The PR industry isn’t yet judging the comms efforts, or lack thereof, coming from Takata as it deals with its airbag-recall crisis. Rather, many communications experts said on social media that they see the event, the largest auto recall in US history, as a landmark crisis comms case study.
On Tuesday, Takata confirmed that the airbags in roughly 34 million US vehicles are defective. The company has only issued one press release on the matter, in which it agreed to address public-safety concerns from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s investigation of its airbags.
In December, Takata brought on Sard Verbinnen for communications support for the recall crisis. To that point, automakers had recalled more than 20 million vehicles around the world since 2008 for defective Takata inflators, which have been linked to five deaths, according to Reuters.
A nationwide recall was put off until this week as Takata argued that airbag problems were limited to regions with high humidity.
Crisis communicators said on Twitter that they’re keeping a close eye on how the company handles the record-setting recall case.
Takata #recall has finally accepting responsibility for faulty airbags, after losing trust of auto industry and regulators #shortsighted
— Larry Walsh (@crisis_risk) May 19, 2015
Watching the Takata recall as a case study for #crisis response. All of us in #highered should learn from timeliness/transparency lessons.
— TeresaValerioParrot (@tvparrot) May 20, 2015
The #Takata story is really interesting from a #PR perspective vs. GM in '14. Very few customers know the name & if it's in their cars.
— Matt Friedman (@mattfrieds) May 19, 2015
Now the largest #Auto recall in US history, I can't even imagine how the PR dept is handling the mess over at Takata http://t.co/EqYdYIXBFB
— Natalie Yuengel (@nyuengel) May 20, 2015
Takata airbag recall bigger than Tylenol from the 1980's. FINALLY a new case study for PR majors to beat like a dead horse.
— Joy Frank-Collins (@joyfc) May 20, 2015
Politicians also demanded accountability on the issue.
The largest auto recall in history demands the strongest response from @NHTSAgov to ensure we're protected from deadly airbags. #Takata
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) May 19, 2015
My statement on the #Takata #airbag recall. http://t.co/CSIoRr9VF8
— Rep. Diana DeGette (@RepDianaDeGette) May 19, 2015
