Where's The Beef

Everybody knows "Beef it's what's for dinner." the popular slogan introduced by the National Cattleman's Beef Association in the 90s. What you might not know is that in January of 2008 the association launched an aggressive new ad campaign to capitalize on the success of it's historic advertising and reintegrate various new aspects of beef into the American lifestyle through new advertising. How exactly did they decide to do this? The answer lies in two innovative new outlooks for beef, the first being beef's positioning as a protein rich healthy diet accessory, and the second aspect focusing on the consumer's "passion," or love for beef in general. All this is just fine and dandy. The campaign reintegrated 15 million dollars to reinforce new spots predominately in "radio, billboard, and magazines." While radio was indicated as the top media vehicle for reaching consumers, ads were placed in magazines such as Fitness, Cooking Light, People, and Parents.
All fine and dandy until February 18, 2008 when the U.S. Department of Agriculture recalled 143 million pounds of beef due to a surfacing video on youtube (yet a different media vehicle), of the Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. maltreating sick cattle used in beef circulation for upto two years ago - sending the USDA, animal rights activists, and beef lovers alike into a skepticism surrounding the industry's safety standards as a whole. Particularly ironic is the fact that the NCBA put spots in Parents Magazine a month earlier only to be rudely met with the realization that much of the mishandled beef (though most likely not harmful) found it's way into school cafeterias. Though to some degree the recall was largely a safety issue regarding the mistreatment of relatively untainted cattle, the post-effects penetrate into not only advertising for the NCBA's beef campaign, but also impact the sales and advertising of the likes of Jack-In-The-Box and IN-N-Out restaurants... both of whom terminated contracts with Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in light of the 2008 media hype surrounding the issue. Jack-In-The-Box's profits fell 2.2% is coming months. Could this have anything to do with the recall?
The answer in terms of media planning for a crisis such as the above may be not so much how to undo the past as what can be done as a means of going forward. The NCBA, Jack-In-The-Box, and In-N-Out restaurants have all launched or included public relations campaigns/ techniques to immediately save the value of their advertising (that which they didn't pull - I can't get a number or stat on how much advertising was cut for the next month/following months), and reassure consumer's of the safety of products and beef in general. An interesting insight into how quickly and alarmingly media objectives can change, and how fast a campaign's goals can be interrupted by an unforeseen, uncontrollable crisis. Everyone seemed to dodge a bullet on this one in one way or another. The question then, may not be "Where's the beef?" but "Where has the beef been?" and "How has it been handled?" Post comments on whether or not you've seen the beef advertising show up or decline in any magazines as of late now going into two months after the media coverage of the youtube video.

-Tristan Vaughan

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.beef03mar03,0,2727187.story
http://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/askexpert/pressrelease.asp
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4305151