“That’s not cereal."
March 22nd, 2021, comedy writer and podcast host Jensen Karp tweeted out a picture of what seemed to be 2 sugar coated shrimp tails he found in a fresh box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
This quickly spread throughout twitter and before the day even began, General Mills had a PR crisis on its hands. Cinnamon Toast Crunch quickly respond to the tweet with this “copy and paste” style apology tweet.
A consumer discovering contaminated food is one of the scariest things that can happen to a food manufacturer. Not only is it your job as the manufacturer to keep your consumer safe but also to take responsibility and fix issues that may arise. Today I would like to take a look at the later responses given by General Mills’ social media team and try to focus on what could have been done better in handling this PR nightmare.
The Customers Always Right
An initial response tweet sent by the Cinnamon Toast Crunch was expected but what followed was not. After exchanging a few tweets with Mr. Karp, the CTC twitter posted this response –
When I first read this response, I was taken back a bit, as was Mr. Karp who responded saying –
This is the tweet that really sent this into the viral space. Instead of handling this matter in private the CTC team went ahead with what they thought to be an explanation for the “shrimp tails.” Instead, all they accomplished was passing off blame and what seems like calling the consumer a liar.
When responding to a crisis it is important to follow these steps
- Monitor the situation
- Respond individually if appropriate
- If warranted respond publicly
- Be transparent and honest
- Utilize a central location for communicating with stakeholders
In this case CTC had been monitoring the situation, had already responded publicly and had began to utilize Twitter as its central location for communicating with stakeholders and those aware of the “crisis.” However, they neglected to respond appropriately and given the benefit of the doubt just responded to the general public before they could truly be transparent and honest. You never want to tell consumers that you don’t know how something got into the product that you sold them, but this would have been a better response tan accusing Mr. Karp of not knowing the difference between clumps of sugar and shrimp tails.
The SMMU Response
The initial response tweet sent out by the CTC account was what you would expect from a social media complaint. It was simple, we are sorry that this happened, can we make it better with free products? For this response, I would have liked to see CTC take on more responsibility initially. Tweeting something like –
“ We are so sorry to see what you have found. We will be immediately reporting this to our quality team so that we can ensure this is an isolated event. Can you send us a DM so that we can collect some more info and replace this box for you? Thank you!”
In regard to the 2nd tweet from the CTC account, it should have never been sent. It was based on a hunch and written in a tone that could been seen as aggressive, especially when you are responding to someone with a following such as Mr. Karp. The 2nd tweet sent should have been nothing but an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and an update on the process they are taking to figure out the issue. Remember to always be transparent and honest when responding to a crisis, CTC and General Mills could have brushed this all under the rug if they would have focused on this transparency rather than resolving the problem as fast as possible.
"Those Crazy Squares"
Cinnamon Toast Crunch just had quite the week for a cereal company. From the initial crisis arising to them mishandling the apology, there a lot of interesting lessons to be learned when looking at this story. My main takeaway is that even in a world with lighting fast response times and communication between consumers and large corporations it is still important to take a step back and think about what you say before you say it.
Its easy to want to respond fast and get the problem “dealt with” but delicate problems require delicate solutions. This was not the time to jump to conclusions. Measure twice, cut once.
How would you have handled this crisis? Has your opinion of General Mills or Cinnamon Toast Crunch changed at all because of this? Please let us know in the comments below!
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