Crisis management and media communication plan of Starbucks PDF

Crisis management and media communication plan of Starbucks
Name:
Course:

1
Table of Contents
First: Crisis management plan.....................................................................................................2
1.1 When is there a crisis?...........................................................................................................2
1.2 What type is it?......................................................................................................................2
1.3 Adopted strategies..................................................................................................................2
1.4 A crisis management plan (CMP)..........................................................................................3
1.5 Starbucks crisis management.................................................................................................3
1.6 Starbucks crisis checklist.......................................................................................................4
1.7 Starbucks Mendelow's matrix................................................................................................6
Second: Crisis communication plan.............................................................................................7
2.1 Issue/Crisis – assuming a problem has occurred...................................................................8
2.2 Key approach.........................................................................................................................8
2.3 Key considerations/concerns..................................................................................................8
2.4 Key/critical publics................................................................................................................8
2.5 Key message – the general comments we can make.............................................................9
2.6 Q&A.......................................................................................................................................9
References.....................................................................................................................................11

2
First: Crisis management plan
1.1 When is there a crisis?
The crisis is described as an unpredictable event that has a negative impact on the organization
credibility, viability and reputation. People get the awareness of the crisis through the media
coverage when a whistle blow takes place or when it reaches the court [ CITATION Ngu14 \l 1033 ].
The way of delivering the crisis message by the media affects the organization, it can influence
the public opinion and in some cases, it affects the global opinion. The expanded model
frameworks the dynamic and multi-dimensional relationships that identifies the relationships that
take place during the crisis life cycle [ CITATION How06 \l 1033 ].
1.2 What type is it?
There are different types of crises clusters, including the victim crisis, where the organization is
the victim. It consists of the natural disaster, where a natural damage takes place, rumors,
workplace violence or product tampering, where an external stakeholder damages the
organization. Another type is the accident cluster that represents an unintentional damage to the
organization that can take the form of technical error. The third type is the preventable cluster,
where the organization puts its people at intention risk by taking inappropriate or harmful actions
or violates the rules. It takes the form of human error accident or product error [ CITATION Coo07 \
l 1033 ].
1.3 Adopted strategies
The unethical behavior of an organization in crisis situation forces the corporate crisis manager
to offer a public response. The symbolic approach to crisis management assumes that crises

3
threaten organizations’ images and their response strategies are used by the managers to repair
their image. According to Coombs (1998), as cited in Huang (2006), each crisis situation has its
characteristics that require certain crisis communication strategies (CCSs) to be used to manage
the current situation and avoid the others.
1.4 A crisis management plan (CMP)
CMP is considered as a tool of reference that provides key information on what actions should
typically be done by the organization in a crisis. It contains certain forms required in
documenting the crisis response. According to Barton (2001) and Coombs (2007), as cited in
Institute for PR (2007), CMP enables organizations to respond to the crisis quickly by pre-
assignment of some tasks, pre-collection of information that assumes the existence of a
designated crisis team that takes the responsibility of doing tasks during the crisis.
1.5 Starbucks crisis management
Starbucks has faced many crises that affected its global image. It is considered a market leader in
coffee production that introduces the finest qualities of roaster coffee and other beverages and
snacks. In 1971 Starbucks commenced its business with a small coffee store located in
Washington that grew over the years to reach more than twenty thousand locations across the
world markets [ CITATION Lat14 \l 1033 ]. Starbucks heavily uses social media channels for
communication that caused it to face many crises either small or big. An example of the crises
that Starbucks faced took place in Argentina in 2012, where the company had to publicly
apologize to its customers for supply shortage. It had to tweet saying that it used a non-branded
product of Argentina, which caused the tweet to generate across Argentina customers who felt
angry. Following this incident, Starbucks took positive actions towards using social media to
deal with sensitive issues, like the gun control, through communicating by using social media