Crisis Response Paper: Analyzing a Corporate Crisis Topic: Toyota (recalls of automobiles) After a major disaster or crisis, a company often has to defend itself against the negative stories about it in the media and present itself and its response as positively as possible. You will review and analyze your chosen company’s crisis response; asserting and giving evidence of the three most effective OR ineffective techniques/strategies that worked/did not work to repair the company’s reputation. Formatting Requirements 1. Cite all sources using APA Style. 1. 5 paragraphs; 4 pages (not including Works Cited page, which can be a fifth page) 1. 12 point Times New Roman or Calibri font, double spaced 1. 1-inch page margins for top/bottom and left/right Structure of this five-paragraph essay/analysis Introduce your company and crisis; provide enough detail about what happened so that your reader understands the crisis. End paragraph one with a thesis. It must articulate your three claims as to why the company effectively or ineffectively managed the crisis. See “Thesis Guidelines” below. Thesis Guidelines You must assert a thesis—one sentence—arguing your three claims articulating why the company effectively or ineffectively managed its crisis (NOTE:Each strategy claim—you’ll have three total—consists of both ACTION and ASSERTIVE RATIONALE as to why it was effective or ineffective) Example: “Johnson & Johnson effectively managed its crisis in the following ways: first, Chairman James Burke became the company’s spokesperson and gained media support through his open, candid communication; second, the company responded quickly by preemptively recalling Tylenol nationwide; third, the company’s adherence to its corporate credo implied selflessness and financial sacrifice to ensure public safety.” Each of the three internal paragraphs must start with a topic sentence that reiterates one of your claims from your thesis sentence. The paragraph then must include evidence and analysis of why the company’s action was either effective or ineffective. The evidence must be an explanation of the company’s response (and why that response was needed); the analysis must include a crisis communications expert. Concluding paragraph restates your thesis and briefly discusses how the company fared in the long term (i.e. did the company recover from the crisis; what are the long-term consequences; etc.). Breaking down the tasks of writing this paper—READ CAREFULLY 1. Read and review the information sources on your chosen crisis. Understand what happened, how it happened, and the consequences. You cannot understand a corporate response without understanding for what a company is held responsible. Analyze Deeply GUIDING QUESTIONS to help you analyze: For example, look at how the company describes its actions. What kind of language does it use? How does it describe itself? a. What is the response (document/website/video) trying to persuade you to think? b. .

1. Crisis Response Paper: Analyzing a Corporate Crisis
Topic: Toyota (recalls of automobiles)
After a major disaster or crisis, a company often has to defend
itself against the negative stories about it in the media and
present itself and its response as positively as possible.
You will review and analyze your chosen company’s crisis
response; asserting and giving evidence of the three most
effective OR ineffective techniques/strategies that worked/did
not work to repair the company’s reputation.
Formatting Requirements
1. Cite all sources using APA Style.
1. 5 paragraphs; 4 pages (not including Works Cited page,
which can be a fifth page)
1. 12 point Times New Roman or Calibri font, double spaced
1. 1-inch page margins for top/bottom and left/right
Structure of this five-paragraph essay/analysis
Introduce your company and crisis; provide enough detail about
what happened so that your reader understands the crisis. End
paragraph one with a thesis. It must articulate your three claims
as to why the company effectively or ineffectively managed the
crisis. See “Thesis Guidelines” below.
Thesis Guidelines
You must assert a thesis—one sentence—arguing your three
claims articulating why the company effectively or ineffectively
managed its crisis (NOTE:Each strategy claim—you’ll have
three total—consists of both ACTION and ASSERTIVE
RATIONALE as to why it was effective or ineffective)
Example: “Johnson & Johnson effectively managed its crisis in
the following ways: first, Chairman James Burke became the

2. company’s spokesperson and gained media support through his
open, candid communication; second, the company responded
quickly by preemptively recalling Tylenol nationwide; third, the
company’s adherence to its corporate credo implied selflessness
and financial sacrifice to ensure public safety.”
Each of the three internal paragraphs must start with a topic
sentence that reiterates one of your claims from your thesis
sentence. The paragraph then must include evidence and
analysis of why the company’s action was either effective or
ineffective. The evidence must be an explanation of the
company’s response (and why that response was needed); the
analysis must include a crisis communications expert.
Concluding paragraph restates your thesis and briefly
discusses how the company fared in the long term (i.e. did the
company recover from the crisis; what are the long-term
consequences; etc.).
Breaking down the tasks of writing this paper—READ
CAREFULLY
1. Read and review the information sources on your chosen
crisis.
Understand what happened, how it happened, and the
consequences. You cannot understand a corporate response
without understanding for what a company is held responsible.
Analyze Deeply
GUIDING QUESTIONS to help you analyze:
For example, look at how the company describes its actions.
What kind of language does it use? How does it describe itself?
a. What is the response (document/website/video) trying to

3. persuade you to think?
b. How does the company’s response refer to the crisis itself?
Indeed does it directly refer to it? Are there uses of
euphemisms? Does the response avoid mentioning the crisis or
the reason for its response?
c. How does the language influence the impression you get of
the company?
d. How does the company describe itself and its response to the
crisis?
e. What ‘story’ is the company trying to tell?
f. What kinds of images does the company use in its response
materials—why? How do these images affect how you feel
about the company?
g. Can you find a primary message being communicated? If so,
how and why does the company focus on this message?
h. Are there glaring mis-steps in the company’s communications
after the crisis?
2. Now that you have analyzed the company response, connect
its response to Coombs and other pertinent readings.
For example: What do the company’s words/actions/messages
attempt to do for the company?
· Justify itself in some way?
· Place blame on another company, organization, or person?
· Highlight its generosity and responsibility? Making it seem as
if compensation was the company’s idea?
· Demonstrate a commitment to improving its practices?
· Remind stakeholders of the good the company has done?
· Focus on the good the company is doing in this crisis?
· Focus on the repair efforts and thus de-emphasize the damage?
· Show positive images?
3. Now, decide on the company’s three most effective OR

4. ineffective responses.
Craft an essay that makes a strong claim that either (a) asserts
the three most effective responses/actions or (b) asserts the
three most ineffective responses/actions, giving specific
evidence of why those actions were effective or not effective.
Make sure to use specific evidence to back up your claims.
Write a structured “essay”/analysis that has the following:
1. INTRODUCTION: The introduction sets up the context of
this analysis. This includes briefly outlining what happened, the
purpose of the response, and a thesis statement.
2. ASSERTIVE CLAIM/THESIS: A strong thesis in the
introduction paragraph must assert what you are going to argue
in your analysis.
3. “TOPIC SENTENCE-DRIVEN” PARAGRAPHS: Body
paragraphs must each have a strong topic sentence that asserts
one thesis claim.
4. UNIFIED PARAGRAPHS: All body paragraphs must only
use evidence that supports the topic sentence claim—no topic
drift.
5. PARAGRAPHS THAT USE RELIABLE OUTSIDE
SOURCES to contextualize argument.
6. PARAGRAPHS THAT USE DETAILS/DATA/SPECIFICS as
evidence to support topic sentence claim. Don’t just summarize
data from your sources: give examples, analyze them, and
explain how and why your chosen company uses them as a crisis
communication strategy.
7. CONCLUSION that ECHOES & ELABORATES: Conclude
by echoing your thesis statement and discussing briefly whether
your company’s response has been effective. Go forward from
the crisis and assert/explain how the company is affected now,
in the wake of the crisis and repair attempt.
Crisis Response Paper – Example Internal Paragraphs

5. Blue = strategy/action Green = rationale Yellow =
Context
BP’s reputation repair was successful because it effectively
used video testimonials from locals on its “Gulf of Mexico
Restoration” website to authenticate BP’s restoration claims and
further highlight positive results. BP needed to incorporate this
strategy because, following the oil spill, BP’s CEO Tony
Heyward initially attempted to publically defend his company’s
role in the accident. According to the Guardian, the public—
particularly in the US—accused BP of blame shifting, hiding the
truth, and dishonesty (Bryant, 2011). In contrast to BP’s initial
strategy with Heyward as primary spokesperson, BP’s
restoration website includes videos that show residents of the
Gulf Coast defending the company’s claims. For example, in the
website’s first tab, “Committed to the Gulf,” are five videos
showing the current condition of the Gulf Coast. Of the 15
people featured in the videos, only one is an employee of BP.
The other 14 people are residents and local business people,
including a fisherman, a tourism guide, a restaurant owner, and
a steamboat captain. All the residents in the videos have only
positive comments regarding the restoration efforts and the
cleanliness of their local environment. The choice of using
residents is made in attempt to make the claims seem more
believable. According to Leslie Gaines-Ross (2010),
“Companies need force multipliers. Ideally, these should
include a network of independent third parties willing to take
[their] side” (p. 75). BP tries to convince viewers that the
reports being given are both authentic and unbiased by using
independent third parties. The use of residents gives credibility
to the claims of a cleaner Gulf Coast, as the locals used in the
videos would reasonably be the most critical of BP’s work in
the Gulf Coast.
Sources:

6. BP. (n.d.). Gulf of Mexico Restoration – Committed to the Gulf.
Retrieved from http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/gulf-of -
mexico-restoration/committed-to-the-gulf.html
Bryant, B. (2011, April 20). Deepwater Horizon and the Gulf
Oil Spill – the key questions answers. The Guardian. Retrieved
from
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/apr/20/deepwate
r-horizon-key-questions-answered
Gaines-Ross, L. (2010, December). Reputation Warfare.
Harvard Business Review, 88 (12), 70-76.
1. So, note that this paragraph includes the following:
0. A strong, assertive topic sentence that includes the action and
rationale.
0. The context of the argument – what the strategy is in
response to.
0. Specific evidence that includes details & data.
0. Analysis of how and why the strategy was used
successfully/unsuccessfully.
Here’s another example that asserts that BP was ineffective in
its reputation repair efforts:
BP’s crisis communication following the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon explosion and oil spill was ineffective because the
company initially chose CEO Tony Hayward as its
spokesperson, and the American public perceived Hayward as
arrogant, uncaring and out of touch about the spill’s effect on
the Gulf Coast. Following the oil spill, Hayward made
statements to the media such as “There’s no one who wants this
thing over more than I do. You know, I’d like my life back”
(climatebrad, 2010). Hayward also said in the days following
the spill that that its impact on the Gulf environment would

7. likely be “very, very modest” (climatebrad, 2010), and noted
that the amount of oil was tiny when compared with the volume
of water in the ocean (Webb, 2010). In the weeks following the
spill, Hayward consistently downplayed the amount of spilled
oil and its impact on the Gulf economy and ecosystem (CBS
News, 1010). Hayward’s words were perceived by the American
public – and especially Gulf Coast residents – as arrogant, out
of touch, and callous; the New York Daily News at the time
even branded Hayward “the most hated – and most clueless –
man in America” (Kennedy, 2010). In news interviews, Gulf
Coast residents often expressed distrust and extreme dislike of
BP executives, including Hayward (CBS News, 2010).
According to W. Timothy Coombs in his article “Crisis
Management and Communications,” a key component of crisis
team training is spokesperson training (2007). Coombs notes
that a spokesperson should be trained to handle media inquiries
and should follow crisis communication best practices, such as
expressing sympathy for the victims of a crisis, making public
safety the top priority, and providing counseling to victims of
the crisis and their families. Hayward failed as a spokesperson
because his comments about the explosion and oil spill were
perceived by the American public as arrogant, uncaring and out
of touch with the environmental and economic disaster that Gulf
Coast residents were experiencing.
Sources:
CBS News. (2010, June 7). BP’s PR Offensive [Video file].
Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L10W8tgpPwc
Climatebrad. (2010, May 19). BP CEO Hayward Predicts ‘Very
Modest’ Impact From Oilpocalypse [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dseMhu5IjHo

8. Climatebrad. (2010, May 31). BP CEO Tony Hayward: ‘I’d Like
My Life Back’ [Video file]. Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTdKa9eWNFw
Coombs, W. (2011). Crisis Management and Communications.
Institute for Public Relations.
Kennedy, H. (2010, June 2). BP’s CEO Tony Hayward: The
Most Hated – and Most Clueless – Man in America. New York
Daily News. Retrieved from
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/bp-ceo-tony-
hayward-hated-clueless-man-america-article-1.178007
Webb, T. (2010, May 13). BP Boss Admits Job On the Line
Over Gulf Oil Spill. The Guardian. Retrieved from
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/may/13/bp-boss-
admits-mistakes-gulf-oil-spill