With over four decades of experience to draw on, business and communications consulting firm Royce has built a reputation as leader in its field.

The agency recently consulted on the Bonds Baby Search campaign, an online competition that became front-page news after inflammatory comments were posted on Bonds Facebook page.

General Manager Matthew Mahon talks to SMK about how social media is changing the way brands manage potential crises.

Unsolicited feedback

Four years ago Mahon recalls the firm received a call from an eye care client wanting help. The client had run a new TV commercial that was proving highly unpopular.

“In the space of 48 hours, somebody had set up a Facebook page saying 'I hate the client’s ad' and within another 48 hours the page had 90,000 Likes (or fans). The client was horrified,” says Mahon.

The client had been unaware the TVC was so unpopular because the sales response had been positive. While 90,000 Facebook likes was relatively small in terms of the overall reach of the TVC, it was something the client could not ignore.

Royce conducted research and discovered that the majority of people who liked the Facebook page did not feel passionate about the brand one way or another and, critically, most weren’t customers, which meant sales weren't affected.

In fact sales rose for the client, who nonetheless pulled the ad and issued a Facebook statement saying they had listened to the feedback.

That was 2007, and things have changed a lot since then.

Accelerated communications

The rise of websites like Facebook and Twitter mean issues that were once dealt with in house can quickly become a full-blown crisis, starting on or spread through social media.

Recent examples of the #qantasluxury hashtag on Twitter spectacularly backfiring, and the Facebook backlash that forced Jenny Craig to back out of sponsoring The Kyle and Jackie O Show after less than a day indicate the speed and power social networks can have in putting pressure on brands.

Bonds Baby Search

One of the most striking crises management situations for a major brand in Australia happened during the usually popular and innocent Bonds Baby Search. Bonds had been a client of Royce for close to a decade, and the agency had run numerous campaigns for the brand. From the outset Bonds Baby was no different from any other campaign. It involved running a competition where users would vote on the cutest baby via a dedicated website.

The website soon become overloaded as the number of entries reached 52,0000, up from 17,000 the previous year. Under the huge influx of traffic the website's functionality became impaired, meaning some babies could be voted on and others couldn’t. To make matters worse, some users posted racial and inflammatory remarks, and soon angry consumers took to the Bonds Facebook page to vent their dissatisfaction.

While the racist and inflammatory comments were taken down, the Facebook page became the centre of the crisis.
Rules of engagement

“Our role was very much as on-call issue management advisors. Trying to provide some external objectives as to when to engage when not to engage comments on the Facebook page,” says Mahon.

In deciding when to engage, Mahon considered a number of options. “If what they’ve said is illegal, obscene, not in keeping with the spirit of the competition, then as owner of the site it is your prerogative to remove that post altogether. Obviously in doing that, there is the risk that the comment could come back and may well be amplified, because it’s been pulled.”

However, Mahon says that the broader fan base soon self-regulated many of the offensive comments and users.

“Fortunately, the overwhelming majority, 99% of the brand's fans, are on a similar page. In fact they become a great regulator as self-regulation kicks in. The brand certainly responded and reacted and provided its piece very quickly. Online communities show their support very quickly when a brand that they love and believe in has said something that they agree with.”

Facebook and Twitter present different challenges

While many recent crises have spread through Twitter and the use of hashtags, which Google+ is increasingly using, Mahon still sees Facebook as the most important channel in creating and controlling a message.

“If you’ve got 200,000 fans [on Facebook] for a brand who are all commenting on the same post, that’s going to be there for every one of them to see. Whereas on Twitter, the feed moves down so quickly messages can get lost.”

Never ignore, always engage

Mahon says it’s always better to engage the audience and address their concerns, rather than ignoring negative comments.

“You can’t ignore it and pretend it’s not there, and you can’t simply rip it off and hope that it goes away, because it will come back. If you tend to delete them it actually creates more anger and resentment for your brand. Listen to what consumers are saying, respond, and then focus on the positives.”

As social media evolves, so to does the approach to crises management.