TIMBERLAND’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT

TIMBERLAND’S CRISIS MANAGEMENT

Timberland was hit with a PR crisis when they received over 65,000 mails that were concerned that their leather coming from Brazil was contributing to deforestation. This information was got from a report published by Greenpeace, which pointed that, the cattle from whom the leather was got their food from pastures created by clearing forest land. At the same there was probably another half million that was not bothering to sends emails, but were also of affected by this report. The large number of people who probably believed this, were putting Timberland brand image at stake.

Timberland’s first reaction was of shock. Of all the environment concerns Timberland looks at deforestation was at top of the list. They organized aforestation in China of over a million trees. They felt that since their logo was a tree that made them even more environmentally concerned.

The first thing Timberland did was to address to the emails. Timberland replied to these emails, thanking the customers for pointing this out to them, that they will look into it and they reminded the customers that they have planted more than a million trees across the globe.

Next step was to look into the issue. Only 7% of their leather came from Brazil. While other shoe companies reaction to this incident was to stop importing leather from Brazil, Timberland decided to tackle the issue head on. They realized Greenpeace is asking a relevant question, where is their leather coming from? To find an answer to this question would not be easy because there was supply circle that started from the cattle to slaughterhouses to the tanneries. So their supplier did not know from where the leather was coming from. Timberland felt answering the question would be worth the trouble because Timberland did not want Greenpeace or anyone having an opinion that companies were not really environmentally concerned but just profit minded.

The next step was understanding, Greenpeace who was raising up this issue. While Greenpeace primary objective was the environment, it also wanted to recruit more member and collect membership fee. And this was why it did not pick up and the phone and call Timberland, but instead went on a publicity spree.

Timberland decided to push their suppliers to find out from where they are getting their leather by simply threatening to stop buying it. In the meantime Timberland decided to take a leaf out of Bill Clinton and understood that amoung the emails there were the Nos and Maybes. They realized that the opinion of the Nos cannot be changed, but the opinions of the Maybes could be changed. So a another response was made that so that they could win the Maybes over.

Finally the supplier informed Timberland that the cattle are not coming from deforested pastures. Greenpeace was informed of this and at the same time was thanked for pointing the issue out.

From this there are a few things to learn from this incident.

n Watch and listen- Timberland’s initial reaction was of outrage to this allegation. However it decided to adopt a watch and listen policy, which enable to think of their next actions.

n Understand the opposing group- Everyone has their own agenda and Timberland were able to understand this and hence were able to act well.

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