News today that Congress intends to hold hearings into the formaldehyde mess should leave many in this industry on edge.
In what can only be described as election year grandstanding, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) announced late Thursday he would launch a new investigation into the issue. As chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Waxman wrote to the CEOs of Pilgrim, Coachmen and Gulf Stream asking for documents related to the sales of trailers to FEMA. He also asked for information about formaldehyde in the trailers they build.
You can expect that investigation will be expanded to include people who actually sold the poisonous trailers to FEMA, too.
There are two rules in public relations. First, when bad news strikes, confess quickly and seek to remedy the problem. Failure to do so leads to prolonged exposure of and escalated interest in the situation. Hello?
The second rule of public relations requires that, in failing to abide by rule No. 1, a goat must be identified and sacrificed to appease the media gods, court system and legislators.
We see this happen all the time. Companies try to cover up bad news, then after weeks of prolonged exposure, some poor schmuck gets fired, the company apologizes and the issue finally dies down. On the other hand, when company officials quickly step up to a microphone, admit a problem and announce plans to address it, they are often seen as being proactive. Sometimes they can even cash in goodwill and manage to generate sympathy for their plight. It's seen as a bad thing happening to a good company and people are more forgiving. But, that only happens when the company is proactive.
How did the formaldehyde mess play out in the RV industry? When it was first reported, all we did was circle the wagons. That led to more reports and stories about how travel trailers are poisoning kids. Our response? To do nothing and to say nothing. News crews continued to point cameras at tearful moms already down on their luck after having lost everything in the hurricanes as they cried on about how fearful they were about contracting some illness. Our response? To issue talking points just in case someone asked about the situation.
Lawyers start trolling for victims and everyone scrambled, except the Sierra Club, which seized upon the opportunity to portray evil gas-sucking, National Park invading RVs in a bad light. Lawsuits were filed against 17 manufacturers. Our industry's response? Bring in a big name speaker to a gathering of industry executives in Washington to explain how misunderstood the formaldehyde issue truly was.
How did that work out? The media reports intensified to the point FEMA announced they will never again use an RV in an emergency situation to house families. The situation gets so bad that the government is forced to test units two years after people have been living in them to "make sure" they are safe. That announcement itself leads thousands of people to wonder if RVs really are safe to use. Yes, their neighbors have one -- have had one for years, in fact -- but if the government thinks they might not be safe to live in, gosh, why would anyone want to buy one. Our response? To shoot industry messengers who even open up the issue for discussion.
Several months after it started, the rules were changed that regulate how much formaldehyde can be used in the construction of RVs. That in itself could be portrayed as an admission of guilt. Smelling blood in the water, lawyers and media descend on the issue pressing even harder.
Now, FEMA has determined that trailers used as temporary housing still possess high enough levels of formaldehyde after two years of daily use that they are willing to put people back into hotels rather than allow them to continue living in products made by this industry.
How is that even possible when all the RV industry's official pronouncements and keynote speakers suggested that formaldehyde dissipates over time? "Open a window, you'll be fine," is pretty much how we portrayed the solution. If the FEMA tests are accurate, it sure does open a whole new can of worms.
Now Congress will wrangle their hands and issue subpoenas for live hearings on Capitol Hill. When will those start? I suspect about a week after Spring arrives and people start seriously thinking about what to do this summer -- or how to spend the government's $1,200 economic incentive bribe.
Many people in the industry pushed for full disclosure. Many were told to keep the issue under wraps for fear of creating a bigger mess. Isn't it surprising that it never works out that way. Thus, the first rule of public relations -- don't let things fester. You would think any of the high-profile PR/advertising agencies that advise our national associations would have stressed that fact.
Unfortunately, now we'll have to wait a while longer as this issue plays out to its natural conclusion and we learn the identify of the individual selected as the sacrificial goat to cover up for the mistakes of others. There is no getting around the second rule of public relations.