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3 High-Profile Rumors Which Devastated Businesses, Their Products and Their Profits: PR & Damage-Control
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The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a rumor as:
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1: talk or opinion widely disseminated with no discernible source
2: a statement or report current without known authority for its truth
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There have been many rumors which have had a very public and negative impact on businesses and products. Here are three of the most notable that I have witnessed throughout the years:
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Church’s Fried Chicken:
The following is an excerpt from a work by Patricia A. Turner, Vice Provost of Undergraduate Studies at UC Davis and also a faculty member in the programs of African and African American Studies.
"Since the early, 1980’s African-Americans have been sharing one particularly provocative story with each other. The tellers allege that the Church’s Fried Chicken Corporation is owned by the Ku Klux Klan, and that the white-supremacist organization is contaminating the chicken so that eating it will cause sterility in black male consumers. In many versions, the teller "authenticates" the story by claiming that a friend saw a television news-magazine expose on the plot. "
–Patricia A. Turner, Western Folklore, Issue 46 (October 1987)
According to the official Church’s company website’s history, the rumor had a very negative effect on profits and sales.
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Bubble Yum Bubble Gum:
In the late 1970’s, rumors began widely circulating that Bubble Yum’s soft texture was due to the addition of spider-eggs. Sales of Bubble Yum, at that time America’s best-selling gum with sales of 300 million packs in the first year alone, plummeted.
In an interview with People Magazine, company President William Mack Morris stated, “Fighting the rumor was like punching air.”
The company eventually spent hundreds-of-thousand of dollars on full-page ads in newspapers nationwide to refute the rumor. The headline read “Somebody is Telling Very Bad Lies About a Very Good Product.”
On a personal note as the writer of this article, I remember an extended period of my childhood when we completely stopped buying Bubble Yum for this very reason.
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Snapple:
In 1992, a rumor began circulating that Snapple, an extremely popular product line of soft drinks and iced-teas was owned and supported by the Ku Klux Klan.
Detractors pointed to two facts to substantiate their claims. The first was the ship on the Snapple bottle which they said was a slave ship. It was in fact a depiction of the Boston Tea Party. The second was the "K" on the bottle which supposedly was a symbol of the KKK. It is in fact a "Kosher" symbol.
Profits and sales plummeted as a result of the rumor. It took the company a long time and large financial expenditures, again ads in major newspapers, to finally quell the rumors.
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Business Rumors:
As businesspeople, we must always be cognizant of our reputations. A reputation in the business world can take years to build and only seconds to destroy. One way it can happen is by unfounded, unsubstantiated claims: rumors. It can be at the hands of a detractor, a competitor, a disgruntled present or past employee or a disatisfied customer. And as these three historical examples illustrate, they can be started by a few people, spread like wildfire, and take on a life of their own until the multitudes accept them as fact!
If a rumor does get started about our company, products or services, it is time to instantly shift into a Public Relations and damage-control mode. I am not an expert in this field, but there are many fine articles on damage control and PR.
A highly-recommended book on the subject is:
Rumors and Rumor Control: A Manager’s Guide to Understanding and Combating Rumors (Routledge Communication Series)
http://www.amazon.com/Rumors-Rumor-Control-Understanding-Communication/dp/0805838759 .
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Image credits: Rumors: islkkj at flickr.com; Church’s Restaurant: businessweek.com; Bubble Yum: costco; Snapple Bottle: realsimple
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Yonatan Maisel is a professional writer and published author. He is a history buff who enjoys long walks in the woods with his wife and Canaan dog "Halva." His business-blog, going strong for ten months now, appears here at http://www.jobshuk.com/, with updates occurring twice-a-week.
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