Situation: A leading manufacturer of child products was defending a lawsuit involving a toddler's death. The product involved had been voluntarily recalled several years earlier, but a daycare center still was using it. Working with the company's attorneys, Starr McCaffery's team at Edelman directed a media relations and issues management program focused on the critical issue of child safety.
Approach: In general, awareness of product recalls and voluntary safety notifications is relatively low, despite the best efforts of corporations involved and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). In fact, in this case, the CPSC included this particular product in its "Recall Roundup," a media campaign designed to remind consumers about previously recalled products, just one month prior to the child's death. The Litigation Support Communications Team worked with company executives, its attorneys and directly with CPSC to send out another news release. The announcement received attention of prominent news organizations such as NBC-TV's "Today Show," ABC-TV's "World News" and CNN's "headline News." In addition, the Team recommended proactive outreach to stakeholders including daycare centers, pediatricians, retail customers, resale shops as well as top parenting and child publications to reassure them that the company is committed to "doing the right thing" and to removing these products from circulation.
While the goal typically is to minimize coverage surrounding litigation, this challenge was an opportunity to leverage attention to the broader issue of child safety. Working with CPSC and the company's legal counsel, a direct mail campaign was put in place targeting various stakeholders. The company also doubled the reward it provides to consumers who properly return recalled products to ensure as many as possible are removed from consumer use.
Results: The consumer products company was able to communicate difficult and potentially damaging information in a clear, accurate manner. The proactive effort both strengthened the company's relations with CPSC and provided opportunity to distinguish for reporting media between the long-ago recalled version of the product and the current product by the same name with a vastly different design. Hundreds of media outlets accurately reported the consumer alert and thousands of stakeholders nationwide received information directly.
ANTI-TRUST LITIGATION
Situation: A group of corporate defendants and their internal and external legal counsel sought the support of an objective third-party communications team for a class-action suit on behalf of 40,000 corporate plaintiffs alleging price fixing. Edelman's Chicago litigation support team was hired with Starr McCaffery as the lead on the assignment.
Approach: The effort involved four main components: media analysis, message development, communication protocol and courtroom monitoring.
To develop an effective message, a comprehensive media analysis that covered four years of news reports surrounding the lawsuit was completed. Designed to help the corporate defendants to meet their goal of balanced coverage, this effort captured the actions by the plaintiffs in the court of public opinion as well as identified third-party advocates for the defendants. The end product included an executive summary of more than 200 articles, comparative findings and a matrix of media influencers regularly covering the suit, with ongoing analysis and periodic updates during peaks in coverage of the suit over the next two years. In anticipation of a proactive media campaign by the plaintiffs as court proceedings escalated, a communication protocol was developed for the defendants to collectively provide members of the press with information and assistance in a clear, consistent manner that supported both the legal and communication strategies. A system was put in place to respond to media inquiries even if the individual companies had the policy of "no comment" during ongoing litigation. This ensured the core messages were available, allowing balanced coverage rather than the media continuing to cover only the plaintiffs' perspective.
Communication professionals also attended significant courtroom events, such as opening statements and key witness testimony, and worked closely with the legal team to prepare "courthouse steps" statements in real time.
Results: The goal of balance media coverage was achieved within weeks of putting the communication protocol in place. With ongoing monitoring, we were able to identify specific reporters to whom the joint defense focused their outreach and influenced overall coverage. Ultimately, the number of defendants decreased from nearly 20 to four as the result of independent settlements. Eventually the case was dismissed by the judge.