Storytime, Laddies

With the required blogging coming to a tragic end, and with summer vacation lurking its beautiful face around the corner, I would like to share with you all the greatest display of public relations crisis management situation of all time.

It all started in Australia in June of 2005 when some terrorist wanted money from a casino. He wrote letters to MasterFoods, AKA Mars, inc. (you know, those candy guys) threatening that he had places seven (7) poisoned candy bars on the shelves of stores all over New South Wales in Australia.

What did MasterFoods do? They first looked into it to make sure it was a real threat, which it was, and then they took every candy bar out of stores and buried them in a gigantic pit in front of the media to show everybody that safety comes first. They took products off of the shelves for almost a month, and because they handled the crisis so well, when they were put back in stores sales actually increased. BY 250%!!!!

They lost tremendous profits in the short term by destroying much of their inventory, but gained in the long term by remaining truthful, open and honest with the public.

Check it out yourself if you don't believe me.

It is a great example of relating to the public.