Butterball

And yet, when it comes to more controversial matters, the company’s PR team has a whole lot less to say. Last week, an animal rights group called Mercy For Animals began a campaign against Butterball. The group comes armed with a hidden camera video depicting some violence perpetrated against turkeys at Butterball facilities, and they’ve launched a website called ButterballAbuse to publicly shame the company into adopting more humane practices (the company’s PR manager claims that Butterball maintains a “zero tolerance policy for animal abuse”).

A recent investigation by the perennial muckrakers at Mother Jones found a company understandably reluctant to discuss the abuse issue–or much of anything else. A reporter for the magazine peppered a couple of company spokespeople with basic questions about sales totals and the age of the average Butterball turkey before asking about their planned response to the MFA campaign and inquiring about the use of growth enhancers in the company’s birds. She received no response beyond a scheduling excuse and a reference to the official policy statements.

We understand Butterball’s desire to avoid controversy during its most important sales period–and we know that no one expects its turkeys to be “organic” or “free range” or even “grain-fed”. Still, we wonder whether this non-response is appropriate for a company that claims to be “ready and excited to tackle any challenge you throw at them.”

Is silence always the best response to an unflattering question?

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Romney’s thought crime? Expressing contempt for those who receive government assistance in any form and/or pay no federal income taxes. Romney told donors that said individuals are essentially moochers who will never “take personal responsibility” for their own lives. (We should note that this group includes nearly half the citizens of this country and many of the Americans who will vote for him in November.)

Despite the fact that Romney clearly believes what he said, his words were never meant for public consumption; the incident is somewhat similar to then-candidate Obama’s notorious 2008 statement about working-class Pennsylvania voters “clinging” to the safety of guns and religion, but it’s also larger in scale—and it reveals a key challenge for PR professionals representing public figures like Romney. The question: Is any event truly “secure”, or must a client always carefully watch what he or she says to avoid slip-ups like this one?

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