Social media drives global product recall
Not a day for MacLaren
Maclaren has become the latest victim of social media activism. They have joined a growing list of companies to have suffered at the hands of bloggers and Tweeters [Twitterers?].
I find this story interesting for two reasons:
- It highlights how social media jumps geographical boundaries.
- It reminds me how much Social Media experts love to hype these effects.
Maclaren is a UK manufacturer of prams. On Tuesday they announced the recall of 1M baby pushchairs in the US. This was after 15 reports of injuries to children’s fingers. They also offered US customers free repair kits.
However, despite having identical products in both UK and US markets, in the UK, rather than a recall or an offer of repair kits, they simply assured parents not to worry about it.
It didn’t take long for social networks and blogging sites to react. Some created email templates to send to the firm and even David Milliband, UK Foreign Secretary, referenced the debate in a Tweet.
So 3 days on and Maclaren has adopted an identical policy in the UK.
Conclusions
On one hand the social media part of this is a big deal. The Financial Times wrote about it and the company has changed a policy that may have a huge impact on their bottom line. All thanks to social networks spanning the globe.
On the other hand, they moved pretty quickly and the real story here is the recall, not the social media impact. They listened to what was said on blogs and Twitter and before the end of the week had changed their policy. I’d call that good social media monitoring and pretty speedy action for a large company.
And that brings me to my second point: the social media echo-chamber can blow these things out of proportion. It annoys me when I read blogs proclaiming Armageddon after cases like this. Sure, this has been a really critical week for Maclaren. One can only imagine the anguish throughout the business. Yes, there is now one more company where social media has made it to the boardroom. But they did not commit a massive social media faux pas. They reacted with common sense after taking a little time to reflect.
I suspect 90% of customers will probably not be aware of the hesitation that came ahead of the policy change. In a month’s time this will be remembered as just a recall story.
Joseph Fiore:
Perhaps, however the quick response and action will be remembered mostly by its customers. For parents, safety is of paramount importance, and the worst thing a parent wants to experience as a consumer is the feeling that they made a poor or unsafe choice. I’d sooner do business with a company that can make the changes called out by its customers and Web audiences in a timely manner. On the opposite end of the continuum of a businesses willingness to adapt to change, all one has to do is recall the BPA incident with baby bottles. It took many years for baby bottling companies to actually change their insistence from “its safe” to an across the board recall.
The backlash from this ridiculously slow response was that an entire industry of stainless steel canteens and bottles as well as glass bottling alternatives flourished. Plastic baby bottles containing BPA might still be found on shelves, or there maybe be products that aren’t marked properly because they are produced in parts of the world that are stuck in the dark ages when it comes to product safety standards. However because of the poor response by companies to listen to consumer demands, there are parents who have completely turned their backs on the brands involved in the baby bottle recall programs, and the distrust carried over on those brands who had a full range of baby products and accessories (i.e. baby car seats).
In cases when it REALLY matters to consumers that companies make the changes being called out, the echo-chamber argument all too often gets made over as a brand “disruptor”, and when this happens companies use it as an excuse to stick their heads in the sand when what they ought to be be doing is taking “listening” to a level that demonstrates they are a company with the capacity and willingness to adapt. Companies and brands having the most success in social media understand there is a contagious energy derived from social media relationships and what is born from positive consumer experience is this idea that change serves as an inspiration to other companies watching, studying and aspiring to do the same.
Joseph
16 November 2009, 1:38 pm@RepuTrack
hyperlinks: November 16, 2009 « Vitkun Brands:
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16 November 2009, 4:43 pmc_lavin:
I actually own two MacLaren strollers and this news disappoints me. Companies consistently fail to understand the ramifications to their bottom line if they mishandle recalls and product safety issues. Loss of market share and stock value (not applicable in this case, although it would impact any investor’s valuation) are two important measures for any business. I currently work for WeMakeItSafer ( http://www.WeMakeItSafer.com ) and part of our mission is to reduce injuries and deaths by working with businesses and consumers to identify recalled items if they are part of a sale, purchase, or inventory. Until my repair kits arrives, I’ll be watching my daughters little fingers very carefully.
16 November 2009, 7:39 pmAli:
Interesting article. I agree that this is not a ’social media’ story, but disagree with your statement that it is ‘just a recall story’. I think the Maclaren story will be used as a case study by marketing and PR agencies on ‘what not to do during product recalls’ for children’s products. There have been so many lessons learned.
I agree that this is not about ’social media’ as traditional news outlets were already covering the story in depth. However, social media gives individuals a voice. For example, as an individual, Mindful Mum was able to respond to the Harvard Business Review post then a day later read the response from Maclaren’s CEO, Farzad Rastegar,on the very same blog post. That told me that Maclaren were listening and personally, as a consumer I found that very exciting and reassuring.
17 November 2009, 3:02 pmSocial Media Drives Global Product Recall | Freshnetworks Blog:
[...] I actually own two MacLaren strollers and this news disappoints me. Companies consistently fail to understand the ramifications to their bottom line if they mishandle recalls and product safety issues. Loss of market share and stock …Page 2 [...]
22 November 2009, 12:08 am