I like mine with extra pickles. Image via Wikipedia
Chick-fil-A makes a great chicken sandwich, but the company doesn’t seem to understand the basics of media relations, issues management or crisis communications. Earlier this month, the fast food chain was hit by charges that it’s anti-gay because a Pennsylvania franchisee made an in-kind donation of food to the Pennsylvania Family Institute. The Harrisburg, Pa.-based non-profit group is very clear that it is against gay marriage and gay rights of any kind.
Sunday morning, nearly a month after the story first broke, the New York Times weighed in with comments from gay rights advocates, Chick-fil-A customers, and Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A’s President.
Why won’t this story go away? There are three reasons.
First, Chick-fil-A was slow to respond to the crisis. When the story first broke on Jan. 4, Chick-fil-A simply responded via its Twitter feed, saying that they were “looking into the issue”. It doesn’t appear that the company granted any media interviews or made any more formal statements until they posted a two-part response on the company’s Facebook page on Jan. 6.
In those intervening two days, Google indicates that over 40,000 blog posts and news stories were written without Chick-fil-A’s viewpoint represented.
Second, when Chick-fil-A got around to responding, their response was incomplete and failed to understand that in a crisis brands, unlike people, are presumed guilty until proven innocent.
Here’s what the company said on Facebook:
“To our Facebook community: First and foremost, thanks for your patience as we made sure we gathered the facts in regards to recent postings. We have determined that one of our independent Restaurant Operators in Pennsylvania was asked to provide sandwiches to two Art of Marriage video seminars. As our fans, you know we do our best to serve our local communities, and one of the ways we do that is by providing food to schools, colleges, civic groups, businesses, places of worship, not-for-profit groups, etc. At his discretion, the local Operator agreed to simply provide a limited amount of food. Our Chick-fil-A Operators and their employees try very hard every day to go the extra mile in serving ALL of our customers with honor, dignity and respect.”
I’ve got several problems with this response. Chick-fil-A seems to want to have it both ways.
On the one hand, it takes pains to point out that the donation was made by a franchisee, was only a small amount of food, and was one of many in-kind gifts made to community groups. Okay.
But on the other hand, the company didn’t really back away from the donation at all — it certainly didn’t repudiate the gift. And the bit about serving customers with “honor, dignity and respect” likely didn’t sit well with the company’s customers who questioned the donation. (It kind of reads like a patronizing code for “we serve gay people, too.”)
To make the controversy go away, Chick-fil-A should have highlighted in their statement the support they’ve given gay rights groups or others who disagree with the views of Pennsylvania Family Institute. They should also tell the story of gay, lesbian or transgendered executives or franchisees in their company. Then the company’s critics would give them a break.
But Chick-fil-A didn’t do that.
That leads me and most other consumers to assume that they haven’t supported gay rights groups and that they don’t have any executives or franchisees who are gay, lesbian or transgendered.
The third reason this controversy won’t go away is that Chick-fil-A seems intent of dying a death of a thousand cuts. A week into the news story, on Jan. 11, the company posted this video of their Chick-fil-A’s president, Dan Cathy, on Vimeo and Facebook.
Dan Cathy Statement from Chick-fil-A on Vimeo.
In the video, Cathy sounds defensive and hurt by the accusations that his company is anti-gay, but he doesn’t repudiate the donation. Instead, he said the in-kind donation shouldn’t be construed an endorsement of the group’s views.
That’s fair enough, but given the Cathy family’s well known personal views, which are consistent with those of the Pennsylvania Family Institute’s, it’s hard to believe.
And on Saturday, Cathy continues his death of a thousand cuts, by issuing yet another statement to media, presumably triggered by the New York Times story which was coming out the next day. In this statement, Cathy says, “we will not champion any political agendas on marriage and family… At the same time, we will continue to offer resources to strengthen marriages and families. To do anything different would be inconsistent with our purpose and belief in Biblical principles.”
That’s as clear as mud.
Despite all of this, I’m not sure that this controversy will impact Chick-fil-A’s business in a significant way. The company has a devoted customer-base. Just look at the comments on Chick-fil-A’s Facebook wall or look at the hesitancy by gay customers interviewed by the Times to give up their favorite chicken sandwich.
Politics aside, people love these chicken sandwiches. Last year alone, Chick-fil-A sold more than 261 million chicken sandwiches — that’s 500 sandwiches a minute. Sales at the privately-held company have increased for each of the last 42 years. I expect 2011 to be no different.
That said, I think this has damaged the Chick-fil-A brand with some customers. While Mr. Cathy and his family are certainly free to believe what they want about gay rights, for those who disagree with him, this episode calls into question whether they will remain Chick-fil-A customers.
Had the response been swifter and clearer, I think the damage to the brand could have been minimized, if not avoided. But by dragging the controversy out, Chick-fil-A only serves to draw attention to Cathy’s personal views and not their products. And unless your brand is your personal viewpoint, e.g. Oprah Winfrey or Martha Stewart, that’s not the best place for a business to be.
Related articles
- Chick-fil-A counters criticism from gay rights groups: “We’re not anti-anybody” (ajc.com)
- Yes, Chick-fil-A Says, We Explicitly Do Not Like Same-Sex Couples (gayrights.change.org)
- Taco Bell Provides a Case Study on Crisis Management (johntaylor.co)
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi John,
I hadn’t seen this story before, probably because I’m not a Chick-fil-A customer and so don’t pay much attention to their brand (or politics). There seem to be three different issues here:
(1) The PR muddle. And clearly Chick-fil-A tried have it both ways. But, given that there appears to be little impact on their bottom line, was it really the wrong approach for them? (I’d argue this much bad PR can’t be good … but then there’s always Sarah Palin.)
(2) The independent franchisee. I’m assuming that (and it sounds like) franchisees are encouraged to encouraged to donate into the community. Though how a clearly political “donation” of food qualifies with the spirit of corporate philanthropy is something even Chick-fil-A can’t quite answer. If I were the company, I’d try to set some stronger guidelines around this to avoid PR problems. That’s a real potential lesson for other franchise businesses.
(3) The “would you do business with” question. I love polls which essentially ask whether “you, in the [designated time frame], ever not done business with a company because of it’s politics or practices.” I make those decisions every day; but then I had a mom who wouldn’t buy grapes (UFW grape boycott). If Chick-fil-A’s gay customers keep coming back, then they’re giving the company a free pass. Which goes back to #1: was their PR strategy really wrong?
Great post, John.
I’ve followed this story, as we have Chick-Fil-A here in Utah and it seems that, as you stated, Mr. Cathy could have done better at responding to this. There are other companies that have professed beliefs that are somewhat tied to their business practices (Hobby Lobby and In-N-Out Burger are a couple I can think of) that have managed to weather similar PR issues. In-N-Out Burger is the most discrete, with bible verses on the very bottom inside of drink cups, which hardly anyone ever sees and they don’t announce it publicly either.
Personally, I take issue when a company discriminates, like in hiring and firing situations. If Chick-Fil-A does this, I don’t patronize them. But since I rarely eat fast food chicken, my support for them over this situation doesn’t change… I don’t eat there. But I do wish Mr. Cathy would be better at explaining their situation, without trying to step around it like a muddy puddle.
Daria and Marty –
As usual, you both add to my ideas and make them better. Daria your point about giving guidelines makes perfect sense. I agree that having such guidelines in place would be a lesson learned for any franchised business. And Marty, I think most consumers are you probably with you on these types of issues — hiring and firing is a tipping point in consumer decisions.
I seem to remember that Domino’s ran afoul of the abortion-rights lobby several years ago in a similar PR dust-up, but I think the public determined that the views of the corporate management weren’t necessarily the views of franchise holders or individual employees. Since then, they seem to have taken the same approach that you describe with In-N-Out Burger and Hobby Lobby.
I think individual franchisees have an opportunity to differentiate their approach to giving as well. That involves working directly with community stake-holders and to be honest, the best time to do that is before a crisis unfolds. That said, if I ran a Chick-fil-A franchise and wanted to distance my business from this matter, I think it could be done in a manner that builds bridges and doesn’t involve media coverage.
There seem to be two ways to slice this. On one hand, we can wish that every company would maintain a politically correct PR policy, regardless of the beliefs (even religion based) of its owners. Understand that I am not anti-gay at all, but part of our nation’s foundation is religious freedom. People have every right to believe that being gay is a sin and not allow gays in their church. I disagree vehemently with that view but they have a right to contribute to groups that support that view in one way or another, including opposition to gay marriage. If Mr. Cathy does in fact oppose gay marriage, he’d have been lying if he said he’s not and you would have skewered him for that. This sort of response is the product of our insistence on political correctness, meaning to many that we all have to believe what they believe. That does more damage to our country than donations by one chicken sandwich vendor (and not very good sandwiches at that) making a small contribution to an anti-gay marriage group. Everyone wants to talk diversity as long as it’s diversity they approve of. That’s not how this country is supposed to work.