An ACCC product recall would be one of the worst imaginable catastrophic muck-ups for most brands. And it was for My Little Giggles when their Play Gym Rings were recalled and their competitors took to social media to sink the boot in while they were reeling from the ramifications of this catastrophic muck-up.
The full catastrophe
“The worst catastrophic muck-up we’ve had occurred when one customer reported an issue with one of our Play Gym Rings. The ACCC sneakily bought some and had them tested. The cord we used to thread the beads onto the play gym didn’t meet the tension standards. So we recalled all our products and it kicked off a major marketing storm.”
Transparency – the only answer to adversity
“We were devastated, but we owned it from the start. We contacted our customers any way we could, we let everyone know what was happening on all our social media channels and were just totally transparent about the whole thing. All our competitors went into a frenzy and trolled us on social media and really went after us. They only stopped when we explained that the compliance issue was with the cord they were also all using in their products.
We replaced the cord with a marine-grade rope that is tested to 120Kg weight limit. We then spent a bucket of money independently testing all our products before going back on the market. We mucked up and learnt from it – that’s the best you can really hope for.”
