Case 18 Putting a Stop to Rumors
Setting: Fast Food Chain; Your Position: President and CEO
With modest beginnings, your company, a small chain of fast food restaurants scattered around the country, successfully penetrated the market with a range of products aimed at college students. You have been fantastically successful, and sales have doubled each year for the last five years. While you are not quite a threat to McDonald's or Burger King, your unprecedented performance has caused the entire industry to take notice.
About a month ago your success was threatened by rumors that your company has been a major contributor to anti-abortion groups. Fliers began appearing on college campuses and stories on social media alleging that your firm was giving money to many conservative groups, ranging from the Christian Coalition to fringe groups like the Ku Klux Klan. It appears that an organized boycott of your products is being attempted, instigated perhaps by one of your competitors. You don't understand the source or magnitude of the problem, but you do know that something must be done. There have been instances in which products had to be withdrawn from the market due to unfounded but widely circulated rumors of contaminants.
You are fortunate to have assembled a talented group of executives. Each of them is dedicated to the company, and their only liability is a tendency to compete with one another in group meetings. Each seems to be trying to prove that their idea is best rather than finding a "middle ground." On this issue you know that they are divided on what steps to take, a state of affairs which you feel reflects their lack of experience in dealing with situations of this kind. Some favor a "frontal attack," directly confronting the boycott through an advertising campaign aimed at those markets currently threatened. Others prefer an undercover approach, utilizing the services of private investigators to trace the organizers of the boycott and to then seek injunctions against them. Nonetheless, you will need their support in whatever is decided.