We all put out little fires every day at work and at home. The role of the Dairy Communications Management Team is to quell fires before the dairy industry gets burned.
Dairy farmers invest in this team every day through their dairy checkoff organizations. The team includes Dairy Management Inc. (DMI), MilkPEP, National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), U.S. Dairy Export Council, the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, and the International Dairy Foods Association. While crisis management is not usually a fun job to consider, it is crucial to have people monitor these issues because being prepared for negative press can limit the damage and even potentially turn a challenging situation into an opportunity.
Negative perceptions can be presented in a number of ways, including media and social media content. There are timeless stories, such as information that questions the value of dairy products or dairy farming practices, as well as news that brings dairy issues to the surface. A recent example of the latter is the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) outbreak. This news not only surprised the industry but made some consumers question the safety of their dairy products.
Attacking an image problem starts with knowing what the problem is and what it isn’t, said NMPF’s Alan Bjerga at the Joint Annual Meeting of NMPF, the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board, and United Dairy Industry Association. For example, we quickly learned that HPAI was not a consumer issue because pasteurization effectively destroys the virus. Communicating that research and continuing to do so allows the industry to focus on the stakeholders that are affected by the problem. In the case of HPAI, it is a matter of explaining how farms, cows, and workers are being kept safe.
Building relationships with journalists is always going to be worth the industry’s time, added DMI’s Caroline Krajewski. That allows the industry to stay on top of stories that may be emerging, get ahead of them, and disrupt the narrative the writer wants to tell if it misrepresents dairy. Bringing balance to a story with facts about dairy’s impact on the topic makes a big difference in leveling the playing field, lowering the story’s temperature, and keeping it from gaining widespread traction.
There is also the matter of animal activists, said DMI’s Joe Micucci. Their agenda is evolving into attacking more than just animal care standards, and we must be quick but also strategic in our responses.
He noted that an important consideration is knowing when and where to engage. If content is not breaking through past the activist echo chamber, responding to it could put it on a platform it otherwise wouldn’t have had. Being predictive, proactive, and selective in where to respond to concerns diffuses a negative situation.
The specific tactics will change, but the concerns are the same, said Bjerga: sustainability, animal welfare, misinformation, and equity are all consumer interests that can be manipulated into painting dairy in a poor light. It takes time to build consumers’ trust, and that is why our promotion efforts continually aim to share the accurate, positive story of dairy products and dairy farmers. Unfortunately, that trust can also be broken in a matter of seconds. Staying on top of potentially damaging situations goes a long way, and dairy farmers have a team of experts doing that work on their behalf.
