The discovery of sewing needles in strawberry punnets sent the entire industry into a tailspin.
Staff at a Kiwi company recently arrived at a scheduled meeting to a gathering of protestors, holding placards and complaining about the business practices of the company.
The surprised staff members were then marched into a room, where the chairman gave everyone a verbal lashing for allowing this to happen. News stories, videos and social media commentary were pulled up on screen, as a general sense of confusion set in.
The reality, however, was that the entire fiasco was fake.
It was part of a crisis simulation conducted by public relations firm Spark PR & Activate to properly prepare businesses for the inevitable moment when crisis strikes.
The firm's managing director Dallas Gurney says the decision to adopt this extreme approach came about as a response to what has been a tradition of "dry" crisis preparation exercises.
"[Crisis exercises] are usually run by the risk guys, they're written on a piece of A4 paper or a Powerpoint and it actually bears very little resemblance to a real crisis situation," says Gurney
"The best way to prepare for a crisis is actually to go through one.
"Crisis situations are chaotic. The pressure is unlike any pressure you've ever had professionally before. So the idea behind our CrisisX initiative is to make it as realistic as possible."
Mock TV news reports, fake newspapers, social feeds going haywire, phones ringing non-stop and actors playing the roles of grumpy customers or antagonistic journalists are just some of the tactics employed during the simulations.
Another strategy used is to play around with the start date, sending staff a mail long before the scheduled event is set to start. The response to this mail is often incorporated into the eventual simulation, which might occur as much as a week later.
"We really don't stop until we see the beads of sweat of the CEO's forehead," says Gurney.
Gurney is tight-lipped when asked which CEOs have had to wipe their brows or which Kiwi companies have been run through the gauntlet, saying he doesn't disclose client details after simulations.
The simulations often feature paid protestors assembled outside the business premises. Photo/Getty Images.
Gurney's CrisisX simulations also use a 'choose your own adventure' approach, where the participants are required to make decisions as the crisis runs along.
"The thing about a crisis is that it's a living organism. There is no black or white. It's always grey. One decision that you make opens up a front somewhere and you're going to have to deal with that along the way as well," he says.
The impact of the decisions made during the exercise will then become the major talking points during a subsequent discussion on what the business can do to better prepare for crisis circumstances.
Gurney says crisis preparation is essential because companies have a tendency to underestimate how much risk they face of a crisis.
"There's a big gap between how prepared companies think they are and how prepared they actually are," he says.
"There's a new business facing crisis every single day and it's just a question of when it's your turn."
As part of the effort to spread awareness about the importance of crisis preparation, Gurney has organised a crisis-style event for March 2019, which will see participants endure a series of simulations over a full-day affair as well as listening to the experiences of business leaders, including former Mayor of Christchurch Sir Bob Parker and former Air NZ CEO Rob Fyfe.
Gurney says the biggest modern risk to a business actually takes the small, almost invisible form. "Data security is the new frontline for crisis management," says Gurney.
"An event like an earthquake or natural event could happen, yes. With social media, it's likely businesses will face a reputational issue. But it is almost inevitable that they'll face a data security problem at some time.
"If hackers can crack LinkedIn, like they did a few years ago, do you really think they can't crack into your business in Mount Roskill? Of course, they can."
When crisis hits
News events this year provide a reminder that scandal is never far away, with numerous businesses attracting media attention that keeps PR types up at night.
As indicated by the unlikely downfall of Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn, even the most celebrated executives could have a few skeletons in their closet that could fall out at the most inopportune moment.
Strawberry stitch up
The widely reported case of needles being placed into strawberries showed that even large established industries can be brought to their knees by the actions of a few individuals with unclear motivations.
Not made in NZ
There's always an element of serendipity to good journalism. And Spinoff writer Madeline Chapman's chance spotting of the incongruence between World's 'Fabrique en Nouvelle-Zelande' labels and where the clothing items were actually made created a media frenzy that eventually ended up with the Commerce Commission.
