Case 1: KFC handled the Sudan Red incident in time

On March 5, 2115, relevant departments in Shanghai found that the seasoning of New Orleans Chicken Yi and New Orleans Chicken Leg Fort contained "Sudan Red No.1". On the morning of June 6, Yum! Shanghai Headquarters informed KFC branches all over the country that it would immediately stop selling New Orleans Chicken Wings and New Orleans Chicken Leg Fort in all KFC restaurants nationwide from June 6.

on the afternoon of March 6th, Yum! made a public statement, announcing that "Sudan Red No.1" was contained in New Orleans chicken wings and New Orleans drumsticks, and apologized to the public. Yum! said that it will strictly investigate the responsibility of relevant suppliers for illegally using "Sudan Red No.1" in seasonings.

after nearly two weeks of testing and investigation, Su Jingshi, president of China Yum! Brands, a subsidiary of KFC, officially announced the investigation results: after sampling different raw materials in different cities by governments at all levels, it was confirmed that all the problematic seasonings came from two batches of Chili powder supplied by Kangsu Hongfang Spice (Kunshan) Co., Ltd. to Guangdong Zhongshan Jikuaifu Company. China Yum! Brands assures consumers all over the country that all KFC products do not contain Sudan red.

KFC suffered a heavy blow because of Sudan red. Su Jingshi said that in view of the lessons of the Sudan Red incident, China Yum! Brands decided to take three measures to prevent the hidden dangers caused by the failure of some food producers and suppliers to strictly control food safety. First, it will strengthen the original testing capacity on the basis of the past, invest 2 million yuan to establish a modern food safety testing and research center, conduct safety sampling inspection on all products and raw materials used, and study the food supply safety in China. Second, all major suppliers are required to increase personnel, purchase necessary testing equipment and conduct food safety sampling inspection on all incoming materials. The third is to strengthen the requirements for selecting upstream suppliers and prevent suppliers who cannot adhere to food safety from mixing into the supply chain.

(Source: Economic Daily, March 29th, 2115, Chen Xiaoli)

Please read the above information carefully and answer the following questions?

1. What countermeasures did Yum! Brands take in the face of the environmental threat brought to KFC by the "Sudan Red No.1" incident? Try to evaluate these measures with the relevant principles of marketing.

2. through this incident, what do you think should be paid attention to in the process of adapting and coordinating the marketing activities of enterprises with their marketing environment?

The answer to this question should include the following points:

1. The environment includes both opportunities and threats, and the purpose of analyzing the environment is to find opportunities and avoid and mitigate threats.

2. Enterprises are not powerless to the environment. On the basis of analyzing the environment, enterprises can increase their ability to adapt to the environment, avoid threats, and also change the environment under certain conditions

3. In this case, Yum! Group took the following measures in the face of threats:

(1) Stop selling products containing Sudan red and destroy the remaining seasonings;

(2) Apologize publicly and pursue the responsibility;

(3) announce the test results and ensure that all its products do not contain Sudan red;

(4) formulate measures to eliminate hidden dangers.

All the above measures belong to the category of mitigation strategies. Through these measures, enterprises gradually eliminated the impact of the incident and regained the trust of consumers.

4. In the complicated and volatile marketing environment, enterprises must constantly build their own core competitiveness, enhance their resilience, grasp the environmental dynamics at any time, find problems in time, and solve them quickly and properly, so as to avoid and alleviate environmental threats and make enterprises develop healthily.

Hilton's Smile Service

In 1919, Hilton, the American "hotel king", invested the 12,111 dollars left by his father together with several thousand dollars he earned. Began his ambitious hotel management career. When his assets miraculously increased from $1,511 to tens of millions of dollars, he told his mother this achievement with joy and pride. Unexpectedly, her mother said indifferently, "In my opinion, you are no different from before ... In fact, you must grasp something more valuable than $51 million: besides being honest with customers, you must try to make people who come to Hilton Hotel want to stay again after staying. You have to come up with such a plan. Only in this way can your hotel have a future. "

Hilton was puzzled by her mother's advice: What is the way to meet the four conditions that her mother pointed out: "simple, easy and long-lasting without spending money"? He thought hard and could not figure it out. So he visited shops and hotels, and got an accurate answer from his personal experience as a customer: "Smile service". Only it can truly meet the four conditions put forward by its mother at the same time. Since then, Hilton has implemented the original business strategy of smile service. Every day, his first sentence to the waiter is "Did you smile at the customer?" He asked every employee to smile at the customers no matter how hard they worked. Even when the hotel business was seriously affected by the economic depression, he often reminded the employees: "Never put the gloomy clouds in our hearts on our faces. No matter how difficult the hotel itself is, the smile on the eyelids of Hilton Hotel attendants will always belong to the sunshine of the passengers."

In order to meet the requirements of customers, Hilton Empire is full of smiles everywhere, and in terms of organizational structure, Hilton tries its best to create a complete system as far as possible in order to become a comprehensive service organization. Therefore, in addition to providing perfect accommodation, Hilton Hotel also has a complete set of service institutions and facilities, such as coffee shop, conference room, banquet hall, swimming pool, shopping center, bank, post office, flower shop, clothing store, airline agency, travel agency, taxi stand, etc., which makes the passengers staying at Hilton Hotel truly feel at home. When he asked his employees again, "What do you think needs to be added?" The employees couldn't answer, so he smiled: "It's still a first-class smile! If it were me, with first-class equipment and no first-class service, I would rather abandon it and live in a hotel where smiles can be seen everywhere, although the carpet is old. "

Please read the above cases carefully and answer the following questions:

What concept does smile service embody? Is Hilton able to retain customers only by smiling?

short answer:

embodies the customer-centered marketing concept.

Smiling service attracts customers, but it is not only by smiling at customers that customers can be retained. Smiling is just a form. Its meaning is very rich. It embodies an idea and a state of mind. A business philosophy that puts the interests of customers at the center. Under the control of this concept, in order to meet the requirements of customers, Hilton Empire is full of "smiles" everywhere, and in terms of organizational structure, Hilton tries its best to create a system as complete as possible in order to become a comprehensive service organization. In addition to providing perfect accommodation, the hotel also has a complete set of service institutions and facilities, such as coffee shop, conference room, banquet hall, swimming pool, shopping center, bank, post office, flower shop, clothing store, airline agency, taxi stand, etc., which makes the passengers staying at Hilton Hotel feel at home. This is the fundamental reason for retaining customers.

how does Johnson & Johnson cope with the crisis

Tylenol capsule produced by Johnson & Johnson is a painkiller, and it sold 4.35 billion dollars in 1981, accounting for the total sales of Johnson & Johnson? %, accounting for 17% of the total profit. One day at the end of September, 1982, a patient named Adam Janus died the same day after taking a pill. On the same day, another couple who took Tylenol also died two days later. The news quickly spread throughout the United States. Johnson & Johnson's share in the painkiller market once fell from 35.3% to less than 7%, and the company faced a huge crisis. Johnson & Johnson responded quickly:

Step one, investigate and clarify the facts.

(1) The company quickly collected the information about the victims, the cause of death, the batch number of the toxic Tylenol, the retail outlets of the drug, the production date of the drug, and the way to send it to the distribution network. Therefore, the company specially invited 111 FBI and state detectives, traced 2,111 clues and studied 57 reports.

(2) Ask the media for help, hoping that they can provide accurate and timely information to avoid panic. Through investigation, it is concluded that the toxic capsule was caused by someone buying the finished product from the pharmacy and then adding hydrogen sulfide and returning it to the store, not a problem in the production of Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson passed the news on to customers and the media, and it cost $511,111 for the telegram alone.

the second step is to assess and contain the impact of the incident. "Tylenol poisoning incident" caused Johnson & Johnson to lose more than 111 million dollars, but the most important thing was the impact on its trademark itself. Johnson & Johnson conducted a public opinion survey afterwards and found that 49% people answered that they would still use this medicine, so Johnson & Johnson put the medicine on the shelf again.

the third step is to make Tylenol regain its glory. In order to achieve this goal, Johnson & Johnson Company has adopted the strategy of "stabilizing regular customers and infiltrating new customers", and the specific steps are as follows:

(1) Please ask Thomas Gates, Ph.D. of mcnair Laboratory who developed this medicine, to thank the American people for using this medicine in an advertisement;

(2) Encourage capsule users to try Tylenol tablets;

(3) The company promises to throw away Tylenol's customers after the "poisoning incident" and get a $2.51 coupon by making a free phone call;

(4) The company designed a new type of anti-damage packaging to enhance people's trust.

through a series of careful plans and actions, Johnson & Johnson regained 35% of the market share in just eight months, and maintained it until 1986, earning huge profits for Johnson & Johnson.

Please analyze:

(1) Johnson & Johnson Company encountered such a serious environmental threat, but it was able to resolve the crisis and regain the market in just eight months. Please analyze this with the principles of enterprises' countermeasures to environmental marketing.

(2) What can we learn from this incident?

The analysis of this topic should include the following points:

The environment includes both opportunities and threats, and the purpose of analyzing the environment is to find opportunities and avoid and reduce threats.

Enterprises are not powerless to the environment. On the basis of analyzing the environment, enterprises can increase their ability to adapt to the environment,

avoid threats and change the environment under certain conditions.

In this case, Johnson & Johnson Company took mitigation strategies in the face of threats and regained the trust of consumers.