibility.
2. Protect the Consumer – Closing restaurants or recalling the product early can limit the damage done to the brand. Stubborn refusal to immediately recall their contact lense solution almost cost Bausch & Lomb its entire ReNu franchise.
3. Find the Truth – Getting to the bottom of the problem is critical, even if it is not always possible.
4. Prevent a Replay – Tylenol returned to the market not when the person who had adulterated the product was apprehended but when Johnson & Johnson could be sure that another person could not do the same thing. This is the best standard for knowing whether its time to step back into the water, and one that Taco Bell has likely failed.

Unfortunately for many brands, financial pressure makes it hard to live by these standards. When restaurants sit empty or millions of finished products must be destroyed, short-term margins are hit hard. But without this immediate sacrifice, the ultimate price may be paid by the brand.

Brand: Bahamas (Bahamas Ministry of Tourism)

Description:
This campaign’s centerpiece is four spots, each of which document ‘Bahamaventions’ – interventions by the family and friends of the overstressed. A vacation to the Bahamas is the therapeutic answer to each of these situations. The four protagonists are Lyle – an overloud executive, Monte – a grim-faced family man, Malcolm – a skinny, pasty white guy and Maureen – a tightly wound wife.

What Works:
The best feature of this new campaign is that it focuses not on the “Where?” of travel or the “How?” but the “Why?” Instead of just seeing pristine beaches (which all look the same in advertising), Fallon carefully lays out the argument for going on vacation in the first place. A pasty complexion, high stress levels, the tendency to snap and a grim demeanor are all good signs of someone who needs a vacation. These spots work by methodically and comically laying out the ‘before’ using living caricatures of these symptoms. Then we get the solution – a Bahamas vacation. The end benefit is the relief of the symptoms we’ve seen at the front end of the spot. There is a social rationale behind this as well as Americans on average fail to use 4 vacation days a year (up from three) and increasingly identify ‘life balance’ as a key missing element in the modern workplace.

The second element in this campaign is the use of humor to engage the audience. This advertising blog is often critical of humorous campaigns because they distract from the brand or overwhelm the value proposition of the advertising. Here, though, the humor is nicely tuned to make the point that vacation is a necessity rather than a luxury.

Finally, the ‘hook’ to this commercial from the branding standpoint is the ‘Bahamavention.’ This is memorable and intuitive. It makes the campaign ownable. The ‘reason why’ points (700+ islands, multiple types of vacations) work better because it is not difficult to tie the advertising back to the brand because of this coined term.We cannot predict whether, as Fallon Creative Director Todd Riddle hopes, ‘Bahamavention’ will make it into the cultural vocabulary the way other Fallon campaigns have (most memorably the “I’m not a doctor but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night” line). But either way we believe this campaign will help the Bahamas and prove to be a landmark for other destinations looking to build brand identities.

What Doesn’t:
This campaign attempts to own a generic end benefit. It is a risky undertaking. We understand that stress and depression are rampant, but is the Bahamas the only cure? Or even the first cure we’ll remember? It all depends on the viral strength of the Bahamavention concept. If the concept doesn’t take – meaning we never hear Jay Leno or David Letterman crack a joke about a politician needing a Bahamavention – then Fallon should seek to narrow the brand positioning. They can instead say that Bahamavention may not be the only cure for stress but it is a unique cure, and then explain why. This campaign also depends upon the carefully managed execution of humorous creative which can sometimes create problems down the line.

Branding Bottom Line:
We think Michael Richards needs a Bahamavention.

Issue: Why the Nintendo Wii is a big idea
Commentary by: David

Even if your reading is confined to the Financial Times and the Economist, you haven’t watched TV since Upstairs, Downstairs wrapped production and the highest tech game you’ve ever played is magnetic chess, you will still have heard that Sony and Nintendo both released new videogaming consoles in the past few weeks. Sony received the major weight of the media attention. The eagerly-anticipated PlayStation 3 is not only a supercomputer-in-a-box, it is the last, best hope to revive the ailing consumer electronics giant.

After popularizing the medium a generation ago, Nintendo has become a second tier-player in the videogame space. This necessitates invention, and Nintendo has begun pursuing a strategy meant to appeal to casual gamers and families rather than the hard-core gamers who seek out the Sony PS3 and Microsoft X-box 360.

In its execution of the Wii, however, this advertising blog believes that Nintendo has mined a fundamental consumer insight long ignored by the inward-looking gaming industry. This advertising blog believes that Wii will signficantly outsell the PS3 and that it will redefine the gaming experience and force competitors to adapt.

The focus of innovation in videogame consoles has paralled the development in personal computers. That is to say that it has centered on three issues: processing speed, graphics handling capability and memory. Videogame consoles are essentially high-end graphics workstations narrowly specialized to the gaming task.

This is a very technology-centric way of defining innovation. Instead of focusing on the user experience of gaming, game makers are thinking narrowly about the audiovisual experience. They have largely ignored the human-computer interface – the game controller. These controllers have two small joysticks and a plethora of buttons. Learning to use a videogame is not much simpler than learning to drive a car for the first time – but without the same real-world benefits. The results can be observed on any game forum like IGN where the core, subscriber-only content for console-game players consists primarily of ‘cheats’ – arcane strings of button combinations which unleash special moves and abilities in videogames.

This has resulted in a horrendous mis-classification of users within the industry. Gaming considers ‘core’ or ‘hardcore’ gamers to be those who are most likely to purchase games and spend the most time on them. ‘Casual’ gamers will buy less and interact less. Core gamers for console games tend to be younger. Why? Because only they have the time and the desire to master these difficult, non-intuitive game controllers. But these kids, despite the massive marketing attention lavished on them, do not have half the spending power of older gamers in their 20′s and 30′s.

This is a classic brand strategy mis-step, and Nintendo has corrected it with the Wii. The controller resembles the household object most familiar to U.S. consumers – the television remote control. More importantly, the Wii controller is motion-sensitive, meaning that instead of using a series of button commands to get the on-screen character to throw a punch, you can just hold the controller and throw a punch.

This is a revolutionary, not an evolutionary idea, and the mainstream media is reporting on it without understanding it. The revolution is that Nintendo has turned videogaming from a pursuit which is passive physically and active mentally to one which is active both mentally and physically. Even the Wall Street Journal misses the full significance of this shift in gaming, which has radical implications for parental acceptance of videogames as well as the return of the ‘other’ core consumer – older gamers with more money than time who will no longer have to struggle to understand the controller.

The Sony Playstation 3 is a technological marvel, but like the Zoot Suit or the Dusenberg, it represents the limits of a particular evolutionary line of linear thinking. The Wii reimagines gaming and will revolutionize how consumers interact with electronics beyond gaming.

The early games on Wii are not perfect, but game designers will catch on quickly. As Wii games become more intuitive and utilize the full abilities of the controller, consumers and designers alike will begin to understand the promise of active gaming. We predict that Wii will outpace any current sales estimates and both Sony and Microsoft will soon be forced to rethink their controllers. We also believe Wii will spart a long-overdue renaissance in remote control design. Even committed couch potatoes may have something to thank Nintendo for.