Lax response hurts popular fast food chain
Executives at Chick-fil-A had these days circled on their calendars long ago: It was to be Spicy Chicken Biscuit Premiere Week, a public-relations-sparked rollout of the company’s most exciting offering since last year’s Spicy Chicken Sandwich. Then on Tuesday, Good As You broke the news that the chicken chain is an official sponsor of two marriage seminars associated with the right-wing, anti-gay marriage Pennsylvania Family Institute — not exactly the headlines the CEO’s had envisioned.
After outrage spread over the Internet, the chain’s name was erased from the website promoting the event, but no word yet on whether the sponsorship has been cancelled. A tweet from the Georgia-based company on Tuesday stated “For those seeing reports of a CFA sponsorship w/ the Penn Family Inst, we are looking into the issue and will provide a response ASAP.”
As this quote from a Miami Times blog post by Lee Klein explains, it has not been a good week for Chik-fil-A, the popular chicken-centric fast food chain. While some backlash was unavoidable, Chik-fil-A’s slow shift into crisis management mode caused unnecessary reputation damage to be taken . It took the organization a full day to do so much as issue a holding statement on Twitter and following that there was a gap of over 24 hours during which rumor and nasty sentiments toward the brand flooded the Web, before a follow up, or any more communication at all, was posted. While Chik-fil-A seems to have put out the fire temporarily with the claim that the donation was the act of a single franchise owner simply seeking to “serve his local community,” the brand’s past history of supporting controversial right-wing beliefs will continue to haunt it as long as these incidents keep popping up.
The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/