Communications as Ikor

Issue Management 2  < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

오늘은 이슈 매니지먼트의 두번째 시간입니다.

어제는 사회적 이해집단들간의 갈등요소를 어떻게 개척하느냐 하는 이슈를 소개해 드렸습니다. 오늘은 이미 생겨 버린 강력한 이슈를 어떻게 처리하느냐 하는 이슈입니다.

 

오늘도 여러분이 좋아 하실 또하나의 회사 “맥도널드”입니다.

많이 아시고들 계시겠지만, 맥도널드는 몇년전 영국에서 참 난처한 지경에 처했습니다. 몇몇 극단적인 사람들이 맥도널드에 관련된 험담을 하고 다니며, 그들의 간행물이 널리 퍼지기 시작 했기 때문이었습니다.

 

항상 기업들은 Reputation을 관리합니다. 기업 생존의 가장 근본이 되는 PR적 자산이지요. 이런 사건은 맥도널드의 Reputation에 치명적인 상처를 입히는 것 이었습니다. 아래의 사례를 보시면 어떻게 그들이 해당 이슈에 의연히 대처하였는지를 (물론 내부적 패닉은 있었지만..) 아실겁니다.

 

그이전에 저는 맥도널드의 기존 풍부한 Reputation자산이 부럽습니다.

부자는 망해도 3년 간다는 말이 있습니다.

Reputation의 부자 맥도널드가 어떻게 기존 자산을 자랑스럽게 활용했는지, 그리고 그들이 사건 이전에 얼마나 각종 이슈에 대한 대비와 함께 Reputation을 배양 해 왔는지 보시죠. PR의 재테크” 라 할까요..

 

그럼 저는 정신없이 “홍보!” ……

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IN THE U.K., THE MCLIBEL CASE IS A MCDISASTER

 

In the early 1990s, a couple of unemployed anarchists from north London distributed a leaflet accusing the world’s largest restaurant chain of poisoning its customers and the planet. McDonald’s, concerned for its reputation, embarked upon a course of action that gave the allegations a circulation of millions and resulted in a trial that is financially draining and reputationally devastating.

 

“McDollars, McGreedy, McCancer, McMurder, McDisease, McProfits, McDeadly, McHunger, McRipoff, McTorture, McWasteful, McGarbage,” says the leaflet, What’s Wrong with McDonald’s, produced by an obscure organization called Greenpeace (London) – it has no connection with the better-known Greenpeace International – chastising one of the world’s best-known companies for what it sees as a catalog of crimes against humanity. “This leaflet is asking you to think for a moment about what lies behind McDonald’s clean, bright image. It’s got a lot to hide.”

 

In some respects, the leaflet is a public relations nightmare. It accuses McDonald’s of poisoning its customers with unhealthy food – “what they don’t make clear is that a diet high in fat, sugar, animal products and salt…. and low in fiber, vitamins and minerals, which describes an average McDonald’s meal, is linked with cancers of the breast and bowel, and heart disease” – and of poisoning the environment, both through its ecologically unsound packaging and by “using lethal poisons to destroy vast areas of Central American rain forest to create grazing pastures for cattle.” The company is also responsible, the leaflet says, for starvation in the Third World, exploitation of its workers, the mistreatment of animals and the corruption of small children.

 

On the other hand, the leaflet’s hysterical tone and rampant paranoia make it difficult to take seriously. Most of the charges have been repeated elsewhere, and refuted. The mainstream media was paying little attention. And there was nothing to indicate that customers were being persuaded to stay away from McDonald’s restaurants by the charges.

 

Nevertheless, McDonald’s U.K. decided to pursue legal action against the leaflet’s authors and those distributing it. It identified a couple of suspects – unemployed Londoners who belonged to Greenpeace (London) – and hauled them into court. The company expected a relatively lengthy, by U.K. standards, trial: the initial estimate was that it could go on for 12 weeks. It did not expect to recover any damages or even its legal expenses – the two defendants are living on welfare checks and are unable even to afford their own lawyer – but it did hope to clear its name.

 

Says Mike Love, a former press officer for British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who now heads up the McDonald’s U.K. public relations department: “We ended up in court very reluctantly. It has been very much a last resort as far as McDonald’s is concerned.” He says that customers were beginning to ask questions about the allegations in the literature, and that the claims were gaining currency in schools and colleges in particular. McDonald’s, he says, believes its reputation to be an asset worth defending.

 

Whether that is the consensus view today, as the libel case enters its second year, as legal bills continue to mount and as charges which once were made in an anonymous, hand-distributed leaflet are now repeated in the national and international media, is something none at McDonald’s wishes to comment on. Executives at McDonald’s corporate headquarters in Oak Brook refer calls to the U.K. company, but newspaper reports indicate that they have flown in to London on several occasions to try to put a halt to the proceedings. The British company, meanwhile, is steadfast in support of its original decision. But elsewhere there seems little doubt that what McDonald’s did by bringing suit against the individuals now known as the McLibel Two is put itself on trial.

 

 

The leaflets had been circulating for several years before McDonald’s, in 1990, served writs for libel against five London Greenpeace activists. Three appeared in court, conceded the libel, and promised to desist. Two, Dave Morris and Helen Steel, refused to comply with the writs, and McDonald’s elected to pursue the case.

 

The U.K. company, unlike its U.S. parent, has a history of using legal action to silence critics. The labor union-funded Transnational Information Centre was forced to pulp its entire run of Working for Big Mac, a pamphlet it had published documenting the corporation’s employment practices, and as a result was forced to declare bankruptcy. McDonald’s has also served writs on national papers, including The Guardian and Today, and against Scottish trade union branches which financed a local theatre group production called Jimmy McBurgers. When Chrissie Hynde, lead singer of the rock group The Pretenders, called on fans at a Greenpeace (International) rally to petrol bomb the chain in defense of the rain forests, the company’s lawyers swiftly extracted a promise that she would not repeat those charges.

 

It is interesting to compare the litigious culture of the U.K. subsidiary to McDonald’s corporate headquarters here. Charges very similar to those repeated in the What’s Wrong with McDonald’s leaflet have been made in this country. Health activist Phil Sokolof, for example, has bought full-page advertisements in national newspapers to warn of “The Poisoning of America,” and has yet to be sued. Environmental activists have accused the fast food chain of playing a part in the destruction of the rain forests, and there was a long-running campaign, including a children’s boycott, against the company’s use of polystyrene packaging.

 

The company’s response has generally been to enter into dialogue, to appear responsive and responsible. As the American public’s obsession with nutrition grew, McDonald’s was one of the first to provide nutrition information to customers, and won the support of the Society for Nutrition Education for an advertising campaign that featured Ronald McDonald and an animated character called Willie Munchright talking about “sometimes” foods – cake, cookies and potato chips – and “everyday” foods such as rice, bananas and corn.

 

In the environmental arena, the company issued instructions to its suppliers that it would only accept beef from cattle reared on long-established ranches, and met with the Environmental Defense Fund to create a ground-breaking agreement under which it replaced its polystyrene clamshells with paper packaging and invited the EDF to monitor and report on its environmental policies.

 

” I think their proactive approach to public relations in the U.S. is a model for other corporations trying to figure out how they should deal with outside constituencies,” says David Drobis, chairman of Ketchum Public Relations, which does no work for McDonald’s. “They are very rational, very responsible.”