PR Scenario
Background: Excellent Audio manufacture a range of products designed to enhance the enjoyment of music via its peripheral speakers and headphones that connect to wireless networks using Bluetooth technologies. Excellent Audio is the modern incarnation of The Excellent Radio and Television Corporation, a company that began in Germany in the early 20th century. While the company isn’t the market leader, it remains highly regarded for the performance of its products and the audio fidelity of its current range. It is claimed by a consumer activist group that Excellent Audio, in the manufacture of its products, coats the interior of its speakers and headphones with the radioactive element polonium, which the activist group claims has led to multiple cases of cancer in users of Excellent Audio products. Excellent Audio admits that polonium is used in the products but at levels deemed by health authorities to be not dangerous with short to medium term exposures. Issue: A new independent scientific study reveals that even short-term exposure to polonium can cause cancer, which in turn prompts government health authorities to begin an investigation into Excellent Audio’s manufacturing and marketing. The investigation reveals that former Excellent Audio executives were aware of preliminary scientific reports of polonium’s adverse effects but had decided that, because government regulation had not changed the minimum safe levels of polonium in products, and that the cost of altering manufacturing processes would be expensive, that they would do nothing on the short term. Would you respond – why/why not? Yes, because the public wants answers and the company must give these answers. It has been suggested that former executives were aware of the preliminary scientific reports of polonium’s adverse effects but decided not to do anything about it.
} }
