Celebrating Arabs Tracing Legend and Rumor Labyrinths in Po.docx

"Celebrating Arabs": Tracing Legend and Rumor Labyrinths in
Post-9/11 Detroit
Author(s): Janet L. Langlois
Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 118, No. 468,
Emerging Legends in
Contemporary Society (Spring, 2005), pp. 219-236
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of American
Folklore Society
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JANET L. LANGLOIS
"Celebrating Arabs": Tracing Legend
and Rumor Labyrinths in Post-9/11 Detroit
This article examines one instance of a widely spread rumor
(incipient legend)
circulated via e-mail in northwest Detroit that Arab employees
at a Middle East-
ern restaurant cheered when they saw television footage of the
planes crashing into
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11,
2001. It argues that
rumor and legend scholars, especially those examining
alternative communication
paths including Internet transmission, should work to retain the
complexity of
performance-oriented studies in their comparative analyses. It
takes "the middle
road" in building a case for examining, whenever possible, the
complex intertwin-
ing of localized and globalized "folkloric space"for readings
that are richly textured
and evocative of a variety of social conditions.
Labyrinth
a structure consisting of a number of intercommunicating
passages arranged in bewildering complexity,
through which it is difficult or impossible to find one's way
without guidance; a maze

transf An intricate, complicated, or tortuous arrangement ....
fig. A tortuous, entangled, or inextricable condition of things,
events, ideas, etc.
-Oxford English Dictionary
Introduction
I REMEMBER THE DOUBLE FORUM "Memory Matters-
Responses to September 1 1th"
held at the American Folklore Society meetings in Rochester,
New York, in 2002. The
forum members confirmed for me that the very process of
documentation (whether
oral accounts recorded, poems or letters spoken or written, or
drawings, photographs,
or other objects created and displayed in makeshift shrines
throughout the city)
worked toward reconstructing meaning, however ephemeral,
and, therefore, worked
toward some sense of healing out of pain and chaos.
Participants argued that New
Yorkers' responses, in the wake of the planes crashing into the
World Trade Center
and the Pentagon, memorialized the lives lost and the city
shattered a year earlier,
JANET L. LANGLOIs is Associate Professor of English
(Folklore Studies),
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
Journal ofAmerican Folklore 118(468):219-236
Copyright ? 2005 by the Board of Trustees of the University of
Illinois

2014 08:24:04 AM
220 Journal of American Folklore 118 (2005)
and so became "monumental" in the sense that traumatic history
is so framed in
mourning devices (Brogan 1998:61-92; Grider 2001; Ellis 2002;
Norkunas 2002).'
Not so, however, for the rumors and legends proliferating
nationally and globally
in the aftermath of disaster. These latter reports (in both verbal
and visual forms)
were, and remain, disruptive, disturbing, and complicated
affectively although rela-
tively simple in form (see also Ellis 2002:2).2 Accounts in
various media about the
tourist photographed on a rooftop of a building close to the
World Trade Center
(later proved to be a hoax), about a survivor sliding down the
imploding rubble from
a top story (later not verified), and about bound, severed hands
found on another
nearby rooftop (unfortunately later verified) continue to carry,
through their own
actual or implied iconicity, a sense of irony and horror.3 They
are documentary re-
mains.
This article focuses on a subset of these "antimonumental"
accounts, specifically
on what Robert H. Knapp called "wedge-driving" rumors in his

classic study growing
out of an earlier wartime context (1944). It almost goes without
saying that rumors
circulating on the street and through the Internet about Jews
knowing not to come
to work at the Twin Towers that day and about jubilant Arabs
cheering at the news
of the attacks intertwine conspiracy theory with anti-Jewish and
anti-Arab sentiment,
respectively.4 Yet I offer a case history from Detroit, one
instantiation of the "Celebrat-
ing Arabs" rumor following 9/11, not only because its multiple
transmission paths,
contexts, and outcomes have been documented in a variety of
media, but also because
its analysis demands readings of the many intricate turnings or
windings of people
talking in everyday contexts and using e-mail communication in
overlapping ways.
"Celebrating Arabs" on the Net
Reports that Arab employees of a Middle Eastern restaurant in
the Detroit area cheered
and clapped when they saw footage on a television news
program that aired during
lunch time on 9/11 and that the restaurant was effectively
boycotted through an e-
mail campaign begun by outraged customers are remarkably
similar to accounts
discussed by Barbara Mikkelson, one of the webmasters for the
Internet urban legend
web site (http://www.snopes.com) in the weeks after the attacks.
The "Rumors of
War" link from the site's home page, Urban Legend Reference
Pages, draws users to

specific links about businesses so affected. Mikkelson focuses
on the claim that "em-
ployees at a Dunkin' Donut outlet desecrated an American flag,
and some people of
Arab extraction were observed celebrating the terrorist attack
on America" in one
link labeled "The Hole in the Middle" (2001a). She also
examines a claim that "a
Budweiser employee who saw Arabs at a convenience store
celebrating the terrorist
attacks on America pulled all Budweiser product from that
store" in another link
labeled "This Bud's Not for You" (Mikkelson 2001b).
Mikkelson's editorial comments below dclearly indicate her
position (already figured
in the link labels above) that this rumor is false in all its many
redactions:
Large chains aren't the only commercial entities to have been
tarred with this unde-
served brush-numerous small firms have had versions of the
same slander applied
2014 08:24:04 AM
Langlois, "Celebrating Arabs" 221
to them. According to breathless rumor spread willy-nilly,
Arabs have been caught
in the act of celebrating the strike against the twin towers and
the Pentagon in bagel

shops, restaurants, stores, and coffee houses-anywhere
customers could conceivably
have witnessed such outpourings. False rumors like these run on
very fast legs indeed,
and spontaneous boycotts have sprung up in their wake. These
boycotts do irrepa-
rable harm to the many innocent businesses swept up by this
wave of lies. (2001a)
Her underlying concern for ethnic American business owners
being unjustly accused
of unpatriotic acts is without fault, yet John Bodner's comment,
posed in relation to
another rumor cycle, that "Snopes.com's traditional debunking
was helpful in ex-
plaining the facts of the case but, once again, missed any
sociological analysis con-
cerning the functions and nature of this rumor" appears to be on
target (2002:1).
Mikkelson, in fairness, does offer a classical functional analysis
of this rumor online.
When she writes, "Beyond, the myriad of 'Is it true?' questions
arising from such
rumors lurks the larger issue of what such rumors say about the
current feeling in
America towards Muslims and those from Arab countries" (2001
a), she is in line with
analyses that posit anxiety in crisis situations as part of the
matrix for rumor and
legend formation (Allport and Postman 1947; Knapp 1944; Fine
and Turner 2001:29-
80). When she continues that these rumors "work to confirm
that sense of unease,
in that they seem to say we'll never know what truly resides in
the hearts of Muslims

and Arab-Americans or where their actual loyalties lie" (2001
la), she highlights con-
cepts of ambiguity and ambivalence that have also operated in
most discussions of
these interrelated genres (Degh [1965] 1995; Shibutani 1966;
Fine and Turner
2001:29-52). And when she concludes by saying that these
accounts "give voice to
deeply felt concerns that otherwise would be difficult to put
into words," she taps
into theoretical orientations that value vernacular culture for its
power to "speak the
unspeakable" (Fine and Turner 2001:15-8).
Mikkelson also reads the subsequent boycotting of the
businesses so targeted as a
classic projective system (Bascom [1954] 1965:292-3):
Likewise, calls to shun particular businesses named in the
"celebrating Arabs" rumor
strike a responsive chord with a populace in desperate need to
feel it is doing some-
thing to aid its country. Those possessed of a particular foreign
look thus find them-
selves the target of a great deal of misplaced anger as those in
need of venting some
of the poison from their systems latch upon seemingly
appropriate targets. One
cannot, after all, scoop up a gun and take off to Afghanistan to
participate in bring-
ing bin Laden to bay, but one can quite vocally participate in a
misaimed boycott.
The need for a cathartic release at times overwhelms the need to
direct the spew
toward only those who truly deserve it. Bystanders become
victims, and the truth

limps in a far distant second to the need not to feel helpless in
the face of a menace
that cannot easily be grasped or guarded against. (2001a)
Nevertheless, Bodner's critique remains justified and can be
generalized to rumor
and legend studies as a whole: that sociological analyses can be
more richly developed
and more fully teased out of data that hides its own complexity.
I take up Linda
Digh's call that, because rumor and legend tellers are the
arbitrators "of the mes-
2014 08:24:04 AM
sages that are most relevant to modern life, researchers of the
legend must try to enter
the labyrinth of the alternative communicative vehicles they
use, because it is these
vehicles that have made the legend so viable" (2001:304;
emphasis added). I walk into
"a number of intercommunicating passages arranged in
bewildering complexity" of
one such transmission cycle in order to develop the critique and
its ramifications.
The Sheik Restaurant: Ground Zero Mediated in
Greater Metropolitan Detroit
The Mediterranean restaurant, the Sheik, located in Orchard

Lake Village in northern
Oakland County, just north of the affluent northwest Detroit
suburb of West Bloom-
field, Michigan, is one of those numerous firms that Mikkelson
notes lost business
due to the "Celebrating Arabs" rumor being applied to them.5
The Sheik is a large,
135-seat family restaurant owned and operated by Dean
(Noureddine) Hachem, who
emigrated from Lebanon in 1978, becoming a U.S. citizen in
1985. It is part of a
richly overlaid and fluid network of Arab-American businesses
in the greater Detroit
area, some larger and some smaller, most of which are suburban
and concentrated
in "either grocery or food stores, eating and drinking places,
liquor stores, or gas and
service stations" (Schopmeyer 2000:82-5, 88). Reflective of
specific communities, the
businesses may be owned by or may serve clients who are
descendants of the earliest
Syrian-Lebanese Maronite Christians who settled in Detroit
more than a hundred
years ago, Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims who are mostly
Shia who emigrated
later, Chaldeans who are Christian Iraqi, Christian Palestinians,
or Yemenis-the
most recent Muslim immigrants (Abraham and Shyrock
2000:18-20; Lockwood and
Lockwood 2000:517-28; Schopmeyer 2000:61-76).
Anthropologist Andrew Shryock
comments on the complex divisions operating within these
communities when he
notes, "Business associations divide along Lebanese and
Chaldean lines; mosques
divide along national, sect, party and village lines; social

service agencies divide along
Muslim and Christian lines; public access TV programs divide
along all these lines"
(2000:605-6).
The Sheik's name is reminiscent of the first Middle Eastern
restaurant in downtown
Detroit that had been operated by Lebanese Maronite Christians,
originally for the
early Syrian-Lebanese community and then from 1944 to 1987
for non-Arab clientele
(Lockwood and Lockwood 2000:517-8). The Sheik on Orchard
Lake Road, however,
opened in the late 1990s, was designed to serve a broad
clientele from its inception.
A recent on-line description of the restaurant sponsored by AOL
Cityguide Detroit
categorizes it as "an upscale Middle Eastern eatery where
patrons of just about every
nationality you can think dine alongside each other." The
description continues, "All
the standards are here: crushed lentil soup, baba ghannouj
[eggplant dip], shawarmas
[beef, chicken, or lamb pita bread sandwiches] and lamb done in
several varieties"
(2004). The restaurant menu focuses on what foodways
specialists William and
Yvonne Lockwood call "creolized" Middle Eastern foods, which
include many Leba-
nese dishes-the gold standard for public presentation of Arab
food to non-Arab
restaurant patrons in the Detroit area and the most acculturated
(2000:524-7).
The on-line description opens with statements that appear
somewhat unusual,

2014 08:24:04 AM
however, for most city restaurant guides, but, written after the
events to be discussed
below, foreshadow them: "The Detroit metro area is home to
more than 300,000 Arab
Americans and around 100,000 folks of Jewish heritage. Amidst
this cultural diver-
sity you'll find The Sheik" (2004). Although the figure of
300,000 Arab Americans is
somewhat high, published estimates ranging from 90,000 to
250,000 (Schopmeyer
2000:61-73), the most defined Arab-American business and
residential areas lie south
and east of northern Oakland County. Communities of Iraqi
Chaldeans and Christian
Palestinians do live in Oakland County, but Orchard Lake is on
the extreme northwest
edge of the area (2000:62).
Many of the residents of northern Oakland County, however, are
Jewish Americans.
Estimates for the total Jewish-American population in the
Greater Metropolitan
Detroit Area range from 96,000-100,000-close to the figure
noted above.6 The his-
tory of Jewish Americans in the Detroit area is two-centuries
deep and as compli-
cated and divisive a script as the Arab American outlined above.

German Jews, most-
ly men and women who had originally emigrated from Bavaria
and Prussia, came to
Detroit in the mid-nineteenth century, joining the descendants
of a pioneer family
who had settled in the area 100 years previously (Rockaway
1986:1-50). These Lands-
man, who tended to be upwardly mobile and to value
acculturation, found the late-
nineteenth-century influx of Eastern European Jews, many
Yiddish-speaking working
class emigrants from Russia, Romania, and Galicia, pro-Zionist
and Socialist, prob-
lematic; it was a community divided (Rockaway 1986:50-140).
Traces of this divide remain in the affiliations of the
synagogues and associations
in the area. For example, Temple Beth El, the oldest synagogue
in Detroit, construct-
ed by the early German Jewish congregation, is Reform while
others, like Congrega-
tion Shaarey Zedek, are Orthodox or Conservative with Eastern
European roots
(Rockaway 1986:30-9; Bolkosky 1991). Other synagogues and
associations, including
independent, reconstructionist, Sephardic, and secular, have
their own histories that
intersect and overlay this early division. Jewish business and
residential areas also
reflect this intertwined pattern of harmony and dissonance
(Bolkosky 1991). The
movement from near-east-side ghetto to the near-west-side
community on Twelfth
Street to the western suburbs of Oak Park and Huntington
Woods and to the north-
west suburbs of Birmingham, Bloomfield, West Bloomfield, and

Orchard Lake in
Oakland County, however, marks a century of shared economic
mobility.
Hachem has stated that more than 80 percent of his pre-9/11
clientele at the Sheik
were Jewish American (Brand-Williams 2002; Luckerman
2001), and it is within the
immediate context of the restaurant space, embedded in the
cultural contexts of
Arab- and Jewish-American ethnic groupings in Detroit, that the
"Celebrating Arabs"
rumor emerged. The complexity of these groupings contests and
fragments the "we,"
the "Muslims" and "Arab-Americans" in Mikkelson's phrase
already quoted that
"We'll never know what truly resides in the hearts of Muslims
and Arab-Americans"
(emphasis added) and so functions as its critique. I argue for the
continued recogni-
tion of the complicated, and, sometimes, tortuous local
arrangements of folk groups
as a first step in rumor and legend analysis of any media. This
position simultane-
ously agrees with performance-oriented researchers' criticism of
the too-homogenous
cultural models that appear to be resurfacing in some text-based
Internet scholarly
2014 08:24:04 AM

discussions, while disagreeing to some extent with other
Internet scholars who bypass
the local in their global analyses of the information highway's
archived communica-
tion threads (Brunvand 2003; Byrd 2002; Ellis 2002).
The "Celebrating Arabs" e-mail sent initially on September 12,
2001, in the Detroit
area only hints at the complex interethnicity outlined above as
the sender refers to
Arab-American employees as "all the people in there," to the
physician by a surname
that could be either German- or Jewish-American, and does not
sign the e-mail:
My son-in-law, Dr. David Tannenbaum [pseudonym], called me
this morning. A
nurse from Henry Ford Hospital where he works went to the
Sheik on Orchard Lake
Road and Pontiac Trail, to pick up lunch yesterday-and all the
people in there were
cheering as they watched the TV footage of our American
tragedy. Do not patronize
this restaurant and please pass the word to everyone you know.7
Textually, this message reads very much like the Internet call-
for-boycotts, although
it is more spare and restrained than most. In one Internet
example from snopes.com
already mentioned above, the call comes after a brief
description of the alleged anti-
American incidents at three New Jersey Dunkin' Donuts
franchises: "We are starting
a nationwide boycott of all Dunkin' Donuts. Please make sure
this gets passed on to

all fellow Americans during this time of tragedy. We Americans
need to stick to-
gether and make these horrible people understand what country
they are living in
and how good they used to have it when we supported them"
(quoted in Mikkelson
2001a). The formal symmetry between descriptions of alleged
anti-American acts
and calls for action in these two accounts, however, hides their
differences.
Entering the Labyrinths
The text of the e-mail message sent about the Sheik restaurant
quoted above alludes
to the "alternative communicative vehicles" implicated in its
own transmission, and
so becomes a template for further analysis. "My son-in-law ...
called me this morn-
ing" condenses multiple situations in which specific speakers
extend oral communi-
cation by using "the telephone as the vehicle for exchanging
stories" (Degh [1969]
1995:319). "The TV footage of our American tragedy" is
shorthand for the network
of local, regional, national, and international television
broadcasts that brought
Ground Zero as virtual reality to localized viewers and can be
extended to other
media presentations such as radio broadcasts, newspaper and
magazine reporting,
as well, in the Detroit case. "And please pass the word to
everyone you know" is a
microcosm of the e-mail process itself, mapping an extensive
and intricate commu-
nication exchange "indispensable to the maintenance of legend

tradition in our time"
(Degh 2001:298).
Oral Transmission and Its Extensions
Digh and Andrew VAzsonyi once wrote, "There is no way to
follow the progress of
oral transmission in society. Even those who have attempted to
track the route of a
2014 08:24:04 AM
single story, that before their very eyes became popular
overnight, lost the entangled
thread in a labyrinth" ([1975] 1995:178; emphasis added). These
statements are ap-
plicable to the case at hand as they indicate the almost-
impossible task of tracking
down the "Celebrating Arabs" story through all its multiple oral
conduits locally and
nationally, and they concur with Mikkelson's comment that,
"The very nature of
gossip almost guarantees that a tale's originator will not be
found nor will any of its
early disseminators" before "their creation is spreading
outwards in exponential
fashion" (2001a).Yet Degh and Vizsonyi's and Mikkelson's
statements are no longer
applicable in the same way because the e-mail process,
somewhat paradoxically, allows

for reporting and, in some cases, actually tracing,
communication threads both oral
and electronic. Mikkelson notes in the Dunkin' Donut case,
"Those to whom falls
the unhappy task of quelling the harmful rumors that have
attached to their firms at
least have a bit of a chance at getting to the source when what
was said is distributed
via e-mail" (2001a). Both Donald Byrd (2002) and Bill Ellis
(2002) confirm the pos-
sibilities of tracing folkloric performances through online
archived material.
Transmission 1 Reconstructed. In this regard it is significant
that the e-mail text
simultaneously indicates oral communication between nurse and
doctor and leaves
a gap by noting only the content of the message and not its
communicative frame,
making that crucial first exchange both an assumption of
speaking and its erasure.
One can surmise that the nurse told the physician for whom she
worked about the
celebrating Arabs once she returned to a Henry Ford Hospital
facility located not far
from the Sheik, perhaps eating the take-out in a staff lounge if
doctors and nurses
were able to eat together or, later, once they had returned to
their work areas in the
hospital. The specific performance dynamics are elided.8
Transmission 2 Reconstructed. The e-mail message does report,
as noted, that Dr.
Tannebaum then telephoned its sender, the following morning,
September 12, relay-
ing the information presumably given to him by his coworker.

Although the e-mail
text indicates that the doctor and the sender are related through
affinal kinship ties,
it does not indicate the recipient of his message.
Transmission 3. The initial sender composed and sent out the e-
mail message the
afternoon of September 12 (and, possibly, again on September
13). Although Hachem
did not have sophisticated software for tracking e-mails or
archived records at his
disposal as did Dunkin' Donuts (Zaslow 2002:A1), he learned of
its transmission
when customers telephoned the restaurant in the next few days
asking about its ve-
racity. One caller also forwarded him a copy that included the
e-mail addresses of the
sender and of the first recipients with the comment: "I find it
hard to believe that you
would allow such action in your restaurant, and, therefore,
instead of forwarding it,
I called you. I will send you all of these that I get so that you
can respond to the
listed addresses" (State of Michigan 2002: appendix).
The complaint-with-jury-demand that Hachem filed through his
lawyers nine
months later on June 21, 2002, initiating a lawsuit, named Dr.
David Tannebaum and
his mother-in-law as co-defendants for defamation (State of
Michigan 2002). The
mother-in-law, referenced only as "Jane Doe a.k.a. [her e-mail
address]" in this doc-
ument (but named in Brand-Williams 2002), is believed to be
the original sender of
the e-mail in question and is an active member of one of the

largest Reform syna-
2014 08:24:04 AM
gogues in the area. Like many other synagogues, it followed its
members northwest
from downtown Detroit to West Bloomfield. Its many programs
and services include
sisterhood and brotherhood affiliates, as do other synagogues in
the Greater Metro-
politan Detroit Area. This sisterhood is made up of "a group of
women who offer
social, cultural, educational and volunteer service
opportunities" and who are believed
to be the first recipients of the e-mail (Luckerman 2001-2004).9
Transmission 4. E-mailings proliferated from this source
geometrically. Hachem's
complaint states in article 26, "That the false and defamatory
electronic mail com-
munication spread like wildfire to estimated numbers of persons
in the thousands"
(State of Michigan 2002:4). Despite the similarity of the phrase
"spread like wildfire"10
to phrases Mikkelson used earlier to characterize rumor
transmission-"breathless
rumor spread willy-nilly" and "false rumors like these run on
very fast legs indeed,"
the transmission of the "Celebrating Arabs" rumor in the
Greater Detroit area was

not random. There is every indication that the e-mail spread
through a network of
sisterhood affiliates, and then through other associated list
serves within the Greater
Metro Detroit Area." Its tracks, though labyrinthine, are not
untraceable because
they illustrate to a marked degree what Degh has summarized in
Legend and Belief:
"The use of electronic means does not change the essentially
folkloric exchange be-
cause the addressees, no matter where they are, remain members
of the folk group,
and receive the legend from some of the same mind"
(2001:298). In this case, "the
folkloric space" of the e-mail (Dorst quoted in Ellis 2002) is
both cyberspace and the
geographic space of northwest Detroit intertwined.
These rumor and legend networks that limn social networks
constitute a second
basis for a critique of analyses that too quickly assume that
"with the increasing
popularity of the Internet, computer chat rooms, and electronic
mail, anonymous
talk has exploded and continues to expand" (Fine and Turner
2001:77; emphasis
added). Although I find Gary Alan Fine and Patricia A. Turner's
argument for the
anonymity on the Internet contributing to open racial or ethnic
dialogue a compel-
ling one for net users (2001:210-29), for example, I think that it
behooves scholars
studying electronic transmissions to assume that "anonymity" is
only a blanket term
for bundles of multiple users that may be identified in various
ways demographi-

cally. This recognition can only contribute to fuller diversified
sociological and cul-
tural analyses of rumors and legends so transmitted.
Although the electronic paths of "Celebrating Arabs" can be,
and have been, traced
to some extent within specific Jewish communities in northwest
Detroit, that all their
recipients and senders are "of the same mind" is open to
question, in academic,
cultural, religious, and legal senses. Precisely why individuals
read, forwarded, or
otherwise acted upon the e-mail (or chose not to do so) is open
to various interpre-
tations, although a "cultural logic" of rumor and legend may be
threaded throughout
the maze. Fine and Turner have asked researchers not to neglect
the audience in
analyzing rumors and legends of this type (2001:77-8; see also
D6gh and Vizsonyi
1973; Toelken [1979] 1996:136-52). Hence, I take up their call
as well to remember
"pools of recipients' knowledge"'2 in working out possible
interpretive approaches.
To do so, I must enter other levels of the labyrinth, because, to
my knowledge, no
ethnographic accounts or archived chat room discussions on the
Internet exist for
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Rumor Has It
Understanding and Managing Rumors
J O H N D O O K I . K V A N D I I I ; I . I C ) F ' ' R I - : [ > G
A R C I A
Exlitor's note:
The following article is an
edited excerpt from
"Reputation Management: The
Key to Successful Public
Relations and Corporate

Communication."
Routledge Taylor & Francis, 2007.
Reprinted with permission.
Achallenge facing nearly every organization in a crisis is the
circulation of rumorsthat, unaddressed, can cause significant
reputationaJ harm — sometimes evenmore harm than the crisis.
Rumors are particularly challenging because it is hard to figure
out where a rumor
started, how it is building momentum and where it might end.
Once started, rumors can
spread among employees, customers, suppliers, lenders,
investors and regulators.
Rumors can feed other rumors, and when they hit the media,
they are formalized and seen
as accurate renderings of reality.
If the rumor is about malfeasance or inappropriate activity, it
commands a high level
of credibility. As noted in the best-selling book "A Civil
Action," by Jonathan Harr, "It is
the nature cf disputes that a forceful accusation by an injured
parry often has more
rhetorical power than a denial."
The sociologist Tomatsu Shibutani notes that rumors arise from
uncertainty, from
the absence of context and concrete information by which those
affected by a crisis
may understand its significance. Shibutani elaborates: "When
activity is interrupted for
want of adequate information, frustrated [people] must piece
together some kind of defi-

THE STRATEGIST/SUMMER 2007 PAGE 27
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
nition, and lumoi- is the collective transaction through which
they try to fill this gap. Far from being pathological, rumor is
part and parcel ot the efforts of [people] to come to terms with
the exigencies of life."
Because crises are characteristically uncertain, rumors
are a Fact of life in crises. The good news is that preventive and
remedial actions are possible, allowing professional communi-
cators to minimize or even to stop the damage from rumors.
Effectively preventing or controlling loimors requires an
understanding of the psychological and socioiogical factors
that drive people to listen to, pass along and believe rumors.
The morphing of rumors
One oi'the defining elements of rumors is that they are
not static. As a rumor passes From person to person, it tends to
change through processes that social psychologists call level-
ing, shaipening and assimilation.
In the 1940s, two Harvard University psychologists,
Gordon W. Allport and Leo Postman, conducted experi-
ments on how the content ofrumors changes as the rumor
passes from person to person. They concluded that as a rumor
travels, it tends to grow shorter, more concise and more easily
told: "In subsequent versions, more and more onginal details
are leveled out, Few êr words are used and Fewer items are
mentioned .... As the leveling of details proceeds, the remain-
ing details are necessarily shai-pened. Sharpeni ng refers to the
selective perception, retention and reporting oFa Few details

from the originally larger context. Assimilation... has to do
with the powerful attractive Force exerted upon the rumor by
habits, interests and sentiments existing in the reader's mind."
Allport and Postman emphasize that while leveling,
sharpening and assimilation are independent mechanisms,
they Function simultaneously The result is that a story
becomes more coherent and interesting, and therefore, more
believable with each retelling.
Participants in rumor transmission have an investment
both in the content of the rumor and in the status that trans-
mitting the rumor conveys. In particular, some people see
retelling a rumor as a status-enhancing activity. The French
sociologist Jean-Noel Kapferer explains, "By taking others
into his confidence and sharing a secret with them, the trans-
mitter's personal importance is magnified. He comes across as
the holder oFprecious knowledge, a sort oFfront-runner scout
— creating a Favorable impression in the minds oFthose he
informs."
As a rumor changes with each telling, there is a reason For
each transmitter to modify, or assimilate, the details of the
rumor in ways that increase his or her status. Indeed, rumors
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
cannot continue without exaggeration. This process is called
snowballing, where the rumor's importance grows with each
telling. According to KapFerer, "Snowballing is the only way
for a iTjmor to last. It is a necessary condition of rumor persis-
tence, indeed, identical repetition kills the news value of all

ini'ormation. Were a rumor repeated word For word, without
any modification whatsoever throughout its difRision
process, its death would be thereby accelerated."
It IS regrettably common For management teams in a crisis
simply to dismiss the rumor mill's significance or to insist that
employees pay no attention to rumors. This is counterproduc-
tive. It is precisely when people are Feeling vulnerable that
they need reassurance.
Inattention to the emotional needs oFexternal stakeholders
can result in reduced demand for a company's products, a
decline in stock price, negative media coverage and increased
regulatory scrutiny. Inattention to the emotional needs of
employees can lead to significant distraction, reduced pro-
ductivity and — through leveling, sharpening, assimilating and
snowballing — the transmission of ever-more damaging, dis-
tracting and counterproductive rumors. Being a closed envi-
ronment, employee populations tend to be rumor incubators,
especially when management withholds important informa-
tion. Such internal rumor processes are sometimes seen by
employees as tlie only credible sources oFinfbrmation about the
company.
Preventing rumors
Rumoi-s arise ajid are believed when official information is
lacking or is considered unreliable. Rumors can be avoided iF
companies î ecognize the need to provide sufficient clarifying
inFoi-mation as early as possible in the life oFa disruptive
event. But to prevent rumors, it is helpful to first understand
exactly what a rumor is. In "The Psychology oFRumor,"
Allport and Postman define it as Follows:
"A rumor, as we shall use the term, is a specific (or topi-
cal) proposition for belief, passed along From person to per-

son, usually by word of mouth, without secure standaj'ds of
evidence being present.... The implication in any rumor is
always that some truth is being communicated. This implica-
tion holds even though the teller preFaces his tidbit with the
warning, 'It is only a rumor, but I heard ....'"
The most important element oFthis definition is that a
rumor exists in the absence oFsecure standards oFevidence
but IS taken by the recipient to be true. In the presence oF
secu re standai-ds of evidence, a l-umor will not ai'ise. Allport
and Postman elaborate:
"Rumor thrives only in the absence oF secure standards
oFevidence.' This criterion marks off rumor From news, distin-
guishes bid wives' tales' From science and separates gullibility
from knowledge. True, we cannot always decide easily when
it is that secure standards oFevidence are present. For this rea-
son we cannot always tell whether we are listening to fact or
Fan-
tasy."
When employees know what will happen next, what the
worst case is likely to be or that the worst is in Fact over, they
are less likely to believe rumors or look For hidden meanings.
In short, ambiguity provokes anxiety, and anxiety
prompts rumors. Allport and Postman observe, "Unguided
by objective evidence, most people will make their prediction
in accordance with their subjective preference." Conversely,
absence of ambiguity reduces anxiety and in turn diminishes
the strength oF rumors.
For crisis communicators, the challenge is to help clients
and employers summon the courage to disclose the objective
evidence that helps people move beyond their subjective preF-

erences.
Controlling rumors mathematically
Fortunately, rumors tend to Follow predictable patterns,
and intervention in specific w^ays can help an organization
overcome, or even kill, a rumor.
Breakthrough research on rumors was conducted dur-
ing World War II by Allport and Postman. Much oFtheir
work was classified, but after the war it was published, first
in Public Opinion Quarterly in 1946 and then In their 1947
book, "The Psychology of Rumor." One oFtheir most signifi-
cant contributions to the study ofrumors was a mathemati-
cal Formula that described the way a rumor works. The
Formula further suggests ways to control or eliminate a rumor.
The two factors that influence a rumor are its importance
to the listener and its ambiguity. To control a rumor, one must
either diminish the importance assigned to the rumor if true,
or eliminate the ambiguity around the factual basis of the
rumor, or both. Eliminating ambiguity is particularly impor-
tant if the rumor is completely False. But even when the
rumor has a mixture oFtruth and fiction, eliminating ambigu-
ity about the fiction can control the rumor and ground it in
John Doorley is former vice president nt corporate communlL-
ations for Merck. He now heads the M.S. Degree Program in
Pubiic Relations and Corporate
Cornmunicntions ;il New York University. School of
Continuing and Profes.sional Studies.
Helio Fred Garcia is the founder and president of Logos
Consulting Group. He is an adjunct professor of management in
the Executive MBA program of
New York University's Stem School of Business.

CRISIS MANAGEMENT
reality. Once an unambiguous reality is established, it may be
possible to reduce the importance ofthe information m the
rumor, thereby decelerating its transmission.
Ailport and Postman elaborate below on how the two
factors oFimportance and ambiguity- work together and note
that there is a mathematical relationship.
The basic law of rumor
"The two essential conditions oFimportance and ambi-
guity seem to be related to rumor transmission in a roughly
quantitative manner. A Formula For the intensity of rumor
might be "Written as follows:/? ~'ixa
In words, this Formula means that the amount of namor
in circulation will vary with the importance oFthe subject to
the individuals concerned (/) times the ambiguity oFthe evi-
dence pertaining to the topic at issue {a). The relation
between importance and ambiguity is not additive but mul-
tiplicative, For if either importance or ambiguity is zero,
there is no rumor. Ambiguity alone does not sustain rumor.
Nor does importance."
Because the relationship between importance and
ambiguity is multiplicative, an incremental decline in either
can result in a greater-than-incremental decline in the scope
of the rumor.

Here's how the math works: Assume a scale of zero to 10,
zero being nonexistent and 10 being certain. If both impor-
tance and ambiguity are high, say 10, the scope oFthe rumor
will be quite strong:
R ' - i x a R ~ 1 0 x l 0 R^lOO
In other words, when both importance and ambiguity are
at their highest, the scope oFthe rumor will be at its highest.
But reduce just one oFthe Factors, and the scope oFthe rumor
declines considerably. Assume that importance remains at 10
but that ambiguity can be reduced to 3,
The scope oFthe rumor has declined from 100 to 30, or by
more than two-thirds. And because anything multiplied by
zero equals zero. iFeither ambiguity or importance is reduced
to zero, the rumor disappears.
In practical terms, this Formula lets a professional commu-
nicator and a management team do several powerful things.
Knowing that importance and ambiguity drive a njmor, a
company can more efficiently identify what it needs to do and
say. Second, knowing the formula gives clients and bosses con-
fidence that they can influence the interpretation oFevents. The
Formula empowers management to focus communications in
ways that can impact how the company is perceived. Best oF
all, the formula can disarm negative information, killing a
rumor and preventing further damage.
Dynanucs of controiUng a rumor
in the news cycle
When applying the R ~/'.v a Formula, one critical element
oFsuccess is how early one can inlluence importance and
ambiguity. Corporate management often has little apprecia-
tion for the need to pre-empt rumors or for the seemingly

arbitrary and somewhat confusing deadlines under which
journalists work. Tlie Allport and Postman model empowers
crisis communicators and companies to disclose more infor-
mation sooner, controlling the rumor and decreasing the likeli-
hood of a negative story.
The rule of •̂ S minutes, six hours,
three days and tw ô w^eeks
At specific points in a news cycle it is possible to kill a
negative stoty or control a partially accurate story. Aliss one
oFthese points and you will suffer reputational damage.
Worse, the distance between the points, the intensity oFthe
crisis and the potential for reputational harm grow in an
almost exponential Fashion as bad news spreads.
And w ĥile these points result from careFul observation oF
how the news cycles and the rumor Formula interact, the same
orders oFmagnitude apply beyond the media, when progres-
sively larger groups oFpeople, over time, become invested in a
rumor.
The first 45 minutes: You have maximum influence on the
outcome oFa story in the first moments after the rumor arises.
During this time, only a small number oFpeople. and possibly
only one reporter, know about a rumor or are working on a
story. iFyou follow the/? ~/.vrf formula to persuade areporter
not to pursue a story in those first 45 minutes, chances are higli
that the story will disappear. On the other hand, lFy ou are
unable to respond within that 45-minute time frame, a number
of
negative things happen. First, the original reporter is likely to
be
on the phone tryingto confirm the rumor, retelling it to sources
who can pass it along to other reporters. Second, given the pro-
liferation oFall-news media, chances are good that the story will

break quickly. Third, in the retelling oFthe lumor Irom the first
reporter to other sources, the substance of the rumor will
change. As the rumor becomes known in slightly different forms
by many different people, it will become harder to find a defini-
tive demonstration to put the rumor to rest.
Controlling the rumor now becomes less a function oF
persuasion — a private intervention with a single reporter—
than oFa public statement to influenceyour constituencies.
Six hours: Once a story crosses a wire service, is broadcast
on television or radio, or appears on the Internet, it may still be
possible to eventually control the rumor, but now it will be
much
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
11 i FJ i i F-Tfr̂ TTTTTTTi n i n n t F I ? l n I
appreciation for the need to pre-empt
rumors, or for tfie seemingly arbitrary and
somewhat confusing deadlines under
which journalists work.
more difficult. As ageneraJ rule, once a ston^ is broadcast vou
can
expect to have at least six houi-s of negative co'ei-ag-e.
Dxiring these six hours, more reporters come to the story
and more people become aware of the rumor. Your cus-
tomers, employees, suppliers, competitors, regulators and

local community hear about it and begin to react.
If, during this part of the cycle, you consider the R "/.r a
formula asyou plan your public statements, chances are high
that the rumor can be controlled and the story will fade,
though reputational damage may have been done.
If you are unable to control the story during this phase of
the cycle, expect several days of negative news — all the
while, the processes of leveling, sharpening, assimilating and
snowballing are morphJng the rumor into something far less
manageable.
Three days: Once a story hits the daily newspapers, you
can expect it to be alive for several days. The day the story
appears, there is likely to be television and radio commentary
about the story, as well as gossip among your customers,
employees and competitors, with all the attendant distortion.
Dui-ing this period it is still possible to use the R ~ixa
formula to your advantage. You will have suffered several
days of reputational damage and will have seen a wide range
of people exposed to the negative rumor. If you cannot con-
trol the story d iiring these three days, expect at least two
weeks ot negative coverage.
Two weeks: After the daily newspapers have had their
run. there is still a further news cycle that includes weekly
and bimonthly magazines, industry trade publications, and
the Sunday-morning talk shows. During this period vou can
stilJ use the R ""/cV^ formula to kill the rumor. You will have
sulTered several weeks of negative coverage and reputational
harm. Ifyou are imable to control the stor' in this t Ime frame,
expect continuous coverage. A company is unlikely to
recover quickly from this kind of scrutiny.

All of this suggests that it is a fundamental mistake for
corporations to make decisions about crisis communica-
tions on their own timelines. They need to recognize that
however arbitrary and at times irrational media deadlines may
seem, companies can control their destinies better if they
can kill rumors as early as possible in a news cycle.
Failure to recognize the power of both the R ~'ix a for-
mula and the rule of 45 minutes, six hours, three days and
two weeks puts the company at the mercy of the rumor mill,
gossipmongers and the irrational-seeming dynamics of the
news media- Successlijily employing them can help prevent
reputational damage and keep the company focused on its
own agenda. |
82 Harvard Business Review | December 2009 | hbr.org
M
ic
h
ae
l M
ill
e
r

HEN PRODUCTS FAIL or companies behave
negligently, customers’ perceptions and purchas-
ing decisions will be adversely aff ected. Execu-
tives get that. But they’re much more likely to be
caught off guard by how far-reaching the aft ershocks of a
scandalous situation can be – and how varied the degrees
of blame may be among the players involved.
Consider China’s dairy industry scandal in late 2008.
Tainted milk, infant formula, and other food materials
sickened nearly 300,000 people and led to the deaths of
several infants. Melamine had been added to the milk in
an attempt to infl ate its apparent protein content. Products
from the Shijiazhuang-based Sanlu Group, a market leader
in China’s budget dairy segment, were initially thought to
be the source of the troubles. But it soon became clear that
an intricate web of players had contributed – some know-
ingly – to what the World Health Organization deemed one
of the largest food safety crises in recent memory.
H
n
i
t
W
A step-by-step guide to tailoring your crisis response
| by Alice M. Tybout and Michelle Roehm
candal
Fit the
Response
Let the

S
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hbr.org | December 2009 | Harvard Business Review 83
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Let the Response Fit the Scandal
Dairy farmers, feeling the fi nancial squeeze
from rising cattle-feed costs and price caps on
milk, shift ed to a lower grade of feed, which led
to lower-quality milk that did not meet large dair-
ies’ protein standards. Distributors, attempting to
sidestep these content guidelines and sell the in-
ferior product, added the melamine, a substance
that can mimic protein but is dangerous for human
and animal consumption. Several dairies, in turn,
negligently allowed distribution of tainted milk
products. All this was aided by lax oversight from
Chinese quality-control offi cials and local govern-
ment offi cers. Finally, global manufacturing com-
panies such as Heinz, Mars, and Unilever became
unwitting accomplices as they manufactured and
distributed food items carrying the poisoned dairy
ingredients.

Clearly, scandals can very easily extend beyond
the original perpetrators and aff ect other compa-
nies in the value chain. They also may spill over to
businesses outside the value chain that are viewed
as similar to the alleged guilty parties. For instance,
the dairy scandal and the recent pet food and toy-
manufacturing scandals have in many people’s
minds rendered all Chinese products suspect.
With so many angles from which scandals might
strike – and so many possible levels of perceived
responsibility for wrongdoing, from accidental to
negligent to intentional – a blanket approach to
handling them just doesn’t work. Although gen-
eral guidelines for crisis management off er a use-
ful starting point, the most eff ective responses
are carefully and systematically calibrated to the
characteristics of the brand, the
nature of the scandalous event,
and the company’s degree of
seeming culpability. They mini-
mize brand damage and even, on
occasion, provide opportunities
for fi rms to deepen connections
with customers by demonstrat-
ing concern and caring.
A Framework for
Managing Scandals
Drawing on more than 10 years
of our own research, as well as
studies by others, we’ve devel-
oped a four-step framework
that allows executives to craft

just-right, just-in-time responses
to scandals. It off ers managers a
systematic way to gauge whether
they should act immediately or sit tight and wait
for the air to clear.
Step 1: Assess the incident. A scandal occurs
when a negatively perceived event or action gains
notoriety with a relevant audience. Not all negative
events become scandals. The likelihood of a full-
blown public scandal, in need of an equally public
response, goes up when the incident is surprising,
vivid, emotional, or pertinent to a central attribute of
the company or brand. Applying these criteria, man-
agers in the Chinese dairy supply chain might have
anticipated that the news of tainted milk products
would blossom into a crisis. The scandal received
extensive press coverage because a large number of
illnesses and several infant deaths struck an emo-
tional chord and because a core benefi t of dairy
products – healthful nutrition – was compromised.
By contrast, if the incident is unsurprising, dif-
fi cult to portray in a vivid and emotional manner, or
tangential to the company or brand, reputation may
go relatively unharmed, and the fi rm may make
amends directly with the aff ected parties rather
than respond publicly. In 2003, for instance, senior
Boeing offi cials and a U.S. Air Force procurement
staff er were involved in a corruption scandal. Boe-
ing off ered Air Force employee Darleen Druyun a
position in its executive ranks while she oversaw
the $20 billion lease of tanker aircraft . Following
an investigation, Druyun confessed to setting con-
tract terms that favored her future employer and

sharing information about Airbus’s bid with Boe-
ing. Druyun and Boeing’s CFO at the time, Michael
Sears, were fi ned and sentenced to jail time, com-
munity confi nement, and community service. The
incident drew little public ire, however, probably
because such confl icts of interest are viewed as
commonplace – certainly nothing to get worked
up about.
The spillover effect. A company’s own good be-
havior does not guarantee protection from scandal.
Damage may occur via spillover from other compa-
nies, particularly those perceived to be similar on
attributes central to the scandal. When Vioxx was
linked to elevated cardiovascular risk and Merck was
forced to withdraw it from the market in 2004, Pfi zer
sought to capitalize on the scandal by positioning
its COX-2 inhibitor, Celebrex, as a safer alternative.
But many physicians perceived the Vioxx problem
to be class related (associated with COX-2 inhibi-
tors) rather than drug specifi c. As a result, Celebrex
suff ered along with Vioxx, whereas painkillers from
other classes were unaff ected. Meanwhile, dissimilar-
ity on a scandal attribute appears to off er companies
A blanket approach to scandal »
management won’t work. There
are too many angles from which
scandals might strike.
An effective response is one »
that’s been calibrated to the char-
acteristics of the brand, the nature
of the event, and the parties being
blamed.

The authors offer a four-step »
framework (assess the incident,
acknowledge the problem, formu-
late a response, implement the
response) for crafting just-right
reactions.
IN BRIEF
IDEA
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protection from spillover. In 2005, when a severed
fi nger was allegedly found in a bowl of Wendy’s chili,
competitors didn’t take a hit, because the menu
item was unique to that restaurant chain.
The rebound effect. When a scandal does spill
over from one company to another, the public’s
attitude toward the original off ender may actually
become more favorable. As consumers see it, why
penalize the perpetrating company for a behavior
that may be more widespread? (Ironically, they’re
rarely so magnanimous toward the spillover vic-
tim.) Accordingly, damage to Mattel’s brand due
to the unsanctioned use of lead paint on toys pro-
duced in China was mitigated by the public’s obser-
vation that other toy manufacturers – and compa-
nies in other industries – have experienced similar
problems and found it very diffi cult to oversee all
aspects of manufacturing in that country.

The customers’ mind-set. There is oft en a yawn-
ing gap between managers’ and consumers’ per-
ceptions of a potentially scandalous event. (See
the exhibit “Mind the Gap.”) Deep knowledge of
the business encourages managers to be analytical
when assessing the situation, and they have vested
interests that lead them to interpret data opti-
mistically. Customers’ knowledge of the business
is somewhat limited, so they tend to react more
emotionally and construe events more cynically.
When executives fail to understand the customers’
mind-set, their response to a problematic situation
may fan the fl ames of scandal. Such was the case
when Intel reasoned that a computational fl aw in
its Pentium chip would be of little consequence to
consumers, because the probability of error was
remote and glitches would occur only when us-
ers performed highly complex computations. Con-
sumers took a diff erent view: They saw the fl aw
as symbolic of poor quality and fi led a class-action
suit. Intel ultimately recalled the chip at a cost of
$475 million.
This may sound obvious, but it is critical for
companies to look at individual incidents from
the customer’s perspective. To that end, they must
convene a carefully designed and highly motivated
executive crisis-management team – one that can
infuse some reality into the scandal-assessment
stage. Team membership, which may be largely
preordained to save precious time when a disrup-
tion fl ares up, could include the CEO, legal counsel,
heads of functions such as fi nance and operations,
the fi rm’s top PR person, and the VP from the cor-
porate division experiencing the problem. As roles

are assigned, some of these individuals should be
given responsibilities that encourage viewing of
the predicament from an outside perspective. For
example, during Jack in the Box’s E. coli scandal in
1993, Linda Lang, who subsequently became CEO
of the corporation, was brought onto the crisis
team and tasked with analyzing the disaster’s con-
sequences with respect to franchisees.
Step 2: Acknowledge the problem. If manage-
ment concludes that the company is likely to be
aff ected by a scandal, it should immediately ac-
knowledge the problem, expressing concern for
any parties harmed and outlining the steps the
fi rm is taking to investigate and to prevent further
damage.
Speed is important: Jack in the Box delayed
commenting for several days following the E. coli
outbreak linked to its hamburgers. In the wake
Mind the Gap
Typically there’s wide disparity between managers’
and customers’ perceptions of a crisis involving a brand,
product, or service. A company and its patrons may
disagree on the severity of impact, who exactly is to
blame, and the need for a quick response – or for any
reaction at all. Here are some ways to close that gap.
Assess the Incident

Adopt the customers’ point of
view rather than management’s
perspective.
Acknowledge the Problem
Avoid premature statements related to
the cause, focus on the process of investi-
gation, and prevent further harm.
1
2
3
Formulate a Response
Evaluate the benefi ts and costs of
the response in terms of customer
relationships over the long run.
4
Implement the Response
Align scandal communications with
customers’ perceptions of the brand’s
function.
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of the scandal, the parent company’s stock lost
30% of its value, the Securities and Exchange Com-
mission temporarily suspended trading of the
stock, lawsuits were fi led on behalf of hundreds
of sickened customers as well as franchisees who
saw their sales plummet, and within three years of
the outbreak every Jack in the Box restaurant in
Colorado was closed. It took the company years to
fully recover. The chain didn’t return to Colorado
until 2007.
By contrast, when Trend Micro’s fl awed virus
soft ware update immobilized customers’ comput-
ers, Akihiko Omikawa, EVP for Japan, responded
quickly. Within an hour and a half, the company
had removed the fl awed fi le from its website and
update servers, expanded its customer support staff ,
and held a press conference to apologize to custom-
ers and describe how the problem was being ad-
dressed. Savvy companies today not only monitor
the web and social media for budding scandals but
also use these platforms to acknowledge customers’
concerns and keep people informed.
Although prompt acknowledgment is necessary,
it is equally important that specifi c details be re-
served for the next step of the response, when the
company has a better understanding of what really
happened. In the 1990s, Perrier damaged its cred-
ibility by issuing an immediate explanation for re-
ports of benzene in its water – an explanation that
was subsequently found to be incorrect.

To avoid this hazard, company spokespeople
should limit their early comments to describing
how the problem is being investigated, and execu-
tives should show that they’re doing what they can
to prevent further harm as the facts unfold. For
example, while the investigation into the Tyle-
nol poisonings was getting under way, Johnson &
Johnson halted production and recalled 31 million
bottles of the product. Corporate offi cials appeared
on TV programs such as 60 Minutes and Nightline,
expressing horror at the tragedy; J&J announced
a $100,000 reward for the capture of the “Tylenol
killer”; and the company set up toll-free hotlines for
customers and members of the media.
Step 3: Formulate a strategic response. Aft er
delivering an immediate yet measured reaction
and getting the facts of the underlying problem
fi rmly in hand, the senior team must craft a strate-
gic response to the scandal. The most eff ective strat-
egy will depend on several factors – among them,
whether the allegation is false or true.
False allegations. If an allegation is proved false,
the company should issue a strong denial. That’s
what Wendy’s did once the fi nger-in-the-chili inci-
dent was exposed as a customer’s ruse. “The police
have conducted an investigation and fi led charges
and made an arrest. We believe that is a clear sign
we have been vindicated,” a spokesman for the fast-
food chain said at the time.
Denial is also a powerful weapon when a com-
pany is an innocent victim of spillover. Aft er the

Jack in the Box scandal erupted, other fast-food
companies that sold hamburgers would have been
well advised to reassure customers that they sourced
and cooked their ground beef diff erently.
But denials must be wielded with care: If a com-
pany issues one when spillover has not occurred, it
may experience a boomerang eff ect – that is, the de-
nial might raise the very suspicion it was intended
to correct. If Burger King (which doesn’t serve chili)
had responded to the Wendy’s scandal by insisting
in a press release that a similar event could not occur
at Burger King because of its careful quality-control
procedures, consumers might have wondered why
the chain was so defensive – and concluded that
Burger King’s quality-control procedures were, in
fact, probably lacking.
True allegations. If an alleged wrongdoing proves
to be true, addressing it is more complicated and
will typically involve some combination of expla-
Jack in the Box delayed commenting
for several days after the E. coli
outbreak – and it took the company
years to recover.
Layout.indd 86 11/2/09 1:44:26 PM11/2/09 1:44:26 PM
nation, apology, compensation, and
punishment. The precise mix of these

elements depends largely on the per-
ceived degree of calculation behind the
ill deeds: Were they intentional, negli-
gent, or accidental?
Let’s examine the roles of various
players in the pet food scandal of 2007,
which has tragic parallels with the 2008
dairy debacle. At least 1,950 cats and
2,200 dogs died of renal failure, purport-
edly aft er consuming pet food contain-
ing melamine. Xuzhou Anying Biologic
Technology Development Company, a
Chinese supplier of wheat gluten used
in the food, appeared to have intention-
ally spiked the gluten with melamine
to pass chemical inspections for pro-
tein content. Menu Foods, a Canadian
private-label manufacturer of pet food that used
the adulterated gluten, was unaware of the con-
tamination but was negligent in its failure to rigor-
ously test its products and in its slow response to
initial reports of pet illness. The company waited
at least 10 days aft er receiving the fi rst confi rmed
reports to launch an investigation; another 14 days
passed before it issued a recall. Finally, companies
such as Kroger and Procter & Gamble – which had
contracted with Menu Foods to produce pet food
products sold under their brand names, and which
had no reason to suspect that their product quality
was compromised – accidentally became associated
with the crisis.
When a company’s connection is accidental,
sincere apologies may be all that are needed. Ac-
cordingly, Procter & Gamble ran ads for Iams and

Eukanuba expressing deep regret that these brands
were associated with the scandal. In instances of
negligence, fi nancial compensation may be required
to appease those aff ected. Menu Foods may have
miscalculated in its attempt to off set its negligence.
The company was slow to off er compensation for
expenses and losses that pet owners experienced,
leading people to take matters into their own hands.
Customers fi led a lawsuit that resulted in a $24 mil-
lion settlement in May 2008.
When involvement in a scandal results from ac-
tions that are perceived as intentional, the public
may seek formal punishment of those responsi-
ble – the loss of jobs, for instance, or even jail time.
Despite the fact that an inspection by the Chinese
government found melamine on the premises of
Xuzhou Anying Biologic, the company manager de-
nied any involvement in the scandal. The govern-
ment responded by shutting down the business and
detaining its manager, actions that bereaved U.S.
pet owners probably viewed as well justifi ed in light
of the company’s deliberate actions.
As they formulate a strategic response, execu-
tives may want to role-play customers’ reactions
and quantify the possible costs of defections and
lawsuits from parties who believe that it’s unjust.
As in previous steps of this process, getting into
customers’ heads is the best way to correct course
when scandal hits.
Step 4: Implement response tactics. Once se-
nior management has decided on a basic approach
to dealing with the scandal, marketing and com-

munications specialists may be called in to help
the team fi gure out how to implement the strategy.
The critical questions at this stage: Which issues
should be addressed, and at what level of detail?
Who should deliver the response, and with what
kind of tone?
Answers to these questions must be based not
only on the substance of the scandal but also on
customers’ perceptions of how the brand helps
them achieve certain goals. Some brands are
viewed as helping consumers pursue “promotion”
goals, which are related to achievement and accom-
plishment. For instance, people patronize JetBlue
to realize their travel aspirations in an aff ordable
yet relatively luxurious fashion. Other brands serve
“prevention” goals, helping consumers avoid bad
outcomes. Trend Micro’s antivirus and internet-
security soft ware products, for example, claim to
provide companies the most comprehensive pro-
Menu Foods wasn’t aware
that it had used adulterated
gluten in its pet food – but was
negligent in its failure to rigorously
test its products.
Layout.indd 87 11/2/09 1:44:35 PM11/2/09 1:44:35 PM

tection, because the fi rm pioneered centralized
antivirus solutions for gateways, e-mail systems,
and fi le servers.
If a brand serves a promotion goal, then a
scandal is likely to evoke sadness and disappoint-
ment – and a desire among customers for “big
picture” information from spokespersons who can
speak strategically about what should have been
done to achieve a more favorable outcome. In
February 2007, weather-related problems brought
operations at JetBlue to a standstill and stranded
thousands of passengers. The lead communicator
in the company’s response was then-CEO David
Neeleman, who adopted an appropriately subdued
and apologetic tone. A Customer Bill of Rights was
created to ensure positive experiences for JetBlue
travelers, even in the event of seemingly unavoid-
able future fl ight delays. The messages were framed
in a sweeping manner with a focus on operational
and customer policy changes rather than an empha-
sis on minute details. Unfortunately, these on-target
messaging tactics were undercut by the company’s
initial delay in acknowledging the problem – a tes-
tament to the importance of managing all four steps
of the response process well if a brand is to success-
fully bounce back.
If a brand serves a prevention goal, then the
scandal may prompt anxiety and nervousness,
along with a desire for granular information from
a spokesperson who is knowledgeable specifi cally
about what should not have been done – that is,
how the negative outcome could have been avoided.

In the Trend Micro scandal, for example, the ex-
ecutive vice president for Japan, who had fi rsthand
knowledge of the elements of the failure that must
be averted in the future, appeared on television
to provide direct, specifi c answers to the public’s
questions. A letter was also sent to 100,000 corpo-
rate customers, carefully detailing and explaining
process improvements that would serve to ward off
future crashes.
• • •
In these uncertain markets, the conditions are ripe
for more corporate scandals, not fewer – and that’s
despite businesses’ scrupulous eff orts to become
more transparent in their words and deeds. As man-
agers struggle to recover from the global downturn,
their focus on cutting costs increases the likelihood
of cutting corners. Powerful networking technolo-
gies mean greater numbers of people will hear about
and react to a scandal – and they’ll do so with much
greater speed than they could in the era of commu-
nication by broadsheet. This, combined with compa-
nies’ keen emphasis on developing strategic partner-
ships and outsourcing their noncore business tasks,
makes it more diffi cult than ever for senior execu-
tives to control behaviors outside the company.
In such an environment, executives cannot rely
on preventative measures to protect them from
scandal damage. They must be ready to respond,
which means having an executive crisis team at
the ready, a contingency budget set aside for crisis
response, and – as we’ve outlined – a solid plan
for working through the nuances of the specifi c

scandal.
Alice M. Tybout ([email protected]
edu) is the Harold T. Martin Professor of Marketing
at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Man-
agement in Evanston, Illinois. She is a coauthor of
“Three Questions You Need to Ask About Your Brand”
(HBR September 2002). Michelle Roehm (michelle.
[email protected]) is the senior associate dean
of faculty and the Board of Visitors Professor of Mar-
keting at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina.
Reprint R0912J To order, see page 131.
After thousands of customers
got stranded, JetBlue’s on-target
messaging was undercut by its delay
in acknowledging the problem.
Layout.indd 88 11/2/09 1:44:45 PM11/2/09 1:44:45 PM
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