Vichy is facing a communication crisis due to misunderstanding (best case) or a total rejection (worst case) of one of its communication campaigns:

The Problem:
Chain reaction against a communication used, “violating” the values of the users of a community: the bloggers.

The consequences:
Total rejection of the message leading to a counter attack on the media used (internet/blogs), which eventually spread to the large audience classical medias (news papers). Vichy image was starting to suffer well beyond the bloggers community and the phenomenon could spread even wider.

The solution proposed:
The Aïkido tactic = transform the strength of the “enemy” against him, which in this case would be transform the blogger community into allies, instead of enemies, particularly the very active/famous bloggers (opinion leaders). The objective to be reached is to make them write and think that “in the end, Vichy are good guys who made a mistake, and we helped them repair it. They are now welcomed into our community”.

How to do it:

1. Win their trust: it is evident that bloggers don’t trust anymore the content of the Blog. They need to be sure that it’s not another fake person writing to them. Solution: organize a web-conference through the blog with Delphine (Product Manager), speaking from her office, introducing other colleagues of Vichy, and explaining that it’s a “youth” mistake, but the first intention was not bad. Vichy considered the Blog community as very important but didn’t have the experience to communicate with them and ignored its values.
2. Ask them for advice on how to solve the problem
3. Propose to the bloggers or close friends/family targeted by the product to test samples and give their feedback. After all, this was their first intention.
4. Don’t do communication outside of the Blog environment on the subject:
   a. Do not contribute to widen the problem to people not aware of it
   b. The problem is the bloggers community and should be solved with them.