Tim Hortons: complex communications crisis |

Tim Hortons: complex communications crisis

August 11, 2009 Written by Ian Capstick

This morning I’m quoted in the National Post about Twitter and the role it played in the PR nightmare caused by a Rhode Island Tim Hortons‘ managers now-cancelled support for an anti-equal marriage political event.

My comments were related to how the situation played out in the “social media sphere.” Readers and friends have posted and sent thought provoking comments, tweets and emails – some of them directed at me (good and bad), some at the situation – I thought I’d take a closer look at this issue with a less “social media” focused lens. (If you are unfamiliar with the story, I’ve got a “digital run down” at the end of this post).

Corporate communications is more complex than what is going on minute-to-minute on Twitter. In this case the executives of Tim Hortons had a minefield of internal and external stakeholders and pressures to contend with. Here are some others:

Internal Strategy

Advertising is high dollar, high risk and easily derailed by negative earned media. Tim Hortons deliberate and thus far well-received steps into the US market could have been hurt by a hasty cobbled together denial. Particularly considering the issues at hand. As one commentator put it to the Globe and Mail:

“Major error by the regional manager, here,” said Alan Middleton, a marketing professor at York University’s Schulich business school. “This is an operational slippage by Tim Hortons. Sex, religion and politics are things you try as a corporation not to engage in. This is particularly thorny because it deals with all three.”

Political considerations

This bring me to the political issues of marriage, homophobia and queer rights in the United States. The same-sex marriage issue is still an ongoing and emotional debate in the US, especially around the six states of New England where the battle is ongoing. Rhode Island is the only state in the region without same-sex unions.

I can understand the communicators in Tim’s HQ in Oakville would have needed time to understand the local politics of Rhode Island, as to protect the interests of 35 other outlets.

Another major barrier preventing the “insta-communications” I’ve advocated is the legal department. Contracts, letters of intention or verbal agreements backtracked on could result in lawsuits. America, where this all went down, is particularly litigious. I’m nearly certain a lawyer was involved at some point in all of this.

Operations, Investor and Franchisee Relations

Complex rules and organizational structure govern supply systems, marketing, advertising and finances of a multi-national chain. This means in addition to the factors outlines above – corporate communicators need to liaise with other department heads, directors and others to be consulted on investor relations, market implications and all-the-while higher ups need to be briefed and calmed.

All of these considerations taken into account, I believe even by traditional media relations standards this team was slow off the mark and social media relations wasn’t a priority. Speed, in my mind, is still this issue.

Work when media works; work at their speed

Cable news, talk radio and news sites work 24/7 in Canada; when this story broke Sunday night someone at Tim Hortons should have known about it (at the very latest by 8 AM Monday). This is a major red-flag story. The media cycle starts and refreshed at around 10:00 AM eastern. Reporters, producers and editors have been thinking and digging all morning in anticipation of their pitch meeting – these meetings are nearly always finished by 11:00 AM. In this case I know the press, bloggers (and no-doubt irate customers) were already leaving messages by 9:00 AM at their HQ. The media were only called back post-statement release at 1:15 PM.

While having a statement out by 1:15pm EST was faster than many other corporations could have mustered. And, it’s faster than Tim Hortons has dealt with past PR hot potatoes (see: employee fired over the TimBit-to-baby fiasco).

It’s not as fast people can work in politics or as fast as companies engaged in social media – with more open communications policies – would have reacted. Companies engaged in social media collaboration could have acted faster and killed the viral nature of the story.

One solution, do you have others?

How can you create a nimble communications team in a large organization? Look to other nimble teams in bureaucratic environments. Police SWAT teams seem like an apt example. Create a communications SWAT team?

Special Weapons And Tactics: have a group of individuals from various departments ready to act on a moments notice; like a police SWAT team empower these people to make on the spot calls; intervene when necessary and have the right tools to do so.

Planning and training these rapid responders is key. Noted public relations thought-leader Brian Solis reminds us it’s not the interns at the company that should be tweeting and using Facebook; it’s an important tool for senior communicators.

If a group of senior managers and vice presidents are using and collaborating with the tools of social media; I believe if they were using the tools like other VPs, CEOs and senior managers in other corportations – #TimHortonsFail would not have happened.

So, was the Tim Hortons communications slow off the mark? Or does speed really matter? I want to hear your thoughts. Leave me a comment.

Thanks: Some very directly and others indirectly provoked and informed this post: Joe Boughner, Joe Thornley, Jaimie Woo, Ryan Taylor and my partner Shawn Dearn. Thanks to all of you for keeping me real.

Digital run down of news relating to Tim Hortons

CBC: Tim Hortons backs out of anti-gay marriage event
Canadian Press: Online outcry forces Tim Hortons to pull out of U.S. event against gay marriage
Globe and Mail: Tims axes plan to sponsor anti-gay marriage event
CanWest: Tim Hortons pulls support for rally against same-sex marriage in U.S.
The Advocate: NOM: Tim Hortons Pullout Is “Sorrowful”
NOW: Hortons hears the crowd
National Post: Tim Hortons too slow for Twitter in U.S. anti-gay rally sponsorship pullout
Xtra: Tim Hortons under fire for link to anti-gay fundraiser

Photo Credit

7 Comments

Posted In: Blog, Brand, Media News, Media Relations, Twitter

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http://turningnewsintoknowledge.com Kelly Rusk

Ian–Great, well-thought out post. I do agree the response was too slow. Especially given the controversial nature of the issue, Tim Hortons stance and statement was definitely a no-brainer–and therefore timing is definitely important. If the corporation allows franchise owners to select causes to support on their own, then IMO, they should (and probably did?) have a plan of action for what happens if the corporate brand needs to intervene.

PS–did you notice the statement was updated from yesterday?
http://refresh-events.ca/ Justin Kozuch

I thought they handled quite well from a “quick to rectify” perspective. They failed MASSIVELY when it came to being part of the conversation on Twitter, which is where most of the anger seemed to stem from. There was no mention of the incident from @TimHortonsNews, and @TimHortonsUS didn’t link to their press release until 9:19pm last night. That in itself is a collective failure on Tim Horton’s part to deal with the situation. I applaud their efforts in dealing with the matter quickly, but they should been engaging others into a PUBLIC conversation, instead of hiding behind a statement on their website.
http://www.ftjco.com Ryan Taylor

“Sex, religion and politics are things you try as a corporation not to engage in”. C’mon this old world pub logic to avoid boozer brawls. Let’s face it corporations/high profile business people back political parties/politicians all the time, Sex as in orientation is an equality issue which all companies should support, and religion should be inclusive to all despite ‘target markets’. The more companies adopt transparency and open values the less the need for a S.W.A.T team to deal with Twitter’s various tempests in an infinite number of tea cups (Google Motrin Moms).
Flash mobs are the biggest negative of social media. Companies need to spend their time setting out and defend clear social agendas, not reacting. If they did, in this case, people would not be pointing the finger at the franchise as a whole but directly at the regional person responsible – the franchisee.
http://www.twitter.com/shawndearn Shawn Dearn

While I agree that Tim Horton’s (TH) could have reacted to developments online regarding this “sponsorship scandal” sooner, but overall I think they handled it well.

Think about it. Within just a few hours (yes, a lifetime on Twitter) a large, multinational company was able to assess, analyze, make a hugely important biz decision and issue a public statement with the “last-word” on the issue. Not a small task.

What has largely been overlooked in the discussion is that while TH is a hugely popular brand in Canada, it’s a new and developing brand in the U.S. that needs to be embroiled in a gay-marriage flap like it needs another hole in its doughnuts. US companies that “support” gay marriage or same-sex couples are frequently hit with effective and sometimes crippling boycotts by the religious right. Not the sort of thing TH needs to grow its brand.

I know several folks disagree with me on this, but in this case racing to respond on Twitter could have done more damage than good. Particularly since it was a regional manager and not a franchise owner that made the decision to support the pro-traditional marriage group in the first place. TH needed the 5Ws before being able to (re)act and I dare say that with the late-night Twitter start, challenges reaching people on the ground in the US, plus a real need for legal advice before speaking…Tim Horton’s did just fine. As a gay man, I was simply glad to see the sponsorship get canned.

In this instance, given the potential business pitfalls, Twitter and other social media should only have been part of the overall communications approach…not necessarily the first place to go and start engaging.
charlene oxerence

would people have reacted the same way if the sponsorship in question was about a gay celebration? just throwing it out there …
Matt

No, Charlene, because there is a difference between an event celebrating an underrepresented community and an event celebrating the continued oppression of that community
Observer

How do you expect a senior VP and manager to make more time for twittering and facebook when they already are swamped with budgets and making decisions for all the workers already?

At some point don’t you need a communications team that can act on behalf of those managers and whom those managers trust through both training and experience to follow up adequately?

The problem lies in the fact most organizations are setup from a top-down mentality in the first place, that the senior VP and managers need to see, read and re-write everything before it can be posted or published.

That’s why responses are slow or don’t happen at all until it’s too late. Also, most managers backgrounds are in business or accounting, not communications so they in their wisdom try to ignore or take too long to approve responses because they are busy with numbers and big picture ideas (which I think they should be) than editing or responding to tweets.
http://www.mediastyle.ca/2011/05/the-whoops-report-uptownhockey/ @uptownhockey / Uptown Sports in trouble over gay marriage tweetsMediaStyle

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