Several years after Pepsi successfully weathered its syringe crisis, rival Coca-Cola has run into its own consumer quandary. The reports of contaminated product in Belgium have caused near panic in the country, which already was reeling from a catastrophe involving poultry products.
Last month's scare in Europe tested the company's communications prowess, as concerns about contamination of Coca-Cola products in Belgium led governments there and in France to yank Coca-Cola and Sprite soft drinks off the shelves. For about two weeks, the company battled headlines while experts inside and outside the company tried to piece together what caused dozens of consumers to become ill after consuming Coca-Cola products.
A voluntary recall of about 2.5 million units of its product in Belgium on June 8 was followed two days later by a government decision there to pull all of the company's beverages off the shelves.
Coke announced last week that its products will be re-appearing on Belgian shelves, though it will take four to six weeks for distribution to reach normal levels.
Establishing a consumer hotline and agreeing to pay the medical bills of apparent food poisoning victims did little to quell the hysteria, Jean-Leopold Schuybroek of Brussels PR firm Interel tells PR NEWS.
By the end of June, the company had found that bad carbon dioxide may have been used in some of its products, and wood preservative from wooden shipping pallets apparently rubbed off on some cans or bottles. Even so, health experts questioned whether these factors could have caused the nausea and vomiting experienced by both children and adults.
The company's Belgian nightmare couldn't have come at a worse time, explains Schuybroek, whose PR firm was hired by Coca-Cola late last month.
"There was a heavily sensitized audience," extremely anxious after widespread reports of the chemicals dioxin and PCBs in poultry products, he says.
The first reports of potentially contaminated Coca-Cola also preceded national elections by a few days, and probably contributed to the strong showing by the environmentalist Green party, Schuybroek says.
After initially being quiet about the crisis-partly at the request of Belgium's minister of public health-the company has been much more proactive, with Chairman Doug Ivester spending several days in Belgium, and the company taking out newspaper ads to apologize to the public.
To win back consumers, Schuybroek said the company is rolling out a long-term campaign that will include shipping to each home in the country a free bottle of Coca Cola. (Interel, 011-32-2-761-6611)