Public Relations: Ethics and the Law

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Ethics and Law
Legal and ethical misconduct in any organization may result in adverse repercussions which could cost the organization time and costs in the efforts to control the damage, patch up their reputation and face any legal problems that may arise depending on the graveness of the matter. On various occasions, corporations both large and small have encountered any public relations crisis and have had to respond to give a somewhat needed image boost. The following paper there focuses on Odwalla Foods’ juice E.coli outbreak and how the firm managed the crisis.
Odwalla Inc. is an American Food company that makes and sells smoothies, food bar, and fruit juices. The firm initially sold unpasteurized juice reasoning that pasteurizing process alters the taste of apple juice. The company experienced significant growth after incorporation in 1985’ spreading its distribution network to many other states from California. 1993 the Washington State health department linked an E. coli outbreak to the firm’s fresh and unpasteurized apple juice which was as a result of a using a bruised contaminated fruit. The outbreak left one child dead and a score of other consumers sick attributing to more than 20 lawsuits. As a result, Odwalla lost a third of its market share, pleaded guilty to criminal charges leading to $1.5 million from the FDA. Odwalla responded through the CEO Stephen Williamson by recalling all products containing carrot and apple juice costing the firm around $6.

5 million.
The firm accepted responsibility while addressing the media and committed to pay all medical expenses for the affected cases. The company fixed the contamination issue after facing its worst-case scenario by focusing on its customer relations in the months that followed, in pursuit to rebuild trust and concentrated on improving its quality and safety system. The controversial apple juice was re-launched two months later. Effective communication through Edelman PR firm with crucial with stakeholders including, both federal and state government led to successful handling of the ordeal as well as relying on the empathy factor, through relating to the pain of affected families (Ulmer, Robert, Sellnow and Seeger, 37).
The Public Relations Society of America’s core responsibility is to promote fair and healthy competition among businesses. The society focusses on three main areas namely, the organization, the value of public relations, diversity and ethics within the public relations field. PRSA promotes ethics standards for public relations profession while providing training for members. The code of ethics stipulates principles and guidelines which uphold the society’s core values relating to the ethical practice of PR which include, professionalism, development, loyalty, advocacy, honesty, and objectivity. BEPS, a Board of Ethics and Professional Standards was formed under PRSA to amend when necessary and uphold the code of ethics since the society recognizes the need to identify and attend to ethical issues as they arise. The society fosters an accurate and more informed view of the value and role of public relations to organizations about the code of ethics it has set, and which business organizations have to operate within.
In conclusion, crisis planning is key to business survival as many companies ignore the fact that a terrible crisis could happen to them. The Odwalla ordeal has revealed that even good companies face the risk and hence an excellent public relations defense plan is vital. The business formalized the communication plan and acted swiftly and decisively, therefore, maintaining the customer’s loyalty (Jin, Yan, Liu, and Austin, 86).
Works Cited
Jin, Yan, Brooke Fisher Liu, and Lucinda L. Austin. “Examining the role of social media in effective crisis management: The effects of crisis origin, information form, and source on publics’ crisis responses.” Communication research 41.1 (2014): 74-94.
Ulmer, Robert R., Timothy L. Sellnow, and Matthew W. Seeger. Effective crisis communication: Moving from crisis to opportunity. Sage Publications, 2017: 30-44