As a counterpoint to Coca-Cola’s poor communication, Wal-Mart executives adopted a multimodal communication strategy that reached out to various audiences in the handling of its discrimination lawsuits. The company
delivered a central message to each constituency, but tailored the message in a
way that was meaningful to the target audience. Likewise, Ford’s CEO successfully communicated through television commercials to apologize for its
role in the death or injury to customers of its Ford Explorer equipped with the
recalled Firestone tire. Finally, although Merck may not have handled all