Public Relations Disaster Assignment
Group Project
Both small and large companies will at some point in their
business lives face a public relation dilemma. It might be small
or it might be large. How you handle the crisis can make or
break your company. You need to think quickly. You need to
be smart. You might need to throw someone “under the bus.”
You are the CEO of a company that generated over $100,000,000 in
revenues last year and has 130 employees. Your pharmaceutical
company, Swayswee Inc., is headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. Your
company produces three different medications. Your most successful
product is an over-the-counter drug, Artgo, that helps lessen the pain
caused by arthritis. Your company has two plants where all of your
Artgo is manufactured. All Artgo manufactured in Virginia has a 16
character production code that begins with the letter “V” and all Artgo
manufactured in California has a 16 character code that begins with a
“C”. In addition, production codes include the following information:
Date of Manufacture (mm/dd/yy)
Shift of Manufacture (am or pm)
All Artgo is manufactured in the form of pills (Red pill w/ the white
letters SW-AR).
All employees go through an extensive background check before being
hired except for some of the employees working at the Virginia plant
who were part of a company, Franklin Biological Inc., that was bought
out by Swayswee 9 months ago. Eleven current employees were hired
by your company who had worked for Franklin Biological Inc. and
because of a human resource error there was no background checks
conducted. This error was discovered three weeks ago by the assistant
to your Human Resource Director. The background check your
company uses take five days to get results after being ordered. No
background checks have been ordered for these eleven employees.
It is Thursday March 5th at 2:00 in the afternoon and CNN News is
reporting that it appears three adults all residing in the same assisted
living center in Florida have died shortly after taking their arthritis
medication, Artgo. CNN News is also reporting that one of the victims
died last night within 5 minutes of taking Artgo and two other daily
medications. The victim was 95 years old and was suffering from many
ailments….so no link between the medications and his death was
considered. This morning two more residents of the same assisted
living center died within 5 to 8 minutes after taking their daily Artgo
dosages. Once again, the victims were elderly, both in the late eighties,
and both victims took other medications in addition to Artgo. CNN
News is looking into two more deaths at another assisted-living home
only 4 miles away from the first three deaths.
You quickly contact your top managers including your:
CFO – Chief Financial Officer
COO – Chief Operating Officer
CMO – Chief Medical Officer
CIO - Chief Information Officer
Human Resource Director
Legal Counsel
Press Coordinator
Senior Sales Manager
All of you are all in the company’s conference room.
This is what you know:
It appears as though these individuals took their medications and died
within the next 8 minutes. All three of these individuals took more than
just your Artgo, but Artgo is the only drug all three consumed.
The death last night was witnessed by a different nurse at the assistedliving center. The assisted-living center has contacted your company
and your secretary told them that you will get back to them very soon,
but for now to stop administering Artgo to any additional patients.
Your CMO has contacted the other assisted-living center and has
confirmed that both individuals who died at their center this morning
had both taken Artgo. More damaging, the second person that died
ONLY took Artgo and died within the next 3 minutes. The doctor that
witnessed the second death said that the death has all of the
characteristics of poisoning.
During this meeting, a few things are discovered:
1. Your Human Resource Director informed you that there was a
twelfth employee from Franklin Biological who quit a month ago
and was extremely upset because he was demoted from
production manager to line manager. Both the production
manager and line managers oversee the manufacturing of your
company’s drugs. Because of the demotion his salary was reduced
by $22,000. During his exit interview, he swore he was going to
get this company back for demoting him. Of the eleven employees
still with your company, two of them were demoted like the
employee who quit. They were both very upset, but have
continued to work for your company because they have limited
options elsewhere.
2. A total recall for all Artgo presently on store shelves, in consumers
homes and assisted-living centers will cost your company at least
$20,000,000, but to know an exact figure will take days to
calculate.
3. The over-the-counter medication at both assisted-living centers is
not kept under lock and key. It is possible that some employees at
both of these assisted-living centers could tamper with over-thecounter medications. It would be difficult, but possible.
Create a PowerPoint to exactly explain in great description as to
the steps you will take over the next 1 minute, 2 minutes, 15
minutes, one hour, 2 hours, and so on.
Your reaction should include the bare minimum listed below:
Who are you reaching out to?
How are you reaching out to them?
When and how frequently are you reaching out to them?
When, where, how, why are you going to inform the public?
Explain your game-plan in great detail. If you are going to use flyers,
ads, news conferences, press releases, etc. please go into great depth as
to how you are going to accomplish your objective.
Who is going to talk with the public? Will it be multiple people within
your organization that will answer questions and make comments to
the public?
What will your ad look like?
Who will be on stage at your press conference?
What information is crucial to gather for your plan to work? What
information might be kept quiet?
Are you going to lie at anytime?
Please explain all of your objectives and describe you plan completely.