@web smith

Forty farmers, friends, and family members of Progenex USA President Aaron Thomas invested in Dr. Scott Connelly’s concept of Progenex Dairy Bioactives. Progenex’s claim to supplemental superiority began floating through the NBA, NFL, professional body building, and CrossFit communities. Progenex chose to invest heavily into the CrossFit Community (much against the will of Dr. Scott Connelly). This minor disagreement led to more complicated issues between the shareholders and C.E.O. of the fledgling supplement company.

The community happens to have a strong consumer-base consisting of upper-middle class Americans who pay an average of $200/month for garage gym workouts. Brand loyalty and high-end, quality product consumerism is a staple of the CrossFit business. The investment into this fledgling sport/training community makes perfect sense. 

Progenex, the title sponsor of the 2010 CrossFit Games, was everywhere leading up to the international competition. Their marketing strategy? A “face to face, product sells itself, flood the market with product” form of guerilla-marketing. It succeeded, by all indication. 

And then hell breaks loose. Lawsuits and counter-suits, public slander, and potential libel suits. Dr. Scott Connelly was the face of the company. The company was founded on his distinguished professional experience and his touted advances in medicine and performance nutrition.  And now, the back and forth has become extremely vitriolic and public. Over Twitter and SICFIT, I questioned the company’s shaken foundation. Within the hour, the President of the company requests that we speak over the phone. As a consumer, humanization of a faceless corporation is about the smartest thing that a company executive can do to stifle bad viral publicity.

With the pressure of protecting the investments and reputations of 40 middle class farmers on the line, I can say that I was extremely impressed by Progenex’s personal response to chatter heard over several social media channels. They even showed that it could be done without Twitter. Remember these directives if ever rumors take lives of their own in forums, Twitter conversations, blogs, and so on. 

• Engage negative forum users with a humanizing, personalized email
• Listen carefully across all social media platforms
• Find influential websites that are propagating inaccurate information and contact the website administrator (who likely has editorial authority)
• Ask if influential consumers would take a personal phone call to discuss details (Rather than just engaging over Twitter)
• Follow Up to determine whether your intervention worked. Are they now advocates?
• The Black Page | Do you foresee a possible PR problem in the future? Develop webpages that can answer certain anticipated questions and concerns. This will slow the momentum of inaccurate (and often, damaging) information. 

While Progenex USA has much work to do in the courtroom and the court of public opinion, they have taken steps to assure their reputation’s survival. And reputation is, by far, the most important asset for any business involved in the consumer economy.