Jack in The Box Crisis Communication Case Study Jack-in-the-Box is a classic crisis communication case study. After reading the materials about the case (s

Jack in The Box Crisis Communication Case Study Jack-in-the-Box is a classic crisis communication case study. After reading the materials about the case (see case study and article under Course Material), please critique the company’s response, using the crisis communications principles to guide your evaluation. Using APA format, please! Thank you. Crisis Communication
Strategies
Analysis
Case Study: Jack in the Box E. coli
crisis
Abstract
Statement of
Problem
Literature
Review
On January 15, 1993, the Washington
State Health Department alerted
Robert Nugent, president of Jack in the
Box, that the E. coli outbreak they had
been informed of two days earlier, was
at least partly attributed to hamburgers
purchased at Jack in the Box
restaurants (Sellnow and Ulmer, 1995).
“Within a month, three children in the
Seattle area, all under three, died of E.
coli 0157:H7 poisoning – the strain
linked to Jack in the Box” (p. 138).
Communication
One child had eaten at Jack in the Box,
Theories
it was thought another was infected by
a child who became ill after eating at
Methods
Jack in the Box, and a cause for the
third child’s infection was unknown. In
Analysis
Denny’s
total, 400 people were infected with the
Challenger
bacteria in Washington State, Idaho
Jack in the Box
and Nevada. “As a result of this crisis,
Tylenol
the Jack in the Box fast-food chain was
Union Carbide
not only in danger of losing sales, the
company’s very existence was
Discussion
threatened by the crisis as well” (p.
Reference List 138).
Team Members Primary Evidence. From the beginning
of the crisis, Jack in the Box
emphasized they were not solely
responsible for the outbreak, pointing to
the fact that customers not only ate at
Jack in the Box, but other
establishments as well. Although not
accepting blame for the crisis, Jack in
the Box tried to bolster their credibility
by announcing in their first press
release, January 18, 1993, they had
taken measures to ensure all their
menu items were prepared in
accordance with an advisory issued by
the Washington State Department of
Health (Sellnow and Ulmer, 1995).
It wasn’t until January 21 that Jack in
the Box took some responsibility for the
crisis by announcing that the source of
the problem was, in fact, contaminated
meat. They explained they were
reluctant to speculate before results
from state tests came back which now
indicated the problem was due to
contaminated hamburger. Jack in the
Box now pointed the finger at their
meat supplier.
Robert Nugent also pointed the finger
at the Washington Health Department
and their apparent lack of passing out
information in regards to new
regulations, he also addressed
corrective action the company was
taking. His January 21, 1993 memo
announced Jack in the Box would
increase cooking times so the internal
temperature of all hamburger products
would exceed the new state
regulations, check all grills to insure
proper operating temperatures, and
retrain all grill personnel on proper
procedures.
Jack in the Box, on January 22, 1993,
pledged “to do everything that is
morally right for those individuals who
had experienced illness after eating at
Jack in the Box restaurants as well as
their families” (Sellnow and Ulmer,
1995, p. 146). Jack in the Box dropped
their criticism of the Washington State
Health Department’s information
distribution procedures February 12,
1993, and further emphasized their
explanation of corrective measures
(Sellnow and Ulmer, 1995).
Waiting a week to talk with the media is
what really hurt the company’s
reputation. “At the time I thought they
were being unfair,” says Nugent. “It
seemed to me they were more
interested in placing blame than in
really understanding what happened
here” (p. 157). The story was prevalent
for weeks, filled with accounts of organ
damage and hospitalized kids.
Foodmaker did not comment. “We had
developed an attitude about PR that
was something like, ‘Keep our mouth
shut and if you want to talk with the
press, have them call us,'” recalls
Nugent (p. 157). Faced with negative
publicity for a month, Robert Nugent
replaced his public relations firm with
President Jimmy Carter’s former press
secretary, Joseph (Jody) Powell, who
helped turn things around.
Secondary Evidence. Although officials
at Foodmaker Inc., Jack in the Box’s
parent company, claimed they first
learned of the potential contamination
on January 17, their initial response to
destroy 20,000 pounds of potentially
contaminated meat; to switch meat
suppliers; to set up a toll-free number
for complaints; and to raise cooking
temperatures was seen as a positive
move. (Soeder, 1993).
Not so positive though was the fact that
they didn’t publicly accept responsibility
for the food poisonings until the crisis
was nearly a week old, and they
partially blamed suppliers and state
health officials. They also sought full
recovery of losses and damages from
their meat supplier, Vons. In response,
the supplier issued this statement:
“While we expected Foodmaker to sue
its suppliers, we continue to be
confident that Vons processing did not
contaminate the meat. Health
authorities have made it clear that
proper cooking would have prevented
this tragedy.” (Soeder, 1993).
According to Goff, (1999) “Foodmaker
did the right things and did them
swiftly…But when it came to
communicating with the public, Nugent
proved amazingly inept” (p. 157). Jack
in the Box immediately suspended their
hamburger sales, recalled meat from
distributors, increased cooking times
and temperatures, and pledged to pay
all medical costs related to the disaster.
Jack in the Box also hired a Dr. David
Theno, a prominent food-safety
consultant, to design an entirely new
food-handling system (Goff, 1999).
Scholarly Journals. Jack in the Box,
although still not taking responsibility
for the crisis, was able to bolster their
public image by emphasizing their
willingness to alter the cooking
procedures used in their restaurants
and insisting their role in the crisis was
speculative. (Sellnow and Ulmer,
1995). They emphasized the fact that
they were taking actions to improve
safeguards, while insisting that the
crises was system-wide rather than
specific to their organization. Although
they insisted their products were not
the source of many infections for which
they were suspected, they offered to
pay hospital bills of those who had
eaten at their restaurants (Sellnow and
Ulmer, 1995).
January 21, 1993, marked the day
when Jack in the Box took some
responsibility for the crisis. In a
prepared statement by Robert Nugent,
he addressed the contaminated meat
and cooking temperatures, but also
managed to shift the blame away from
Jack in the Box. He explained that their
investigation “traced the contaminated
hamburger to a single supplier (Sellnow
& Ulmer, 1995). “He also explained that
the company had taken the
‘extraordinary step’ of replacing all
hamburger patties in every restaurant
in Washington and Idaho – despite the
fact that health officials indicated this
step was unnecessary” (p. 143).
Despite the fact Jack in the Box
generated the argument of denial, the
fact remained that their product had
resulted in multiple deaths, and the
public was still very skeptical. When
Jack in the Box focused on external
problems that contributed to the crisis,
they tried to de-emphasize internal
problems by focusing on the company’s
history and their compliance with
cooking regulations. “In fact, the history
of our company’s compliance with
those regulations is verified through
numerous evaluations conducted by
federal, state and local governments”
(Ulmer & Sellnow, 2000, p. 151). In
response to Jack in the Box’s failure to
meet higher temperature guidelines
imposed by the state, Nugent said the
message had not reached his office. If
Jack in the Box grills had been at the
higher state standard, it is unlikely that
the crisis would have occurred (Ulmer
& Sellnow, 2000).
Discussion. The Jack in the Box crisis
falls under Coomb’s ‘accident’ category
– “unintentional and happen during the
course of normal organizational
operations” (Coombs, 1995, p. 454).
The crisis was devastating to Jack in
the Box in the short-term. They had
projected losses of between $20 and
$30 million by March 24, 1993,
resulting from the E. coli crisis.
However, by the end of the year, they
were able to slow their losses
substantially.
Jack in the Box used several strategies
to weather the E. coli storm. They
began with a combination of avoidance
and attachment strategies. When they
issued their first press release
explaining the source of the illness was
unclear; and that some, but not all of
the people being treated had eaten at
their restaurant they employed two
types of avoidance strategies – denial
of intention and denial of volition. They
also used an attachment strategy bolstering – in the same press release
when they announced the extra
measures they were taking to ensure
all food was cooked in accordance with
a new state advisory that was issued.
They also employed scapegoating, a
form of denial of volition (avoidance
strategy) when they first took some
responsibility for the crisis January 21,
but blamed their meat supplier for the
contaminated meat. They also used
forgiveness strategies, more
specifically remediation, when they
announced they would pay all the
medical bills for people who became ill
during the E. coli crisis. Another
forgiveness strategy, rectification, was
used when Jack in the Box announced
several corrective actions they were
taking in regards to cooking
temperatures.
Although Foodmaker, Jack in the Box’s
parent company, continued to be in the
news for years following the crisis –
every time E. coli came up the whole
Jack in the Box story would resurface the company survived. By referring
reporters to articles regarding
Foodmaker’s food-safety innovations,
the company regained credibility. In
1994, they instituted the fast-food
industry’s first comprehensive foodsafety program, the Hazard Analysis &
Critical Control Points system. Today,
they are considered the leader in food
safety in the fast-food industry (Liddle,
1997) and they are the country’s fifthlargest burger chain (Goff, 1999).
DoD Joint Course in Communication, Class 02-C,
Team 1

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