A Doggone Shame - Reputation Management Expert Mike Paul and Others Offer More Reflections on the Pet Food Crisis

By Zena Olijnyk
Canadian Business magazine
April 9, 2007

PHOTO: Pebbles, the Los Angeles–area Yorkshire terrier eventually died after eating contaminated pet food.

The world's biggest public relations agencies are no match for a single photo of Pebbles, the Los Angeles–area Yorkshire terrier who died after eating pet food suspected of containing contaminated wheat gluten. Take one look at the seven-year-old pooch, lying on its side with an intravenous needle attached to its paw, and it's easy to see why Menu Foods Income Fund, the Mississauga, Ont.-based manufacturer of the pet food Pebbles ate, is being cast as one of the villains in what may be the largest-ever North American consumer-product recall. The pet food crisis started with Menu, which pulled 60 million products it manufactured under dozens of brand names (including Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba), but it's spreading to other producers like Hill's Pet Nutrition and Del Monte.

Pebbles, who died of kidney complications on March 22, has become the "poster pet" for canine and feline victims that were fed wet pet foods made with wheat gluten imported from China. Tests conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration indicate the gluten was adulterated with melamine, a chemical used in laminates for furniture. Fewer than 20 deaths have been confirmed as caused by the tainted food, but thousands of worried pet owners have called Menu or the FDA.

The situation is bad enough to prompt crisis managers to question the long-term health of Menu, which in 2006 earned $6.4 million on revenue of about $356 million, and operates in a North American pet food market worth US$10 billion. Menu, which anticipates the recall will cost more than $30 million, hired National Public Relations to give guidance on how to communicate its message. At a news conference on March 30, Sam Bornstein, a vice-president with National in Canada, kept a watchful lookout as reporters questioned Menu CEO Paul Henderson and executive VP Randall Copeland. Two police officers guarded the door.

Some communications experts suggest Menu — which makes pet food for some of the biggest consumer products companies in the world, including Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive — did not react well when alerted to trouble. "Speed, directness and transparency are important in these days of the Internet,'' says Gerald Baron, a PR consultant in Bellingham, Wash., who publishes crisisblogger.wordpress.com. "In this case, communication was too slow." Mike Paul, president of New York public relations and crisis-management firm MGP & Associates PR, agrees that Menu, and the pet food industry in general, mishandled a problem consumers first reported on Feb. 20. The recall came on March 16 — two weeks after animals used in a Menu tasting trial started to die. The lag was unacceptable, Paul says, given that pets rank second only to children when it comes to tugging at heartstrings. Companies are too concerned, he adds, about "the court of law rather than the court of public opinion."

Others suggest Menu did the best it could, given the cards it was dealt. Toronto-based public relations consultant Brian Hay points out the company voluntarily recalled its contaminated products as soon as it confirmed a problem existed, even though it didn't know the source. It then gave assurances that what was left on shelves was untainted. "The company," says Hay, "must now communicate what it's doing to ensure the problem can't happen again."

Gene Grabowski, vice-president with Washington-based Levick Strategic Communications, was hired by The Pet Food Institute, a group of North American manufacturers, to manage the recall crisis. He says the industry does have a message — the recall affects less than 1% of the pet food on store shelves — but it's tough getting the word out, given the emotions involved. "While regulators and pet food companies methodically try to find answers," he says, "consumers get frustrated."

Companies faced with a public relations disaster should understand they can't always "win" the communications battle, Grabowski says, but they can mitigate the impact. As examples of how to make the best of a bad situation, he points to the Tylenol package-tampering case of the 1980s — the manufacturer quickly recalled all Tylenol, then reintroduced the pain reliever with tamper-proof packaging — and the more recent "mea culpa" from discount U.S. airline JetBlue for poorly treating passengers stranded by bad winter weather. Crisis management, says Grabowski, is "not usually about winning, it's about managing the outcome."