Melamine-laced Milk Scandal - Lessons For Malaysian PR practitioners in Crisis Management

The Sanlu Milk Scandal happened several thousand miles away in China and most of Malaysia's milk and milk-products manufacturers are not in the direct line-of-fire.

When the news broke some three weeks back, many were not even aware of the intensity of the fall-out - only to find themselves hit smack in the face when governments started withdrawing samples for testing and subsequently removing the suspect products off the shelves.

In Malaysia, the alarm bells rang only after Singapore had removed samples of milk and milk-related products for testing and the authorities started taking samples - 53 at first and 132 the next 24 hours - and testing them. Most of these products are household brand names. Only 7 test results were released the first 24 hours of the first sampling but the fact that these were safe and melamine free did not mean much. What about those that were tainted? Till today, the ministry did not reveal much except to say that some products are melamine-free and some questionably "within standards".

While the announcements of the testing and results were commendable, and the public relations section of the Ministry of Health must be congratulated for quickly setting up a web-based operations centre here, the usefulness of the portal was very much limited to learning which products are safe.

Consumers don't want to know which are safe. What they need to know is which are not, and if this is available, they can avoid them.

Not all products were released at specific intervals daily - for instance, there were no results released on Sept 29, two days before the main public holiday of Aidil Fitri. For two days subsequently, offices would be closed as people go on their national public holiday. Would the researchers continue working on the tests and release results daily? One wonders!

Since last week, however, the companies whose products have been taken for sampling have been kept extremely busy. While some were savvy enough to initiate crisis management countermeasures, others were still waiting for the crisis to blow over - which it would given enough time.

In the wake of the Singapore testing, one of the earliest to come up with press ads to declare their products safe was Kraft, which produced the highly popular Oreos. Dutch Lady launched its countermeasure one day earlier than the Oreos advertisement with a press conference but the news (which was carried by major news distributor Bernama) was more than a investor-relations move than building consumer confidence.

Dutch Lady Not Affected By Tainted Milk Scandal In
China

PETALING JAYA, Sept 23 (Bernama) --
Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd, one of Malaysia's leading dairy companies, does not expect any negative impact on its earnings or dividends following the tainted milk scandal in China, said managing director Hans Laarakker Tuesday.
"We believe, with the strong brand that we have and also the measures being taken, there should be no negative impact on
sales or our market share," he told a media briefing here....
More here

Couple of days later, that week's Friday, this writer had the privilege of interacting with an almost frantic public relations consultant of a prominent brand of milk and milk products. This US-based company produces infant formula mostly.

The call came at about 11am asking if a press release on the company's stand on the whole milk contamination issue had been received by the office. It was sent by fax, I was told. When I said "No, we received nothing of that sort", she sounded exasperated with a noticeable tension in her voices that I could almost swear that the first thought that flashed through my mind was that she failed to send any material and were now making up for it.

I told her she should have checked the previous, when the fax she claimed was sent. Doing so hours before the newspaper was printed would have been a less stressful thing to do.

At 11am the following day, it would take at least another 19 hours before her client's statement could see light of day - if at all editorial space provided such an opportunity.

Why not set up the notice at the client's website? And how about taking up and advertisement to ensure that the statement was published? And thereon suggested various things she could, as a public relations consultant for a multinational, could do with some creativity.

The Sanlu Melamine Laced Milk Scandal, when the fallout had done its damage, could perhaps be best remembered as one event that has tested the capabilities of public relations practitioners in Malaysia in the face of a crisis.

The ignorance of public relations practitioners of the speed with which information (and misinformation) travels in cyberspace and the need for urgency for action in the age of media convergence, can clearly be seen by the lack of the use of web tools and other tools to reassure their publics.

I do not remember seeing a Google advertisement stating products were safe by any company. Social networking tools like YouTube (reinforcing the company's safety standards, perhaps?) or Facebook (company-moderated group to discuss concerns?) were not used at all to disseminate information about companies that were in some way affected by the bad publcity generated thousands of miles away.

Crises turn into disasters when companies and their public relations people do not know how to manage it. The public relations practitioner is dutybound to safeguard the company's corporate image and the goodwill it has earned over the years. Not knowing how to respond, to act rather than react, during a crisis, or worse, ignoring it altogether, is suicidal - to both the practitioner's career and the future of company he/she represents.

I identify two main reasons for the slow engagement time.

• One: the public relations person is ill-trained to handle crisis if he/she was roped in based on good English, some reporting experience and had not undergone a course in proper public relations.
• Two: The PR arm or personnel was placed in the backseats of the marketing function (as marketing communications) and was unable to react sufficiently fast enough because of corporate red-tape.

How much a company and its earnings will suffer (whether or not its products are contaminated) is yet to be seen. But for not doing anything if its products are milk or milk related, the company stands a good chance of ending up in the book of bad public relations case studies. For the public relations practitioner who did nothing, it is time to look for another job.