It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye!
It was almost a year ago when we wrote this post, highlighting an innovative, effective emergency preparedness educational campaign from the Center for Disease Control.
In an effort to get people to stock up on bottled water, first aid supplies, and other hurricane-season necessities, the CDC urged people to prepare for the most outlandish of possibilities: a zombie apocalypse.
The campaign was very obviously tongue in cheek. But then this happened, and this happened, and this happened. (Warning: don’t read if you’ve got a squeamish stomach!)
Suddenly, the prospect of a zombie apocalypse doesn’t seem so laughable anymore. People are starting to get freaked out. CDC spokesman David Daigle made it clear to the Huffington Post that the “CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead,” a story that has been picked up by countless media outlets as an official denial of zombies.
The CDC did what it had to do in this situation: answer questions promptly and as completely as possible with scientifically accurate, verifiable information. By providing this information and calming fear, the CDC was fulfilling the community need for an authoritative voice on public health concerns—even the most ludicrous!
This is in alignment with their Brand Vision, and is, as such, a good decision. Barring the appearance of an actual zombie-causing virus, they’re off the hook from a PR perspective. Almost everyone believes that zombies aren’t real, and it appears that excessive drug use was far more to blame for these gruesome incidents than any potential pathogen.
But sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real. Every organization lives with the possibility of some unforeseen event causing the media to call with all sorts of complicated questions. What’s the best way to handle these situations? Brand Modeling provides the answers.
Brand Modeling
: For Bad Days and Blunders
Some day, somebody who works for your organization is going to screw things up. They’ll say the wrong thing, to the wrong person, at exactly the wrong time. You’ll be let down by your merchandise, or get caught up in a political firestorm, or make a change you think is amazing but that your customer base hates with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. (Reed Hastings, are you even listening?) Bad things happen.
It’s how organizations react to those bad things that separates the dominant organizations from every other company out there. Being on top doesn’t mean your brand never makes mistakes. Ask Apple about that. They’ve had amazing successes—and they’ve had CEO Steve Jobs on stage explaining “We’re not perfect” just days after the eagerly anticipated iPhone 4 failed to amaze.
Instead, dominant organizations thrive because they address even the largest PR disasters in a fashion that fulfills their customers expectations of how the brand should act in an awkward situation. These nuanced expectations are revealed throughout the process of Brand Modeling, which couples in-depth understanding of the unconscious cultural and psychological forces driving consumer behavior with objective analytical tools. When the model is complete, it becomes possible to predict, with a high degree of certainty, how your best customers will respond to anything you do—from opening a new location through handling the bad days and blunders that every company experiences.
There’s a significant competitive advantage to be found in the ability to predict customer behavior. When you know ahead of time what type of response your best customers will appreciate the most, you know what approach to take when responding to your PR crisis. This allows you to continually build customer loyalty and strengthen the bonds the public has with your brand. It really works. As our zombie-loving friends at the CDC would say, “That’s what happens when you use your braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnns!”