What to Do if Your Product Catches on Fire

[M.D. Holloway]

What to Do if Your Product Catches on Fire
August 23rd, 2007 @ 1:02 pm
from BNET

Passengers evacuated from a China Airlines plane that caught fire at an Okinawa airport complained the flight crew provided poor evacuation instructions. Perhaps the flight crew should take a lesson in competency from the maintenance staffers who meticulously whited-out the company’s name and logo on the burnt aircraft’s remains.

That’s right. The day after the accident occurred, maintenance crew workers were caught on tape painting over the company name on the body of the plane, as well as the plum flower logo on its tail. Apparently, this is common practice in Japan. An official from the marketing branch of the airline’s Tokyo office said,

“Our officials in Taiwan said they recognized that there was a precedent for painting over logos.”

Precedent or not, it’s still pretty funny (only because there were no fatalities). The Japanese media’s speculating the airline was trying to reduce the brand damage that would result from constant footage. Although no one died in this accident, that wasn’t the case for nine other accidents the airline reported between 1970 and now.

So there you have it. A lesson in damage control from China Airlines: if your product catches on fire, just cover up your brand name.

[M.D. Holloway]

Free Severed Head With Purchase; Do or Don’t?
October 4th, 2007 @ 12:00 pm

Also from BNET

In an earlier post, we noted how maintenance crew workers for China Airlines painted over the logo on one of their planes after it caught on fire to protect the brand’s reputation. That’s certainly one way to do it. Arkansas-based Allen Canning Company takes a different approach to preserving its reputation. After Marianne Watson of Utah found a severed mouse head in a can of green beans, Allen offered the woman $100 as a “gesture of goodwill” – goodwill and bribery, that is.

Watson isn’t having it. She refuses to sign anything, and wants to draw attention to the situation so Allen will either withdraw the cans, or express some sort of action plan beyond keeping her quiet. Allen spokesman James Phillips called the situation an isolated incident and said the mouse was most likely picked up during harvest, not in the canning factory. (He assured Watson he has every reason to believe the rest of the mouse in still in the field, not in other people’s cans.) Phillips said:

“We apologize as much as we can, but we also do everything known from a technology standpoint and personnel standpoint to prevent it from happening. But inevitably, occasionally, things like this occur.”

Although this very well may be an isolated incident, the “Stuff happens. We do our best. What else can we do?” approach probably does little to compensate for an unpleasant and unsanitary experience – especially when it follows a modest financial incentive.

On the other hand, Wal-Mart, which sold the can to Watson, promised to investigate the situation, despite also believing the incident to be isolated. A representative recommended she keep the mouse head on ice until the situation is resolved. The result? Watson will continue to shop at Wal-Mart…though she will likely be staying out of the frozen food section while there’s a severed head in her freezer.

[Mo_Gearhead]

QUOTE: ..."will likely be staying out of the frozen food section while there’s a severed head in her freezer."
______________

Perhaps Jeffrey Dahmer missed his chance at wholesale?

Could have started an underground network of M.R.E.'s ... for cannibals?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

It's not as uncommon as you think. Even here in the U.S. one of the first things an airline will often seek approval from the investigating body (NTSB, usually) to do is to paint over the logos on the tail/fuselage.

Burned aircraft carcasses with your airline's identifying logo on them don't help sell tickets.