Nike WILL weather the Tiger Woods storm

I am confident in saying that most everyone in my generation will remember where we were when we found out about the terrorist attacks to the World Trade Towers on 9/11/01 and most of our parents will remember where they were when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and further still most all of our grandparents will remember where they were when Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese in 1941. It seems as though for every generation there is an iconic, life-changing event that carries with that generation for the rest of their lives.

Although it may be hard to believe now, as it seems like every news station is covering Tiger news 24/7, ten years from now I don't think that anyone will remember where they were Thanksgiving Day 2009 when Tiger Woods, the face of Nike and a hero and idol in the sports world at the time, crashed his black SUV outside of his Florida home and his secret double life was revealed to the entire world. I don't think anyone will remember where they were on Friday, February 19, 2010 when Tiger came out of month's of hiding in rehab and delivered a 14-minute apology on national television.

Tiger Woods has become just as much a part of the Nike brand in the eyes of many consumers as the "Swoosh" or the tag-line "Just Do It," and I think Nike did the right thing by sticking by Tiger during this time, despite the fact that they were one of the only sponsors to do so. Amy Reynolds, a top executive at Nike, was present in the front row next to Tiger's mother during his speech last Friday and Tiger acknowledged Nike during his speech thanking the company for its support. Tiger's estranged wife Elin has even been spotted wearing Nike clothing, a sign that she too is sticking by the company.

Nike understood that events such as these come with the territory of have major athletes and international superstars represent your brand and I'm sure they simply launched a previously established crisis management plan for this type of situation as soon as it occured.

How is Nike reacting to TeamSweat!??

As we have discussed extensively in class, every organization is vulnerable to some type of crisis. Some crises may strike quickly and end quickly, leaving the organization relatively unscathed. I would guess that most of us are familiar with Nike's recent crisis related to its corporate social responsibility and the alleged unethical treatment of its workers in factories abroad. Although the peak of the crisis seems to be over, negative press involving Nike's lack of CSR continues to keep cropping up on the Internet.

Now let me introduce you to the organization that is primarily responsible for the crisis that has been plaguing Nike for decades--TeamSweat. TeamSweat was founded by Jim Keady, a college soccer coach at St. John's University. Keady first began investigating Nike's labor factories while taking graduate school courses at St. John's and discovered many Nike facilities were basically sweatshops. Keady formed TeamSweat after being forced to resign as a coach at the university for refusing to outfit his team in Nike uniforms. He has since traveled the world visiting Nike factories and even produced a full-length film about the topic, entitled "Sweat."

For the past eight years, TeamSweat has been dedicated to improving the conditions in Nike factories, and as a result of the organization Nike has made many changes for the better--but TeamSweat doesn't seem to be satisfied.

On February 11th, Keady published a new article in The Huffington Post, an online newspaper/popular blog site, entitled "Why is Nike Afraid of Disclosing what their Overseas Factory Workers are Paid?" The article claims that if Nike is so sure that their factory workers are paid a fair living wage why are they still refusing to disclose actual data regarding the wages they pay their workers.

I'm not sure if this story is really "new" news, or TeamSweat just trying to dig up old dirt. However, Nike is yet to respond to this story. I have been checking around the Internet to see if some sort of response will pop up on their Web site, but it has yet to appear. Nike originally addressed the crisis by releasing its first Corporate Social Responsibility Report in 2006 and subsequent editions in 2007 and 2009, but that doesn't seem to be satisfying these special interest groups and if Nike doesn't start doing more this crisis is going to continue to smolder.

I am looking forward to tracking the progress of this in the upcoming weeks to see his Nike deals with this mini-crisis moving forward.

On a side note, Nike released an awesome new short video this week called "Human Chain"--it highlights the perseverance of athletes in tons of different sports and of course, coincides with the kick off of the Olympics. It's really awesome--Click here to see it on YouTube!

Take Action Before the Crisis!!!!

Our text "Crisis Management in the New Strategy Landscape" by Crandall, Parnell, and Spillan takes a different approach to crisis management and the classification of strategic communications then many other texts that I have been familiar with in the past. The authors outline a crisis management framework that is based on four stages of crisis management:

First, landscape survey, which focuses on identifying potential crises and their sources before they occur based on industry standards, culture and business environment. Second, strategic planning, which deals with forming an actual crisis management plan and crisis team. Third, crisis management, is the stage when the actual crisis is occurring and offers guidance regarding communication during the crisis. Lastly, organizational learning, which occurs post-crises and focuses on how an organization can learn from and change for the better as a result of the crisis. According to the authors of the text, the actual crisis will hit between the second and third phases.

This text is unique in the fact that is it identifying both internal and external "landscapes" or audiences and addresses how to deal with them differently. I think learning about crisis management in this way will be beneficial for future public relations practitioners because when a crisis hits there are many different audiences you must address and often times internal and external audiences need to be dealt with very differently.

During last week's class we discussed how to survey the crisis management landscape in order to pinpoint potential crises that can impact your client or organization and how to determine the life cycle of a crisis, on both an organization and industry wide level.

When looking specifically at Nike, I can clearly see that many of the potential categories of crisis could have a great impact on their business. A Internet search for Nike's crisis management plans did not turn up very much, as far as concrete plans that are open to the public. There are several both internal and external crises drivers in the text that I could see having a great affect on Nike due to the nature of their business. For example, society's increase reliance on the internet has had a negative effect on the company, because anyone who has had a bad experience with the company, even if it is not necessarily newsworthy, it can be viewed my millions of people on a Web site. Another issue that Nike has faced is due the increase expectation that organizations needs to promote sustainability and environmentally friendly practices as well the increased trend toward globalization and outsourcing. Nike has come under serious fire throughout the past decade for the conditions in its factories abroad.

Overall, it is clear than no organization is immune from crises, although different types of organizations are more prone to certain types of crises. To prevent future damage that an organization may not be able to recover from it is essential that each organization surveys the crisis management landscape as relevant to their industry and business!

Crisis Management at Nike

As I said in my first post, this blog will be focusing on Nike!! I will try to apply the information I learn from the textbook, "Crisis Management in the New Strategy Landscape" and in-class discussion to developing crisis communication strategies for Nike. Although I am not actually currently working for Nike I hope that I can use the knowledge and skills developed as a result of this class and blog and apply to to real clients in the future (actually very near future--so excited to graduate with a degree in Public Relations in just four months!!!).

During the first two weeks of class we have begun covering some of the basics of crisis management and crisis communications. Professor Laskin explained that crisis can be caused by an outside or inside error--and crises can be deliberate or unintentional.

Looking specifically at Nike, crises from the inside could include product defects resulting in a recall, poor customer service and labor relations issues. Crises from the outside could include product boycotts and behavior uncharacteristic of the brand by sponsors.

A great recent example of a crisis Nike is facing revolves around its sponsorship of Tiger Woods. Tiger has consistently been one of Nike's largest and most longstanding sponsors. However, Nike was part of the crisis caused due to Tiger's recent publicity scandals and rumor that his wife Elin was signing an endorsement deal with industry rival Puma. Although Nike is one of the only sponsors who has decided to stand by Tiger, they still have had to considerably reevaluate Tiger's position as a major part of their brand.

Stay tuned for more posts about crisis management and Nike and don't forget to keep checking my Tweets!!