Imperial Sugar

Imperial Sugar, a United States based sugar producer and marketer, faced a very hard year in 2008.  First, on February 7, 2008 there was a plant explosion at Imperial Sugar’s Port Wentworth Refinery, killing 14 employees, injuring several others and almost costing John Sheptor, President and CEO of Imperial Sugar, his life. 

Soon after the explosion at the Port Wentworth Refinery, the company faced more trouble when the Louisiana Sugar Cooperative decided to cut ties with Imperial Sugar to back a new refinery.

The trouble for Imperial Sugar did not end there, in September 2008, Lehman Brothers, a global financial services firm, failed.  With the failure over three million shares, or 28 percent of the company’s stock were at rick, these were eventually bought by Barclays, a United Kingdom based financial services firm.

In March 2009, Imperial Sugar once again faced trouble when Barclays sold 3.1 million shares five minutes before the market closed, within one minute the shares were sold again, however this cost Imperial Sugar three million dollars in market capitalization.

At this time any internet search that was done on Imperial Sugar pulled up  stories about the company in crisis.  The articles all talked about the explosion and monetary and raw sugar supply troubles.

Finally, in May 2009, Sheptor called on The News Group Net to develop an online newsroom that would address the troubles with the online news stories and connect with Imperial’s audiences.

Sheptor required that the newsroom provide an online alternative for media to access credible information about Imperial Sugar.  Sheptor saw the newsroom as a way to position the company as the leader in sugar-refinery safety, create brand awareness to acquire new customers and grow business, restore company integrity, and establish Imperial Sugar as a worthwhile choice for investors and customers.

Imperial Sugar’s online newsroom featured an appealing style, unbiased, accurate stories with photos, an online library of photos and videos, an RSS feed featuring the latest sugar news, and media inquiries were answered within minutes.

The online newsroom also led Imperial Sugar to develop accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr.

Imperial Sugars online newsroom, seen here, was a huge success from the very beginning.  Stories came into the newsroom about the company rebuilding, how the community was responding from the crisis, and how Imperial Sugar was building “the safest and most modern sugar production plants in the world”.

In less than two months Imperial Sugar’s online newsroom became the most popular online sugar site in the global industry.

From my point of view, Imperial Sugar did everything right except from a public relations stand point they responded far too late.  It took them thirteen months to take steps to repair the damage that was done beginning in February 2008.  Though the online newsroom worked gloriously for Imperial Sugar, this is not usually the case after waiting so long to respond to a situation.