A Documentation and Evaluation of Monsanto Company's Public Relations Effort during the Cycle-Safe Experience.

摘要

The purpose of this study is to document and evaluate the public relations effort in support of Monsanto Company, St. Louis, in its 18-month battle to save the Cycle-Safe Division of its Commercial Products Company. On February 11, 1977, the Food and Drug Administration rescinded its earlier approval of Monsanto Company's use of the chemical acrylonitrile in the company's Cycle-Safe bottle. The plastic bottle had undergone extensive testing, both for safety and consumer acceptance, during more than a decade of research and development. The C-S bottle was past the test-marketing stage, where consumers had expressed a 3 to 1 preference for it over glass bottles, and was in use by the Coca-Cola Company in full-fledged commercial marketing in 11 states. This thesis reflects an in-depth study of this occurrence and is committed to the following objectives: (1) To observe the development of a corporate crisis situation. (2) To evaluate its impact on various publics. (3) To observe the reaction of certain public media. (4) To evaluate the effectiveness of the company's responses and, whenever possible, to relate its performance to the concept of preventive public relations. In effect, the study reflects how the company identified and communicated with its publics during this crisis, what tools and communications channels it used and why, and how it measured the success of its efforts.