Breaking Bad News

In this episode of Breaking Bad News, crisis communication expert Jeff Hahn and guest host Laura Zappi look back on the notable food recalls in July 2019. But only one can be proclaimed the "Recall of the Month." Jeff and Laura also unravel the confusion over "Best if Used By" food labels. Are foods still safe to eat after its "sell by" or "use before" date? This topic came up following Jeff’s recent war with the office refrigerator.

What does it take for a company to return normal following a crisis such as a food recall? Breaking Bad News podcast hosts Jeff Hahn and Jenny Gregorcyk provide an overview of the “Reputation Dissonance Model” in crisis communication. In this episode, Jenny and Jeff also discuss the role plastic plays in food recalls before revealing the “Recall of the Month.”

Food PR experts Jeff Hahn and Jenny Gregorcyk provide some insight on how communications strategy or a lack thereof is impacting the public conversation of a recent, high-profile ground beef recall.

Before revealing the Recall of the Month, Jeff and Jenny focus on some food trend paradoxes, including ethnic foods, curbside pickup and food shopping habits among Millennials.

Before revealing and analyzing the Breaking Bad News featured food recall, Jeff and Jenny discuss the growth of Nano-influencers in promoting brands.

The growing popularity of Instagram is one of the factors leading to the trend. Nano-influencers are people who have as few as 1,000 followers and are willing to advertise products on social media. Jeff and Jenny suggest a formula to assess which Nano-influencers might be best for a specific campaign.

The rise of “Belief-driven buyers” is the focus of this edition of the Breaking Bad News podcast. Jenny Gregorcyk and Jeff Hahn point to some new research on how most consumers are now buying or boycotting brands because of the brand’s position on a social or political issue.

Nike and Heineken are just a few of the brands launching campaigns to take advantage of this movement. That leads up to a discussion on why the pace of food recalls are down for the year and selecting the recall of the month.

This edition of the Breaking Bad News Podcast hits the road to explore crisis communication message delivery methods. Jeff Hahn, Apron Food PR’s  head of Reputation Strategy, talks with  media trainer Russ Rhea about a critical part of the Reputation Dissonance model. Russ and Jeff took advantage of the time while driving from Dallas to Houston where they were actually performing one of the delivery methods for a client facing a crisis.

In this episode, Jeff reviews the 5 components of delivering bad news in crisis situations with an emphasis on the final component, delivery methods.  From traditional press conferences to the “no comment” approach, you’ll learn the 9 methods of delivery and the rationale to choose the method that fits the moment. Along the way, Russ and Jeff will test your knowledge of Texas small towns with a road trip trivia quiz.

Download Rapid Response Guide PDF

Media Trainer Russ Rhea talks to Crisis Communication Strategist Jeff Hahn about the recipe for putting together a crisis response team. The first 90 minutes count the most for organizations facing a new crisis and the response has to be activated by a team. Jeff covers who needs to be on the rapid response team and their roles and responsibilities.

Jeff Hahn is joined by media trainer Russ Rhea to discuss two invaluable models in crisis communication: Reputation Dissonance and the Predictive Interviewing Model.

Russ and Jeff cover the 3 big decision points reputation managers need to make to restore normalcy during a crisis. They also apply the Reputation Dissonance theory to a recent high-profile food crisis, the Hill’s Science Diet pet food recall.

It's "Recall of the Month" time. Jenny and Jeff look back on some of the high profile food recalls over the previous month. RXBAR, Shamrock Farms milk and Perdue Farms were among the brands making news. In this episode, we study the recalls, how the media treats those recalls and unveil the most prominent food recall of the month.

In this episode we wrap up 2018 by reviewing the findings of two recent studies regarding negative news about food, including:

How search interest drives the news cycle

The influence of syndication

The latest in negative news story duration stats