Alberta Business Marketing

Markham Hislop has a great op-ed piece on his South East Calgary News site right now. He presents his case for why the Alberta Government does not deserve the criticism they are being shellacked with right now over their handling of the H₁N₁ vaccination program.

If there is one thing I hate it is people being blamed for things they do not deserve blame for. If there is a second thing I hate it is unwarranted hysteria. But in this case I’m going to have to disagree with Markham. The reason Albertans feel like they are embroiled in a Ron Leipert created mess is because we are.

Here’s why:

The reason the Alberta Government is taking so much flak right now isn’t because lineups were long or because we are running out of vaccine or because the public is in a state of hysteria. It is because the Government had a plan to begin with (vaccinate only high-risk cases) and then didn’t stick to the plan (vaccinate everyone). That’s on them and no one else.

Not following their own plan ended up creating confusion. First, beginning in the Legislature. The premier was saying one thing (that their vaccinating everyone) and the health minister was saying another thing (vaccinating only high risk). Then the health minister said the opposite of what he first said. Then he went back to his original story. The only place to determine what is going on is too look at what is actually going on. This everyone agrees on: everyone who was showing up to a clinic was getting a shot. No one was being turned away.

In order to only be vaccinating the high-risk cases, you can’t be vaccinating everyone. That should be obvious.

Around this point it became clear the media has no idea what is going on either and slowly – or quickly if you think a couple days is quick – the public began to feel like the clinics were a free-for-all. This feeling was then compounded by announcements of shortages and it really did become an ‘every man, woman and child for themselves’ rush of humanity to the clinics to ‘get while the getting was good’.

Alberta Health Services continued to oblige by giving everyone who showed up a shot – whether they were high-risk or not.

Then there is the added layer of the long lines created by only having a handful of clinics. Please remember, a handful of clinics was all that was needed to only vaccinate high-risk cases. This was part the plan. When they started accepting anyone and everyone the lineups became long and AHS did not have the capacity to manage those lineups, thereby exacerbating the free-for-all hysteria.

In both these cases the underlying reason for the problem was the Government’s inability to stick to the plan.

This helps put the Calgary Flames vaccination in a different light. Think about it from the Flames perspective. You’re a team doctor, you see everyone being accepted at the clinics and you don’t want to send your players to wait in 8 hour lineups, for time management and public safety reasons. So you call AHS and explain your rationale. They look at the lineups and agree: it is not a good idea to have Flames players waiting in line too. They see everyone is getting the shot so there is no reason to exclude these ‘everyones’ from getting the shot and schedule a separate session for the players and their families.

Now we see the Alberta Government actually having the gall to be criticizing citizens, saying it was their fault the line-ups were long, that things devolved into irrational hysteria, and that we’re running out of vaccine so quickly. This infuriates me. The only thing the public did was show up to get a vaccine shot they were told everyone eventually should get. If you didn’t want them to get it now and you wanted those folks to wait to get the shot THEN WHY DID YOU GIVE IT TO THEM?!

Any parent will tell you that is just reinforcing bad behaviour. And of course the next person will expect to be treated the same.

You’ll notice no one is criticizing the Alberta Government for this week’s clinics. It’s because they had a well thought out plan and are sticking to it. People who are not children under 5 and pregnant woman are being turned away. I applaud the Government and AHS for this. That’s the way it should have been on day one.

The question does have to be asked though: if our Government is incapable of following it’s own instructions on such a straight-forward program how can we trust them to manage more complicated things?

There is one thing that would fix all this – not the minister’s resignation, that won’t do anything – but an apology from the Health Minister for he and his employees not following their own plan and creating a mess of things. The provinces’ chief medical officer has already done this for his part. And again I applaud for the honesty and wherewithal he’s showing now.

But if Ron Leipert won’t offer a heart felt apology and admit his department made a mistake by screwing up on something so fundamental, he should be fired.

PS – Speaking of being fired… even though I can see where things went array as clear as day, MLA Art Johnson offers this gem of a quote: “The government had a plan and stuck with it, but people stood in line who shouldn’t have.” Umm, no you didn’t. And how dare you.

Tags: Alberta Health Services, Ed Stelmach, H1N1, Politics, Ron Liepert, swine flu, Uncategorized
Posted in Alberta Business, Alberta Government, Alberta PC Party, Marketing | | Comments Off

When H1N1 influenza threatened to finish off Alberta’s struggling pork industry, producers knew the key to their survival lay in truth and transparency

by Lisa Ricciotti

Talk about bad timing. This spring, Alberta’s beleaguered pork producers were breathing a sigh of relief, finally poised to turn a profit for the first time in three long, hard years. As market prices rose, so had hopes of reversing the unsustainable trend of raising pigs at $1.50/kilogram and selling them at $1.20. But come March, pigs started sneezing in Mexico and, faster than bacteria grows in a Petri dish, everything changed.

Suddenly two words were on everyone’s lips as “swine flu” infected headlines worldwide. The scientific community called the novel strain “2009 Influenza A virus, subtype H1N1, human,” which the politically correct whittled down to “H1N1 influenza.” Still, the swine flu misnomer stuck like a bad cold. As confirmed cases spread outward from the mutation’s Mexican epicentre, concern about H1N1 threatened to translate into fear of the pork on our forks. From the perspective of a public hyper-sensitized by bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in beef, avian flu in chickens, listeriosis in packaged meats, history was repeating. And with that, the virus threatened to add an entire agricultural industry to its growing casualty list as countries began banning North American pork.

Alberta’s pig farmers nervously tracked swine-flu developments abroad, but their worst fears were soon confirmed in their own backyard: testing confirmed H1N1 in Arnold Van Ginkel’s swine herd near Rocky Mountain House. With the eyes of the world focused on Alberta, the industry recognized what was at stake in the province’s response. Could it successfully handle the crisis and convince buyers it was still fine to dine on swine? Or would the emotionally charged powder-keg blow into an industry-wide disaster with global repercussions?

What happened next is a lesson in crisis communication and emergency marketing worthy of scrutiny by MBA wannabes who ponder Harvard Business School case studies. Let’s call it the Alberta Pork Producers’ SOS: Saving Our Swine, 2009. Read on to grade their response: do they merit a shiny gold star, a respectable passing grade – or, as some would assert, little more than “E” for effort?

At the helm of Alberta Pork at this pivotal moment was Paul Hodgman. With more than a decade at the non-governmental hog marketing board that represents the province’s pork producers, Hodgman instantly realized tough times were about to get tougher. When he became executive director two years ago, most Alberta pork producers had been in the red since September 2006. Just beginning to turn that around had meant aligning staff, producers and partners as Alberta Pork devoted a good year to developing a revitalization strategy. The result was unveiled in late 2008 and initial testing and marketing pilots were just taking off. That’s when H1N1 threw an unexpected wrench into the works.

“The outbreak came right as we were starting to rebound after a very difficult time dealing with a combination of factors – export problems caused by the rise of Canada’s dollar, higher feed prices and rising labour costs,” says Hodgman. “Its impact on Alberta pork producers was immediate and devastating. Three days after testing confirmed H1N1 in Alberta pigs, prices dropped $20 to $30 a head.”

Jurgen Preugschas estimates losses even higher, at $40 to $60 per pig. A second-generation hog producer who markets about 12,000 swine annually, Preugschas produces world-class breeding stock at his Five Lakes Farms near Mayerthorpe. And as president of the Canadian Pork Council, he emphasizes Canada’s entire pork industry was in the same dire straights as Alberta’s before swine flu struck. “Families across Canada were borrowing to cover losses. Many were close to losing their homes and being forced out of [raising] hogs. In 1995, Alberta had nearly 2,000 pork producers. Today it’s less than 400.”

So when Alberta Pork first caught wind of sick swine in Mexico, Hodgman prepared for action. Even before reports of H1N1 in Alberta pigs or people, he dusted off the organization’s emergency management plan, developed five years earlier in the aftermath of BSE and hoof and mouth outbreaks. Although the comprehensive plan covers many measures, Hodgman knew its communications components would be crucial. Then he called in Lee Funke of Torque Communications.

Funke’s well versed in swine-industry issues, having consulted with Alberta Pork for nearly nine years – and, unlike Hodgman, Funke had experience in crisis control from his previous work on BSE issues. He knew what was at stake, and hoped for a more balanced response this time around. “My emotions quickly went from surprise and shock to dismay – then straight into crisis management mode,” Funke says. “We had to get facts out as quickly as possible.”

Just as important, however, would be how those facts were presented. Maintaining confidence in pork products was priority one. Yet, could Alberta Pork convince consumers weary and wary of media spin that it was putting their health and safety first, not its own vested interests?

The basis of Funke’s advice to Alberta Pork was simple, as all good communication is: No spin, just tell the truth and let the public decide. Be as transparent and accessible as possible with the public, producers and government. An approach implied in Ralph Klein’s infamous observation that “any self-respecting rancher would have shot, shovelled and shut up,” during the BSE crisis of 2003, would be disastrous. Instead, give media as much info as you can, Funke counselled, and if you can’t, say so and say why.

Tags: Alberta pork, Industry Reports - Agriculture, swine flu
Posted in Alberta Business | | Comments Off