Trust and Brand Recovery Campaign in Crisis: Findus Nordic and the Horsemeat Scandal

Summary, in English

The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze a transboundary crisis, focusing crisis communication, from the perspective of an involved major corporation. More concretely the intent is to increase under-standing of how Findus Nordic in Sweden managed the crisis communication response and repair of it´s corporate brand during and after the horesemeat scandal in 2013. The case study is founded in a theoretical framework that consists of three theories or concepts: transboundary crisis (Boin, 2010), image repair strategy (Benoit, 1995) and the rhetorical arena (Frandsen & Johansen, 2010a; Frandsen & Johansen, 2010b). Findus Nordic followed it´s corporate values and applied a consistent image re-pair strategy: denial and shifting the blame towards the supplier Comigel (Benoit, 1995) in an ex-tremely multivocal arena. This strategy was supplemented with evasion of responsibility. Very close to the end of the public crisis Findus Nordic used the crisis as a possibility to recover their position and started a campaign that led to increased and positive brand value.

• Författare: Jesper Falkheimer; Mats Heide
• Avdelning/ar: Institutionen för strategisk kommunikation
• Publiceringsår: 2014
• Språk: Engelska
• Dokumenttyp: Konferensbidrag
• Ämne: Other Social Sciences; Communication Studies
• Conference name: International Communication Association (ICA) annual conference 2014
• Conference date: 2014-05-22 - 2014-05-26
• Conference place: Seattle, United States
• Aktiv: Unpublished