Shelley E. Kohan (00:02.492)
Hi everybody and welcome to our weekly podcast. I am very excited to have on the podcast with me today, Edward Siegel. Edward, thank you so much for joining us today. You have a wealth of experience. You have, think, over 30 years in what you call crisis management. So you are an expert at managing, especially PR crises. You are also the CEO of Two Trade Associations, which is amazing.

And I believe you started your career or spent a lot of time at the French based company Leadmark, which was like a hypermarket, is that correct?

Edward Segal (00:40.422)
It was really cutting edge at the time. Lead Mark Group was one of the first, what we called hypermarkets or one stop shopping markets in the United States and it opened up a test store in the Baltimore area and I was responsible for all their public relations.

Shelley E. Kohan (00:57.224)
That sounds like a fun, fun opportunity back then. I’m sure you learned a lot from that.

Edward Segal (01:03.18)
It was one of the many crises I had the opportunity to help address. It was my first experience in the retail industry, but a lot of problems that they had, interestingly, are also surfacing today in the retail market among major brands and companies.

Shelley E. Kohan (01:21.19)
And we’re going to get to some of those. think your timeliness, in fact, you have a new book coming out. Is that correct? Crisis Casebook? I see it in the video here.

Edward Segal (01:29.838)
Yes, the Crisis Casebook will be published by John Murray Business on September 9th. The company is a division of Hachette, one of the largest book publishers in the world. And the book is based on the hundreds of articles I’ve written over the last few years for Forbes.com, where I’m a leadership strategy senior contributor.

Shelley E. Kohan (01:51.44)
I love that Edward and also by the way just to mention you have several best-selling books on crisis and how to bounce back from disasters etc. So definitely our listeners should look you up if especially now I feel like right now in our economic and political environment it feels like one crisis after the other but what I’d love to do Edward is what the heck is going on with Cracker Barrel? What went wrong and how can we learn from the misstep?

Edward Segal (02:21.89)
Well, they did a lot of things wrong when they transitioned from their, temporarily as it turned out, transitioned from their old logo to their new logo. From a PR standpoint, they did everything wrong. They buried information and announcement about the new logo in a press release that had to do with the rollout of their fall menu. So that was problem number one.

They didn’t give any information, any details, any rationale for why they were changing the logo, what it looked like, how the change fit in with their long-term strategy. And apparently, based on the blowback they got from consumers, they didn’t really understand or appreciate the important role that the logo plays in the minds of their loyal consumer base. But they certainly found that out very quickly when they rolled it out.

and the blowback forced them to re- you know, drop the new logo and go back to- to- to drop the new logo and to go back to the old one.

Shelley E. Kohan (03:30.045)
You know what’s interesting about that order? I don’t know if you remember this. It must have been a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, when the Wendy’s CEO made this big announcement in a press, in like an earnings call, and they were changing their menu, and they tried to kind of like, I don’t want to say hide, but they weren’t real transparent. They tried to make it seem like they were changing the menu prices to benefit the consumer, but they were actually raising prices. They talked about their new digital signing and all that.

I think it’s, think, and you’re an expert here, you know, trying to launch these big strategic consumer facing things in earnings reports or press releases, I’m not sure that’s the right way to go. What’s your opinion on that?

Edward Segal (04:15.31)
The rule of thumb is don’t surprise your base. And they were certainly surprised, disappointed, shocked, and in many cases angry. They should have been much more upfront. They should have done focus groups. They should have done a lot of detailed drilling down into what’s important to their consumer base. And before they launched on the world with no notice, they should have put out that separate press release I recommended. But they also should have made a big deal on it on social media.

on Instagram and LinkedIn and every social media platform in order to reach their loyal consumer base. They should have used what’s called B-roll footage of the signage to share with TV stations. They should have had interviews on YouTube and Soundbytes with their CEO to explain why they were making the change, why it was important, and how it fit into the long-term strategy of the company.

If they had done that, I’m sure they would have received immediate blowback, which would be okay because then they would have been much better prepared for the firestorm that followed. As much advance warning as you can get when something bad is going to happen is always preferable and it appears as if they had no advance warning at all. So do your homework, roll it out carefully, don’t try to jump over tall buildings in a single bound to paraphrase Superman.

Shelley E. Kohan (05:41.501)
You

Edward Segal (05:43.982)
Do it slowly, cautiously, comprehensively, and have a fallback plan in case your grant plans to changing your public face doesn’t work and you have to retreat.

Shelley E. Kohan (05:57.712)
Edward, I love what you said about social media and I just want to talk about that for a second. back in the day when…

We were doing focus groups. You were bringing actual physical customers into corporate office. You were asking them questions. It was like very complicated to, you know, get it scheduled and it was costly and you could only get so many groups. Now with social media, you’re right. That is a plethora of feedback that you can get instantaneously. I’m kind of surprised that didn’t happen with Cracker Bail utilizing today’s tools.

Edward Segal (06:31.522)
Yes, you can do those online surveys with LinkedIn and other social media platforms. Now, there’s good news and bad news about doing online surveys like that. The good news is you’re going to get instant feedback. The bad news is you don’t know who is responding and providing that feedback. And that’s really important when you’re doing demographic research like that. You have to make sure that the responses you’re receiving are really a match to the demographics of your

consumer base or those who you want to reach. There are certainly great survey organizations that will do that again online. They’ve got a lot of people who are chosen demographically. You can actually do that a much better demographic research with some of the major research firms rather than doing it yourself. But if you’re looking for essentially a quick and dirty reaction,

before you move forward, then I think an online survey is appropriate. But just put in perspective and realize that the feedback that you’re going to get may not be representative of the feedback that you need.

Shelley E. Kohan (07:40.858)
That’s a very important point. Thank you for mentioning that. So let’s switch gears here. We could probably spend all day talking about PR crises in the last two years, but we have a short podcast. So I want to get your feedback. What is going on at Target? Wow, there’s a lot to say about that, but what’s happening at Target?

Edward Segal (08:01.976)
Well, Target is the latest example of a company that unfortunately finds itself out of step with the consumers and the rest of the retail industry. They used to have a niche. They used to have a point of differentiation that made them special and separate from their competitors. And that certainly was a great competitive advantage. But today, that competitive advantage seems to have evaporated. They are not

They don’t appear to be different than their competitors. They appear to have a lot of challenges in front of the basics for operating a store. I’ve seen some news reports where consumers go to the store and there’s not even any shopping carts in the shopping corrals and they just leave. How are going to attract customers if they don’t have anywhere to place their goods? You know, other issues are…

being able to stock all the goods on their shelves that people want, to have the kind of goods that people are really shopping for. And again, all of these issues are essentially preparing a perfect storm for Target, and it’s really putting them in a crisis situation. Now, to their credit, they did look for new leadership to help them come out of this downward spiral.

And lot of companies over the years have done just that if they’re having, you know, challenges in the marketplace. Starbucks did that just not too long ago when they brought in an outside CEO they didn’t promote from within. They brought in the CEO from another chain, Chipotle, and apparently based on initial reports, he’s doing very well in helping to turn Starbucks around. Compare that though to Target, which hired a new

CEO from its internal corporate rank and that has been the subject of some criticism by observers who say that the company needs not more insight perspective but a set of fresh eyes to take a look at how the company can rebound.

Shelley E. Kohan (10:15.6)
Yeah, that was interesting. I think the other thing that doesn’t help companies like Tractor or not Target and we’re talk talk about Tractor Supply in a second. one thing that doesn’t help companies like Target and also companies like Cracker Barrel is these like videos that consumers make while they’re in the store. So for Target, we saw a lot of consumers.

taking videos of empty shelves and you know not empty you know not being able to find cards and so that doesn’t help it in Cracker Barrel. I’ve seen a lot of social media videos that kind of walk through the new quote-unquote store design so there’s a lot of criticism on the new store design it’s taking away nostalgia so I don’t I think the social media right now today is hurting companies when when they make a small error it becomes a more significant error because

Consumers amplify their thoughts very loudly on social media.

Edward Segal (11:13.23)
That’s a great point Shelley. Social media has turned out to be a double-edged sword. It’s a great way for retailers and other companies to reach people immediately. It’s also been a great way to be a critic of anything and everything you want to say about a retailer. And you’re absolutely right. Consumers can post their review or criticism or gripes or concerns in the market as they’re shopping and they can’t find what they want.

or they don’t like what they see posted on social media and within a matter of seconds the whole world knows what this one consumer thinks about Target or any other major retailer. That’s why it’s really critical for every retailer if they’re not doing it already to set up a social media monitoring campaign to monitor every social media platform for what is being said.

about their company, their organization, their products, their services, every aspect of the company. And as soon as they see something that could cause a problem or be an issue, they’ve got to jump on it right away. In fact, I write in my book, The Crisis Casebook, of a great example of California Pizza Kitchen, who one of their customers placed an order for, I think, mac and cheese.

and it was supposed to be delivered to her home. It was, but it was an incomplete order. They got something screwed up. And she immediately went on social media to complain about it. Pizza Kitchen picked up on that and made it right. And it actually turned out to be a great turnaround story where I think it was NBC Today did a interview with officials of California Pizza Kitchen.

And it was a great way to show that when a consumer griped, the company heard it, responded, and they turned a bad situation, which could have been a much worse situation and a crisis for the company, they turned it around and it wound up being a positive for the company. So I think all retailers should learn from that example. Pay very close attention to what your consumers are saying. Address it. Do what you can to resolve their concerns.

Edward Segal (13:39.214)
And if you’re not paying close attention, then you’re going to wind up in a crisis and you’ll be immediately placed on the defensive. And that’s never a good place when a crisis takes place.

Shelley E. Kohan (13:50.685)
And Edward, you’ll be excited to know that in the classes that I teach and many professors teach at Fashion Institute of Technology, we always talk about sentiment analysis and the importance of that as a marketing initiative. You have to be able to quickly understand what is being said about the company and respond to it.

Edward Segal (14:13.634)
Yes, never be surprised. The sooner you know, better. And frankly, I think that retailers and everybody else that’s in business should account for consumer sentiment in their crisis management plans and crisis communications plans. What would you do? When would you do it? How would you do it? Who would do it? And where would you do it if a consumer gripes about your products or services or any other aspect of your company?

And by practicing responses to these scenarios, you’re making sure that you have what I call a rapid response approach to a crisis and that this is a great way to make sure you’re prepared for a crisis, not surprised by it, and that for every second you find out about the crisis, that you don’t do something about it, it gets worse and worse and worse. So with the social media monitoring and the quick response team, it’ll…

put companies in a much better position to respond to a crisis.

Shelley E. Kohan (15:15.452)
Well, let’s talk about, want to move to, so there’s some companies, so Tractor Supply Company did this, and what they did was they kind of changed their whole, they made a big strategic decision change, kind of, some would say backfired, some would say it was the right thing to do. We’d love your opinion on Tractor Supply Company and what happened there in terms of their shifting their ideologies on what they, what a lot of the customers thought they supported, but.

In the end, they ended up not supporting.

Edward Segal (15:47.289)
Yeah, Tractor Supply Company is a great example of what can happen when you back away from your corporate commitment, no matter what it is. In this case, they had previously been a great advocate for DEI, but under pressure from a conservative podcaster, they decided they were going to back away from their long-term commitment to DEI. And when they did that, they really upset their consumer base.

They saw an immediate drop in profits and traffic to their stores. A lot of efforts to call for a boycott against the retailer. And it was really a situation where a company created a self-inflicted crisis for themselves. And that’s another lesson for all retailers. If you’re going to embrace a concept that’s important to you and your consumers, you have to be prepared for the consequences when you abandon that commitment.

It demonstrates a lack of credibility, undermines the trust and faith that people will have in your company, and frankly makes them a little bit more cynical about what they’re going to believe. If they can’t trust you on that, can they trust you on this? If you say something in the future, are you going to back away from it? What can we trust you to do? Or can we trust you at all based on your abandonment of these key principles?

So be very careful going into any commitment and embracing it and be prepared for a crisis when you decide to back away from it.

Shelley E. Kohan (17:25.444)
Edward, I love what you said and I think that’s true. This whole trust factor is important. So when you go back on something you said you were committed to, you’re right, Edward. What customers do is they start saying, they say they have the lowest price, but do they? They say, this is sustainable, but is it? So that’s a big issue in terms of the trust building factor, right?

Edward Segal (17:49.047)
Yes, you really can’t fool the people. I know from my own experience and frankly my wife’s experience doing a lot of shopping from some of the local supermarkets, they say, well, we have everyday low prices. But then we go back and we realize the prices were a lot lower. All they did was to raise their prices and they’re trying to say they’re low prices. So you really can’t fool the consumers. Consumers increasingly have a very long memory.

They take pictures with their phones. They make notes to themselves They document it and if you say you had low low you know low prices say three years ago and because of tariffs or taxes Whatever you raise your prices so you’re not losing the money, but you’re still calling it low prices You know consumers aren’t stupid. They don’t they know their research and in this very challenging economy

where every penny, any nick, every nickel, every dime is important to consumers. They’re not likely to open up their wallets to retailers and say, here, take all my money, it’s all yours. They want to spend as little as possible for as much as they can get. And so that goes back to the trust factors. Can the consumer trust you? Can they depend on you? Can they rely on you? Or are you doing something to pull the wool over their eyes?

And if that’s what you’re going to do on a regular basis, or even once or twice, you certainly run the risk of losing the trust, the credibility, and that will show up eventually in your bottom line.

Shelley E. Kohan (19:25.98)
want to go back to something you said, which I find really fascinating, and that’s the boycotting issue. So this has happened with many retailers. Target got boycotted, Tractor Supply, and then among other companies, they get boycotted, they’re organized boycotts. Do the boycotts really work? I mean, from a financial perspective, you might see a blip like, you know, one or two days, however long the boycott is, but long term, what’s the PR impact of boycotts?

Edward Segal (19:55.235)
Well, I guess you have to define what it means for it to work, quote unquote. It can work on a short-term basis to make the point with the bottom line of a retailer. It can work if you want to damage that retailer’s image and reputation. It can work if you want to create negative headlines about that retailer. And for those who want to launch those boycotts, that would certainly be

series of wins in in their column, but the long-term effect is is up for up for discussion People have historically a very short attention span and a very short memory They may not remember the boycott, you know of three or four years ago and they you know, they go back Airlines are really great example of people after an airline airplane disaster

They may boycott the airline because they don’t want to ride on what they think is an unsafe air carrier. But time passes, they forget they need to get from point A to B or C and they go back and they patronize the airlines. The same thing is true with retailers. Depending upon where a consumer lives, they may not have the opportunity or the choice to boycott a retailer because of the proximity of the retailer.

the convenience, what they need to get, and so on. So I think those who organize a boycott, there’s a lot of reasons to do it to score PR points, but retailers probably long-term can rest easy that one boycott is not going to put them under.

Shelley E. Kohan (21:40.486)
So let’s, I’d love to end kind of with a summary. So right now it’s a very, very polarized.

media and political landscape. There’s a lot going on out there economically, politically. How should brands be managing this? Like a lot of companies want to move quick, do the right thing, but moving quick isn’t the right thing. So what kind of advice do you give brands to get in instead of crisis management, you know, managing it before the crisis happens?

Edward Segal (22:11.81)
they should conduct themselves very, very carefully. I think the best crisis management is playing offensive and not defensive. That’s why retailers should take a look at every aspect of their company and their operations and their activities and their practices and see what they’re doing and how they’re doing it and why they’re doing it. Could it cause a crisis in any way or create a PUR problem on every level.

if they are at risk on any of those issues, take steps now to prevent it so it doesn’t become a crisis or build into your crisis management scenarios those possible things that could happen and practice responding to them and have the social media monitoring program set up so you can respond quickly. it’s really challenging now, of course, not to get caught up in the swirling political environment.

finger pointing and accusations. So that’s a challenge for all retailer brands to make sure that they don’t get essentially become political candidates in this world and defend themselves as if they were politicians. I know a lot about that because I used to work for a lot of politicians as their campaign aid or press secretary and that’s what I see is very ironic in a very political world.

The retailers are finding themselves as if they are candidates and have to defend their positions, their actions, and their words. So they have to be very careful. But I think if they have and continue to maintain a crisis management prevention program, response activities, and practice the risk scenarios and plans, then I think they’ll be in good shape. And I offer to retailers…

what I call a crisis management plan template. It’s a basic plan that I prepared and I’d be glad to share it with your listeners or reviewers. And it’s a great way to use it a starting point to prepare a crisis management plan or to use my template to compare with their own plan if they have it and take a reality check. Do they have all the boxes covered in their own plans? So that’s available on my website.

Edward Segal (24:33.354)
at crisiscasebook.com or they can email me directly and I’d be glad to send it to them for their use. They can customize it. It’s for any size organization, but I think it’s a great crisis prevention tool to have that plan in place sooner rather than later.

Shelley E. Kohan (24:51.173)
love that, Edward. And here’s something you’re going to find super fascinating. One of my big retail trends, now this may be going on in other companies, but one of my big retail trends going into 2026 is a new corporate job. The hottest job in retail is going to be a GPO. It’s going to be a chief political officer. And companies need to have this, not just to navigate and manage trades and

globalization, but they need these positions to tackle all the things you and I talked about today.

Edward Segal (25:25.142)
I think that’s a great forecast and unfortunately it’s probably going to be coming true. But that reinforces the need for them to be politically aware, politically astute, and know how to manage the differences between the corporate world and the political world. Otherwise they could get run over. But I think that’s a great trend and I certainly won’t be surprised if it comes to become reality.

Shelley E. Kohan (25:51.526)
Well, thank you so much. Thanks to our listeners. Thank you, Edward, for joining us. They learned a wealth of information from you, and I hope you’ll come back to Retail Unwrap.

Edward Segal (26:00.632)
Thanks, I enjoyed the conversation and look forward to coming back soon.