I don't know if you guys remember this but when I had heard about it, it completely grossed me out. Let me take you back....
March 22, 2005, a woman from Las Vegas finds a HUMAN FINGER in her chili while eating at a San Jose, Calif. Wendy's restaurant. Anna Ayala, a woman from Las Vegas Nev., "found" this surprise ingredient. She reportedly bit into her chili, gnawed on something chewy, and immediately spit it out.
Wendy's immediately got on it. They checked all their employees and made sure that all fingers were intact. They tracked all of their ingredients back to the suppliers to check for finger-losing accidents and none were found. They even gave their employees polygraph tests and they all came up negative.
News spread of this incident pretty quick. As you can imagine, people were pretty disgusted by this news. Sales dropped in Northern Californian Wendy's, employees were laid off, and work hours were cut. Even where I was in North Dakota, I had heard about it and decided I wouldn't eat at Wendy's for a while.
While all of this was happening, the accused Wendy's was reopened after they were sure their chili was made with fresh ingredients. The spokespeople for Wendy's kept reassuring the public that they were searching for the source of this finger and that their food was clean. They even offered a $50, 000 reward to anyone providing veritable information leading to identification of the person who lost their finger. They even bumped it up to $100,000 when no leads were being found.
Wendy's offered a free frosty day at the restaraunt where the incident happened and they had people lined up all the way out of the door. They then proceeded to do a national free frosty day. I think this was a good idea for them to get some people back into their restaurant. Everyone loves free stuff.
It turns out, it was all a scam (thank gosh, right). Ayala has been charged of attempted grand larceny and has been sentenced to nine years in prison. The finger turned out to be owned by an associate of Ayala's husband. The whole scam cost Wendy's more than $2.5 million in lost revenue.
It is good for Wendy's taht this hoax was figured out. They took a hard hit in business, who knows where they would be today. I thought they did an okay job in crisis public relations, but, they probably could have done better. All I know is, if that didn't turn out to be a hoax, I don't think there is any amount of PR that could make me go back to Wendy's.
I actually hadn't heard about this finger incident at Wendy's and when I began to read your blog, I started to wonder if it was just a hoax. I couldn't think of a valid reason why there would be a finger in someone's chili. Unfortunately for Wendy's they lost a lot of business just because of some lady's stupid idea of humor. It sounds like the handled the situation as best as they could. At least they didn't deny the finger in the chili(though, they could've and it would've been the truth anyway). They also gave out free things which I think would get people to come try it out again.
ReplyDeleteI agree that if it hadn't been a hoax, Wendy's wouldn't be what it is today anymore.
That lady was stupid, all she wanted to do was get money from Wendy's by scamming them. The PR i thought did pretty good for Wendy's going through all that investigating and even polygraphing all of its employee's to find out where the finger came from. The free frosty move was a good idea to and i am glad it is here to stay. Since the hoax it did get a lot of attention for Wendy's and i think has given them more business now since it did turn out to be a hoax.
ReplyDeleteThat lady sure did fall out of the stupid tree!!! It is lucky that Wendy's is a fairly large company because most small companies would of gone broke after a 2.5 million $ hit. The free frosty day thing is a brialliant PR move, getting people back in the store. Im surprised that the Wendy's organization did not look into this as a scam alot sooner. Or maybe they did...it maybe just took a while for it to unfold. The testing and polygraphing showed that the organization was serious about this deal which helped public relations. The Wendy's business is probably almost better off today because of this hoax. The measures taken were almost impressive as well as the free frosty day. GOOD BLOG!
ReplyDeleteSomething like this can lead a company into debt very quickly! If Wendy's hadn't have done something about this and tried hiding it, they might have faced having to close all their stores because of loss of business. I also hadn't heard about this either till I read this post. Giving away frostys was a very good idea because everyone knows that free stuff is good stuff, and everyone will come to get something free!
ReplyDeleteThis could happen to any restaurant. People are out there who are looking to find any way that they can to make money. It is a good thing that Wendy's found the real reason behind this whole story. It seems like they did a great job of crisis communication. Is there anything that they could have done better? What are some mistakes that they made?
ReplyDeleteI heard about this incident, and I feel that it is very pathetic that there are some people out there that would go to lengths such as this to get money. I am glad this woman was discovered and charged with fraud. I am also glad that she was not rewarded for apparent get rich quick scheme. On the other hand, I think that free Frosty day was a great way for Wendy’s to get all their customers back. Everyone like free things and it showed, as free frosty day was obviously a hit.
ReplyDeleteI also love free stuff and when there stuff that free I'm there. This was a great PR crisis event Wendy's put on and I'm sure all folks enjoyed their frosty and maybe 50% came back and enjoyed their fine cuisine. I love Wendy's and would eat there even if some lady found a nonfraudulant finger because that only happens to about 1 out of a billion people, so I'd still take my chances and I love Wendys.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting topic you blogged on. I was very educated when I read this blog because like a lot of people I had never heard of this crisis. I think Wendy’s handled it the right way. Good crisis control was put to use in this situation.
ReplyDeleteOffering a free frosty day was a good way to make people come back to the store, and over look the initial crisis.