Crisis management lessons from the Cats of BGC catastrophe

Cats are mystical creatures. Simultaneously adored and considered bad luck, cats have always been surrounded by superstition, far more than, say, dogs. In fact, the following is a running list of things that four‑legged animals are said to have the power to predict: (1) natural disasters; (2) earthquakes; (3) storms; and (4) death.

Lately, they were also the harbinger of potential business loss.

Last week, social media was ablaze with the wrath of cat supporters. The source? A now‑deleted Facebook post demanding an explanation from luxury hotel Shangri‑La at the Fort about what happened to the cats that lived in the part of High Street park next to the hotel.

BACK STORY

There are several cats living in the Bonifacio Global City (BGC) area, being taken cared of by volunteers from CARA Welfare Philippines and Cats of BGC. The cats were allegedly spayed/neutered, given anti‑rabies shots, and are ready for adoption even as they were set free to roam around the city streets. They had names. They had backstories. You can monitor their daily lives and adoption status online, through netizen posts and the dating app‑like Tinpurr (a pun on dating app Tinder) profiles on the Cats of BGC page.

On February 16, Shangri‑La at the Fort released a statement on its Facebook page that the cats from the park beside the hotel have not been harmed, and instead have been “relocated” (SparkUp reached out to the hotel, but were referred to said statement.) Half of the cats, the hotel claimed, have been adopted by its employees. They claimed that they had been in talks with CARA Welfare and Cats of BGC where they “discussed a long‑term cooperation to ensure the welfare of the cats at the adjacent High Street park.” But the people weren’t having it. With approximately 2,900 interactions on the first statement and more than a thousand comments, cat‑loving netizens were not satisfied with the explanation. Some brought up that Shangri‑La hired the pest control company PestBusters Philippines to deal with the cats, horrified by the implication that their beloved animals might have been treated as pests.

Since that statement, Shangri‑La at the Fort’s Facebook review status plummeted to a 1‑star rating from a mostly 5‑star rating, with thousands of reviews from angry netizens (it is unverifiable, though, if these are actual patrons of the hotel). Several media outfits also ran stories about the missing cats, putting the hotel in bad light.

CATASTROPHE

Despite the age‑old adage, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” there is, in fact, a PR sub‑speciality called “crisis communication,” which defends individuals and companies facing a reputational challenge. And this situation could be considered a crisis.

One of such practitioners specializing in the field is Vikki Luta, who heads an entire unit focusing on public affairs and government relations.

In an email interview, Luta defined a crisis as “any situation or scenario that disrupts operations and can lead to a business loss.”

In communications, she said, this could be situations or scenarios that attract significant negative stakeholder or public interest or attention. This thus negatively impacts a company’s reputation or brand.

Reputation, she added, is important for a company, as it’s based on trust and takes years to build.

“Like an individual relationship, once you break the trust, it can be difficult to rebuild it,” said Luta. ““So it’s something that should be protected at all costs.”

While social media makes it easier for controversies to spread, it can also be used to control such crisis situations.

“It can be a trigger but it can also be a tool for managing crisis,” Luta said. “It is a great platform for communication and it has definitely allowed information to move faster.”

“In a crisis situation though, it means that info about a crisis also moves faster, so this means that companies and businesses must also move and respond faster,” she added.

BOYCAT

On February 23, a public event hosted by Share‑A‑Seat transpired at the BGC Park, in front of the controversial hotel.

The Facebook event reads: “Lets all meet, gather and occupy the park in front of Shang Fort where the cats used to live and taken from. Lets light up candles, offer flowers, bring cat food for the remaining cats in BGC… No demonstrations, no noise, no loud music, no placards, no disruption of whatsoever ‑ just a peaceful gathering like our usual stop overs to sit down and play with our little furry friends. We clean as we go.”

This SparkUp reporter was armed with a measly cell phone with a cracked screen, and was thus not prevented from taking photos of the event, after security guards halted broadcast media agencies from filming the first few hours of the event.

One of the participants who was brought to the event by his family all the way from Antipolo, because his sister and mother were cat‑loving people. His father sat on the bench taking some wary glances at the security, as his sister and mother chatted with the other attendees. He admitted that if it wasn’t for his family, he wouldn’t go to the event in the first place. But he did monitor the issue on social media.

“People who are aware of the issue, they won’t go to Shang,” he predicted. He added, “I think it’s going to affect the business in a small way because people are still unsure of what happened.”

“The comments on Facebook is what they deserve. If you ask me they deserve worse because they won’t man up for what they did,” he added. “I did check TripAdvisor but they didn’t have bad ratings and I think that’s what people should invest their time in, to put it on TripAdvisor because when people book hotels for business they go to TripAdvisor first.”

Freakonomics Radio, a podcast hosted by American journalist Stephen J. Dubner who co‑authored the Freaknomics books, on an episode aired on January 21, 2016 asked the question “Do boycotts work?” He interviewed several experts on the effectivity on boycotts based on larger events such as South Africa’s Apartheid regime and France’s decision to not get involved with the 2003 Iraq War.

Daniel Diermeier, dean of the Harris School for Public Policy when the episode aired and current University of Chicago provost, and Brayden King, management professor in Northwestern University, both discussed the aftermath of reputational dips on a company.

“If you look at companies that have been boycotted and compare them to other companies that are very similar to them in every way except for they were not boycotted, the boycotted companies tend to do a lot more prosocial behavior afterwards,” said King. “Or they make prosocial claims.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that when managers or CEOs are confronted by a boycott, reputational damage is top concern for them,” said Diermeier. “The fact is that when you interact with firms on an ongoing basis, the concern over the reputation is top priority.”

“After a company has been boycotted, and it continues to receive media attention about the boycott, the effect of the boycott on the stock price is more negative,” King followed. “That is, investors tend to react more severely to a boycott, the longer that boycott remains in the media’s attention.”

However, there’s a catch. “There’s some research that suggests that even consumers who are ideologically supportive of a boycott don’t tend to follow through and support the boycott either because they don’t want to change their behavior. Or because they never bought the product in the first place,” said King.

Japanese author Haruki Murakami, who often includes the four‑legged feline creature in his stories, once said in an interview: “I collect records. And cats. I don’t have cats right now. But if I’m taking a walk and I see a cat, I’m happy.”

In the business of making guests happy, it takes a little purr‑sistence to get it right.