Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America may be in the business of manufacturing cars, but what they really manufactured last year was some of the worst PR we saw. And it's a communications nightmare - that surfaced when Mitsubishi decided to discredit a sexual harassment suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the biggest suit in the EEOC's history) - that has ended up landing the corporation a year's worth of bad press.
From a PR angle, what's most noteworthy about the way this communications drama played out is that it didn't have to happen that way. Had the company heeded the most basic of PR principles - responsiveness and a willingness to explore the allegations - it would have been a far gentler and kinder media and public it faced.
The Mitsubishi scandal began in April 1996 when the EEOC filed a lawsuit against the company based on claims that between 300 and 500 female employees were verbally and physically assaulted at the company's Normal, Ill., plant, according to the National Organization for Women. The lawsuit followed a suit filed in 1994.
Despite the company's good-faith efforts of late to achieve a "model workplace" - based on its hiring of former secretary of labor Lynn Martin to recommend workplace changes - taking a Band-Aid PR approach in communications does little to heal a damaged corporate image.
And lest we forget, the company used a consultant to act as its primary spokesperson when, in retrospect, it would have probably benefited the corporation if an exec on the inside track had initially responded with concern. Instead, among what was first reported by the media was a statement from Gary Shultz, VP and GM of MMMA, saying that sexual harassment wasn't "pervasive" at Mitsubishi and that the company wasn't close to settling.
We're convinced that Mitsubishi wouldn't have had to endure so much criticism if its spokespeople had been more sympathetic and exacting about what the company planned to do once news of the lawsuit hit. Not only did the company respond inappropriately in the beginning, but its key spokespeople seemed less than apologetic and far from accessible.
Sadly, despite everything the company has done to review workplace conditions (even though, as of mid-May 1997, the lawsuit was still in the discovery stages), that's not what the press and public have focused on.
Gael O'Brien, director of corporate and community relations for Mitsubishi, told us that Mitsubishi's commitment to improving its workplace is now separate from the lawsuit.
"We weren't going to wait until the outcome of the lawsuit" to probe these issues, O'Brien pointed out. Mitsubishi failed to realize that its first response promoted the PR tactic of putting a new coat of paint over a defect instead of going to the heart of the problem.
Apathy Not The Best Course
Mitsubishi was timely in delivering its message, but it's a message (based on our review of articles that were published after the issue hit the press and the business world) that amounted to the company saying it didn't care.
Lessons Learned
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After a chain reaction of press coverage was triggered, the first trickle of information that came from Mitsubishi execs presented the company as apathetic - a definite PR no-no.
First, the company refused to address the allegations; and second, when it did, what was reported was the company's labeling of the lawsuit as a continuation of a 1994 investigation that was "nothing new," according to The Pantagraph in Bloomington, Ill.
It's clear now that neither of those messages should have been what the company first selected as its public statements in response to the lawsuit.
The company had the chance at the outset to get its messages into the marketplace but what was mostly reported were details of the case which depicted workplace conditions at the plant as so intolerable, female employees quit.
But the lawsuit became a PR disaster when the company paid more than 2,000 employees for a day's work when workers headed to Chicago to demonstrate in front of EEOC offices. Apparently, the company forgot that the press and the world were watching and it overlooked the potential for this kind of defensive position to be seen as a bully tactic.
Not only did Mitsubishi suffer some tough press coverage, but it also faced a boycott by the Rainbow Push Coalition, which was lifted on Jan. 15, 1997. And it also suffered some harsh reactions from women leaders, including former congresswoman Pat Schroeder who released a letter last April criticizing the company's "retaliatory" campaign; a call from Patricia Ireland, president of NOW, for informational pickets at Mitsubishi dealerships; and a suggested boycott by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. (Mitsubishi, 309/888-8000)