In the News–Marketing & Branding
How a Massive KitKat Heist Turned Into Crisis PR Gold
Natasha Khan and Kelly Cloonan, The Wall Street Journal, March 31, 2026
Just how much are 12 metric tons of stolen KitKat bars worth? A lot of promotional gold, it turns out.
It was the brazen chocolate heist heard around the social-media world: Over the weekend, Nestlé confirmed that thieves had swiped 413,793 units of KitKats somewhere along their way from a factory in central Italy to Poland. Both the chocolate bars and the truck carrying them remain missing, though no one was hurt in the theft, it said.
What the Swiss company lost in chocolate, though, it gained back in a public-relations coup—as did multiple other companies quick to hop on the meme bandwagon….
Trying to juice a rival’s bad news for buzz isn’t advisable if it’s something as serious as an oil spill or a plane crash. But weighing in on an international chocolate-bar caper is pretty low-risk, said Davia Temin, the founder of reputation and crisis management consultancy Temin and Company.
“It’s chocolate, it’s Easter,” Temin said. “I don’t think you can go too wrong.” […read more]
CEO Food Fight Breaks Out Online — but Who Wins?
Frederic Lee, Agenda, March 13, 2026
It all started with a burger.
Specifically, what began as an innocent Instagram promotion of McDonald’s most recent new menu item, the Big Arch burger, by CEO Chris Kempczinski, quickly ballooned into a full-fledged Burger War over who can claim the best bite….
Kempczinski’s video was the match that lit the Burger War flame, prompting copycat, one-upper videos from executives at Burger King, Wendy’s, A&W Canada and more — all vying to present their burgers as the most delicious in a true viral moment….
Broadly, the Burger War offers a reason to laugh at a time when there’s so much “not to laugh about” going on in the world — including metastasizing war in the Middle East, rampant inflation, rising oil prices and the continuous unraveling of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s misdeeds, wrote Davia Temin in an email to Agenda. Therefore, holistically, the Burger War is a reminder to corporate leadership to “focus on what we can handle,” wrote Temin.
“The more telegenic the CEO, I suspect the more impact they will have on their bottom lines,” wrote Temin. That’s especially since these short videos have created “buzz” in boardrooms and might urge executive search professionals to add “one more trait” to their list of CEO must-have skills. […read more]
Four Years of Living Dangerously: CEOs Brace for the Trump Era
Matt Townsend, Bloomberg Technology, December 19, 2016
As president-elect, Donald Trump is pro-business and a champion of corporate tax cuts. And anti-free trade and a big-company bully.
That’s a disorienting mix for chief executive officers trying to suss out whether Trump in the White House will be a blessing or bad luck. Planning ahead’s no easy task when the next commander in chief is a guy with a hair-trigger Twitter finger who touts policies that could both help and hurt U.S. companies.
“It will be a fascinating experience to see how things that have worked inside global organizations translate to the political arena,” said Davia Temin, founder of the crisis-management company Temin & Co.
For all that, the victim of a Twitter pounce must be careful, she said. “Never start a press war with someone who can outgun you.” […read more]
New speakers and sessions added RegentAtlantic Wall Street Women Forum® 2016, Shifting Gears on Your Journey
RegentAtlantic Press Release, March 8, 2016
Jane Newton announced the full agenda for the 7th Annual RegentAtlantic Wall Street Women Forum to be held on Tuesday, April 5, 2016 from 2pm-7pm. Headlining the invitation-only event will be luminary keynotes, Suni Harford, Head of Markets, North America, Citigroup, and Ina Drew, Independent Consultant and Retired Chief Investment Officer, JPMorgan Chase.
Davia Temin, President and CEO, Temin and Company, will moderate Leveraging the Power of Your Personal Brand, with panelists Jenifer Schweitzer Brooks, Chief Marketing Officer, Golub Capital, and Erika Irish Brown, Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Bloomberg LP.
The invitation-only Forum was launched in 2010 and today is one of the most sought after events for senior-level women on Wall Street. […read more]
Crisis management in food retail
Food Marketing Institute and Oliver Wyman, Boardroom, March 2016
Anticipated or not, when a crisis strikes a company, CEOs must be prepared to respond immediately in order to lead their organizations through a potentially catastrophic event. Within the last 5 years alone, the food industry has been at risk for a wide spectrum of crises, including E. coli and norovirus outbreaks in fresh food, cybercrime such as high-tech SQL injection attacks aimed to steal customer data, natural disasters, and traditional and social media public relations disasters. While there are certainly aspects of a crisis response that can be planned in advance, each incident inevitably requires a unique approach.
In many crisis situations, the reputation of a company hangs in the balance and can literally vanish overnight if the crisis is not addressed immediately and correctly. The expansion of social media in recent years has exacerbated this trend, bringing widespread, factually incorrect, and damaging attention to issues such “pink slime” and the presence of horse meat in beef products. These issues have gone viral and, in some cases, pushed companies to the brink of bankruptcy. Interestingly, reputation is rarely the top priority identified by a crisis incident response team. However, given how quickly exaggerations and mistruths spread, reputation does need to remain top-of-mind for every executive in a crisis. […read more]
Crisis of the Week: Tesla Slams the Brakes on Seat Belt Problem
Ben DiPietro, The Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal, November 30, 2015
The crisis this week deals with Tesla Motor’s decision to recall all Model S cars—about 90,000 of them—because of a problem reported with a seat belt in one of the vehicles.
The company said even though the car in question wasn’t involved in an accident, and no one was hurt—and the problem wasn’t found on 3,000 other vehicles it inspected—it decided to proceed with a full recall nonetheless. “We have decided to conduct a voluntary recall as a proactive and precautionary measure to inspect all front Model S seat belts and make absolutely sure that they are properly connected,” the company said in a letter sent to every Model S owner.
Tesla’s stock price dropped following the recall announcement, which comes a few weeks after shares slid following a Consumer Reports story calling into question the reliability of the Model S.
Using only the public statements made by the company, or the comments it sent to owners, we asked the experts to evaluate whether the company is doing the right thing with a total recall, or overreacting to a minor problem in one vehicle. Is there more to the company’s response than just dealing with a seat belt issue?
Davia Temin, chief executive, Temin and Co.: “At last someone is finally modeling what great customer care looks like in the new, hyper-connected era. Tesla’s reaction to the seat belt connection problem found in one car in Europe could be called an overreaction by many. But in the face of the totally failed, less-than-truthful public strategies seen from Volkswagen, General Motors and Takata, what Tesla is really doing is setting a new–and much needed–standard for addressing product failures and recalls, especially in the automotive industry.
“Tesla has taken it very seriously indeed. Its voluntary action resets the norm for industry recalls, particularly around issues that could cause loss of life. Tesla’s apparent ‘zero tolerance policy’ is even more powerful because it could have gotten away with doing nothing. Compared to VW, GM, or Takata, certainly the seat belt problem of one Model S does not seem that grave. But Tesla’s reaction shows trustworthy business practices in action.
“In this highly unstable world of social media–where anything can catch fire or be totally ignored–Tesla has wisely understood that overreaction can keep problems from going ballistic. Throw every wise solution you have at an incipient problem, especially if human life is at stake, and no one will ever doubt your trustworthy intent.”
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
Crisis of the Week: Tesla Slams the Brakes on Seat Belt Problem
Ben DiPietro, The Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal, November 30, 2015
The crisis this week deals with Tesla Motor’s decision to recall all Model S cars—about 90,000 of them—because of a problem reported with a seat belt in one of the vehicles. The company said even though the car in question wasn’t involved in an accident, and no one was hurt—and the problem wasn’t found on 3,000 other vehicles it inspected—it decided to proceed with a full recall nonetheless. “We have decided to conduct a voluntary recall as a proactive and precautionary measure to inspect all front Model S seat belts and make absolutely sure that they are properly connected,” the company said in a letter sent to every Model S owner.
Using only the public statements made by the company, or the comments it sent to owners, we asked the experts to evaluate whether the company is doing the right thing with a total recall, or overreacting to a minor problem in one vehicle. Is there more to the company’s response than just dealing with a seat belt issue?
Davia Temin, chief executive, Temin and Co. says: “In this highly unstable world of social media–where anything can catch fire or be totally ignored–Tesla has wisely understood that overreaction can keep problems from going ballistic. Throw every wise solution you have at an incipient problem, especially if human life is at stake, and no one will ever doubt your trustworthy intent.” […read more]
The Morning Risk Report: Can the Auto Industry Redeem Itself?
Ben DiPietro, The Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal, October 2, 2015
Volkswagen’s emissions deception. Fiat-Chrysler underreporting its death and injuries totals. General Motors’ ignition switch scandal. Toyota’s gas pedal bungle. Takata’s air bag mess. The automotive industry has been taking one reputation hit after another, leading to costly recalls, criminal charges, hefty fines and unhappy customers, dealers and shareholders. What can the industry do to clean up its image? Or do they even have to, as the latest sales figures show the industry is poised to have its best year since 2000?
“Cynically, they’re saying ‘It doesn’t matter to our bottom line whether we lie or whether you know we lie or whether x number of people die because of the things we lie about. You still have to buy from us. Maybe I’ve degraded the brand but you don’t have anywhere else to go,’ ” said Davia Temin, president and chief executive of crisis management firm Temin and Co. Assuming the industry wants to clean up its reputation, she said it needs to stop making promises to fix its problems and actually fix those problems–then communicate to its constituencies. […read more]
Forging Thought Leadership into a Titanium-Strong Marketing Tool
Dean Rotbart, Monday Morning Radio, March 23, 2015
This week on Monday Morning Radio, Davia Temin tells listeners how to forge thought leadership and reputation management into titanium-strong marketing tools – both for yourself, and for your company or products.
Davia is interviewed by Dean Rotbart, co-host of Business Unconventional, the one-hour radio newsmagazine that aired weekly on News/Talk 710 KNUS AM in Denver. […read more]
To listen to the interview, CLICK HERE.
To download the podcast from iTunes, CLICK HERE.
More News Articles