In early June 1999, some primary and secondary school students in Belgium and France were poisoned after drinking the American beverage Coca-Cola. A week later, the Belgian government issued a ban on the sale of various brands of beverages produced by Coca-Cola Company in the country.

The Coca-Cola Company, which has a history of 113 years, has suffered a major crisis rarely seen in history.

In today's highly developed modern media, corporate crises can be spread quickly and widely in a short period of time, and its negative effects are conceivable. The impact across the country and even the world in a short period of time will surely arouse great concern from society and the public. A little carelessness will cause a devastating blow to the corporate image and brand reputation, and its intangible assets will depreciate in an instant. This is fatal to the survival and development of enterprises.

On June 17, 1999, Ivest, CEO of Coca-Cola Company, made a special trip from the United States to Brussels, the capital of Belgium, to hold a press conference here. On that day, a bottle of Coca-Cola was placed on every seat at the venue. When answering reporters' questions, Ivest, the CEO who took office two years ago, repeatedly emphasized that despite the current events, Coca-Cola is still a first-class company in the world and will continue to produce products for consumers. First class drinks. Interestingly, most reporters did not drink the bottle of Coke given to the attendees.

Later Coca-Cola’s publicity campaign showed that the press conference was just a prelude to their crisis public relations work.

The day after the press conference, that is, June 18, Iveste appeared in various newspapers in Belgium - he carefully explained in an open letter to consumers signed by him The letter also made various guarantees and offered to send a bottle of Coke to every household in Belgium to express the Coca-Cola Company's apology.

At the same time, the Coca-Cola Company announced that it would withdraw all Coca-Cola sold in Belgium during the same period, announce the investigation and test results as soon as possible, explain the scope of the accident, and refund compensation to consumers. Coca-Cola also said it would reimburse the medical expenses of all customers who were poisoned. Coca-Cola executives in other regions, such as the Chinese company, also announced that its products had nothing to do with the Belgian incident and that market sales were normal, thereby stabilizing the hearts of people outside the accident area and controlling the spread of the crisis.

In addition, Coca-Cola Company has also set up a dedicated hotline and opened a special web page on the Internet for Belgian consumers to answer various questions raised by consumers. For example, what is the scope of the impact of the accident, how to identify newly shipped Coke and contaminated Coke, how to obtain refunds, etc. Throughout the incident, Coca-Cola Company firmly grasped the source of information release, prevented the spread of erroneous crisis information, and minimized the loss of the corporate brand.

With the deepening and expansion of this public relations campaign, Coca-Cola's image began to gradually recover. Soon, some residents of Belgium began to receive coupons from Coca-Cola Company, which read: "We are very happy to inform you that Coca-Cola is back on the market." The children were happy with the coupons issued by Coca-Cola Company to each family. People often receive free Coke from the mall: "I can drink Coke again." In the mall, you can also see people buying boxes of Coke.

The poisonings subsided and Coca-Cola returned to store shelves in Belgium and France.

In only 10 days from the first accident to the issuance of the ban, Coca-Cola's stock price fell by 6%. According to preliminary estimates, the Coca-Cola Company has withdrawn 1.4 billion bottles of Coke, and the direct economic losses caused by the poisoning incident have reached more than 60 million US dollars.

A Belgian newspaper commented that although Coca-Cola paid a price for this, it has won the trust of consumers.

The Coca-Cola Company has survived a difficult moment of crisis, but the impact of this incident is far from being eliminated from large European and American companies like Coca-Cola.

Not long ago, Mylox, the president of Pepsi-Cola Europe, Coca-Cola’s main competitor, sent an e-mail to all employees. The letter said: "I would like to emphasize that we should not regard this Coca-Cola incident as an opportunity to be exploited. We must learn from it and cherish the bond between enterprises and consumers."

< p>Business management expert Tom King believes that there are generally three correct steps for companies to deal with such crises: first, recall the problematic products; second, explain the development of the situation to consumers in a timely manner; third, apologize as soon as possible. By comparison, it can be seen that Coca-Cola did everything, but it was a week late, and it was after the Belgian government made the decision to stop selling Coca-Cola. Even Belgium's Health Minister Vanden Bosch complained that it is incomprehensible that a large company with a global reputation like Coca-Cola has responded so slowly to the crisis.

Experts also cited the responses of other well-known companies when facing crises to illustrate the importance of handling crises in a timely manner. Seventeen years ago, someone wanted to blackmail the pharmaceutical company Janssen and deliberately put cyanide on the labels of Janssen painkillers, resulting in the deaths of seven people. After receiving this news, Janssen immediately decided to withdraw all such painkillers on the market at the cost of US$100 million to calm the market. Another example is the tobacco company Philip Morris.

A few years ago, because the filters of a small number of cigarettes were contaminated during processing, causing smokers to cough slightly, the company immediately decided to withdraw all cigarettes of the same brand from the US market. Although these two companies suffered a lot of losses, they quickly gained the understanding of consumers because of their timely handling. They used crisis management to re-establish the company's corporate image. Experts believe that compared to these two examples, although Coca-Cola's handling of the crisis is not weak this time, its decision-making pace is obviously half a beat slower.

1. Indirectly disclose relevant information and express the company's position and attitude by issuing press releases to the media. This method is mainly applicable when the cause of the problem has not yet been identified. The company will first express its sincerity in communicating with the media and consumers, and then explain that it will inform the public after the cause of the problem is found, or it will be announced in advance. Stop selling the product in question. This method can also be used when the problem has been identified and has been solved or almost solved. In this way, enterprises can control the release of information to avoid sending out unnecessary information. However, the risk is that the media and the public may easily perceive the attitude as being insincere, which may have adverse effects.

2. Disclose information of interest to the media and the public by answering questions from the media. Adopting this method will test the quality and ability of the company's spokesperson, but if it is handled well, it can establish a good public image for the company; otherwise, it will tarnish the company's face. In early 2005, when Whirlpool of the United States recalled some products due to quality problems with its washing machines, the public relations company hired by Whirlpool provided the correct public relations strategy and the spokesperson behaved appropriately in interviews with the media. Therefore, a possible crisis finally emerged. Disappear into the invisible.

3. Through senior corporate officials taking the initiative to visit relevant media personnel and accepting exclusive interviews, provide first-hand information to the media and obtain the understanding of relevant media, thereby striving for objective reporting by the media and avoiding media misunderstandings. The information available is incomplete, resulting in inaccurate or incomplete reports. This method is especially suitable for handling crisis cases such as consumer complaints.

4. Proactively disclose the investigation and handling of relevant issues to the media and the public by holding a press conference. If the cause of the problem has been basically identified, the company will apologize to the public through the media at the press conference, announce the recall of the products that have been circulated on the market, and even provide compensation or compensation to consumers if necessary. After the truth of the "Sudan Red Incident" was found out, KFC took the initiative to convey to the media that its products were safe by holding a press conference. 5. Disseminate information and proactively eliminate public doubts and uneasiness by inviting the media to the company for on-site interviews. After the incident where the hygienic quality of Haagen-Dazs ice cream cakes failed to pass, the company, in order to recover the impact, invited some media to interview the company's central kitchen in Shanghai, showing that there were no quality or safety problems in the company's food production.

After the media reported this, the negative impact that had been caused to a certain extent was restored