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When workers at the Norsk Hydro PVC plant in Stenungsund on the west coast of Sweden came to work early one morning in 1996, a young man in orange overalls was chained to the factory gates as if crucified. Journalists and television teams were already there. This was just one of many measures Greenpeace took this year to combat the use of chlorine and other toxins in the manufacture of PVC. This plastic material is widely used in many industries and at the top of Greenpeace’s list was its uses in packaging, construction, automotive and medical applications. Because of the dioxin released when PVC is burned or burned, Greenpeace wanted to ensure that the highly profitable facility was closed.

The factory management quickly created a full page of text in the regional newspaper GT, in which they tried to explain that PVC is not dangerous at all if handled correctly. Unfortunately, they used a lot of words to say very little, and as Greenpeace had hoped, Norsk Hydro’s efforts only made matters worse. Instead of a well-reasoned and informative explanation, her response looked exactly like typical cold-hearted and cynical industrialists desperately trying to defend themselves.

I was brought in as a branding and communications consultant to help the Norsk Hydro management team. First, I explained to them how communication works. I found this seemingly obvious step necessary as most of the management team was made up of engineers and company administrators who never needed to know how to handle perceptions in people’s minds.

In a brand crisis, do the unexpected

I suggested that Norsk Hydro do the opposite and actually attack Greenpeace using their own methods instead of continuing to do what everyone expected them to do – explaining with facts. Instead of reacting and defending, they could break both their own expected pattern and the pattern of the common understanding of plastics as something we just use and carelessly throw away: waste of no value.

I had two ideas on how to break this pattern of perception in people’s minds, about plastic in general and PVC in particular. The first idea happened by chance from a meeting I had with a Swedish artist named Carouschka a few weeks earlier. She had told me that she wanted to create an exhibition on plastics inspired by a huge collection of everyday plastic items that a Stockholm commercial artist had collected. Carouschka wanted to expand his collection and create a major plastics exhibition in the most visible cultural place in the heart of Stockholm, the Kulturhuset. However, funding was a problem.

So I asked Norsk Hydro if they would consider funding and pointed out the possibility of breaking the pattern of what Norsk Hydro, plastic and PVC stood for at the time. They agreed and within a month the exhibition started successfully. It attracted a lot of media attention and culturally influential people in Sweden, and prompted one of the leading cultural journalists to write the headline “Plastic – the modern gold” in his review of the exhibition. In one stroke of the media, plastic has been turned into something with cultural and artistic value. The centerpiece of the exhibition was a plastic bag of blood hanging on its hook, ready to deliver a life-saving blood infusion to an exemplary human arm. Despite the toxins released when PVC waste is incinerated, its use in medicine is invaluable and it is the only material that blood can contain without risk of contamination.

The second activity I suggested was also aimed at promoting a sense of value rather than waste. This activity was intended to immediately start a plastics recycling program in Sweden. Convincing the engineers and economists on the management team of this was a difficult task for two reasons. First, the art exhibition was much easier to buy because there was already a plan in place that simply had to be put into action.

A recycling program would have to be built from scratch. The second reason was that plastics recycling was technically difficult to manage and was not seen as economical. I had to revisit the universal communication model to explain that recycling had nothing to do with making money, nor did it have to bear its own expense. Instead, it was symbolically important to help people perceive plastic as something of its own worth, as opposed to something worthless that you just throw away when you are done with it.

The amazing and unexpected result of all of this was a kind of truce that developed between Norsk Hydro and Greenpeace. It became the story of how nonprofits like Greenpeace, which originally campaigned for a total ban on PVC in the European Union, had a serious impact on trading companies like Norsk Hydro. This influence led to a breakthrough effect in the PVC business that started in Sweden and quickly spread around the world. It has fundamentally changed the approach of the industry, driving the development of a sustainable business strategy and the development of PVC manufacturing techniques in which the toxic and toxic ingredients have been replaced with stabilized and non-toxic alternatives.

Break the pattern, solve the brand crisis

We have very clear, stereotypical expectations about how an industry should act in a crisis: first with silence, followed by denial, attempts to explain or threats. Simply breaking the expected pattern gives you the opportunity to come out of the crisis with respect for your opponents and with limited damage. Today it is not enough to turn around and admit a mistake. Now you need to provide good reasons that explain your choices so far and find a way to correct the damage caused by business failure. Which in turn is usually caused by the wrong corporate culture. As in the case of Norsk Hydro, it may even be possible to turn a crisis into a celebrated success by bringing people together.

ContriBranding Strategy Insider by: Thomas Gad, excerpt from his book Customer Experience Branding, with permission from Kogan Page Publishing.

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