Corporate Crisis Strategy for Irvins

Assume that you are the corporate communications manager for Irvins tasked to handle the communications for this corporate crisis as a result of the food contamination issue. As such, you will need to develop an appropriate corporate crisis strategy to manage the situation and to protect your company’s reputation.

a) Identify and discuss the concerns of the key stakeholders affected by this food contamination issue, and analyse which channels of communication would be most reliable to reach out to each affected stakeholder groups.

b) As the situation is now well-known because of the negative publicity on social and traditional media platforms, propose the appropriate communication steps needed to be taken to manage this crisis for Irvins; and differentiate the communications to different stakeholders to protect the company’s reputation from any further damage.

c) Write a follow-up news release to implement an effective crisis communications response by outlining Irvin’s philosophy of providing a good snack, and what measures it will be taking to improve quality control. You may refer to the company’s website to get the relevant information. Students may also make up plausible information for quality control steps that Irvin’s can take to prevent a repeat of this situation.