Q1) Adani Wilmar – PR crisis After BCCI President and Former India Cricket Captain Sourav Ganguly suffered a mild heart attack in January 2021, Adani Wilmar’s Fortune rice bran cooking oil that is endorsed by Ganguly got caught in the middle of the crisis. Twitterati had re-discovered Ganguly’s old ad with Fortune Oil that said it is ‘a healthy for heart oil’ and the irony was not lost on people. They were also quick to jump to the conclusion that Fortune oil is unhealthy and its old ad even started making rounds on WhatsApp. To soften the uproar coming in its way, Fortune Oil deleted the ad from its official website and social media handles. It had also immediately released a media statement asserting that it would continue to work with Ganguly. Post that, netizens, including brand experts and consumers, had eyes on Fortune’s next move for it was going to take a lot of come out of this huge PR crisis and win its consumers’ trust back. Fortune Oil appointed Ganguly as its brand face in 2020 to target mid-age people with its campaign ‘Welcome to the 40s,' which aimed to promote maintaining heart health and good lifestyle. The campaign backfired a year later and it was a blow hard to forget. However, when a brand faces a huge crisis related to their brand ambassadors such as this, the traditional PR advice is to maintain a low profile to cushion the blow. Adani Wilmar, on the other hand, decided to address the concerns and face the situation head-on. It also waited for the right amount of time to launch a piece of communication - long enough to give its consumers some space to process the news and but not too long before it is a distant memory. Here is what experts had to say: Dilip Cherian, Founder and Partner, Perfect Relations: There is no doubt that some response would have been expected from any consumer products company that is also substantially consumer-facing. So I guess, Fortune really did not have too much of a choice or perhaps was facing image pressures to explain its stance. This actually is one of the huge consequences of having an extremely popular and visible brand ambassador. The price you have to pay is often that, anything that happens to the ambassador actually happens to the company. Archana Jain, Managing Director, PR pundit: There is no ‘one size fits all’ strategic response in a crisis; two identical scenarios can have different responses as they may be taking place at two different times, in two different domains, or with varied company cultures. A crisis always merits a response – as they say, ‘Feed the shark before it feeds on you!’ The key points to have got across swiftly would have been on how the company feels about the incident as its important to be humanly concerned, first, last and foremost.

 Questions: Critically analyse the situation described above using Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Identify the type of crisis and the response strategies that would have been appropriate for Adani Wilmar. (8+2+5= 15 Marks)

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

The situation described above is an example of a crisis that could be classified as an image crisis ... View the full answer