Kryptonite's Crisis Response

          Within two days of the initial post on Bike Forums, more than 11,000 people (“views”) had visited the Kryptonite-Bic thread and there had been a reported 40,000 downloads of the videos. More than 340,000 readers read the Kryptonite Bike Forums thread within the first week and the videos were downloaded three million times as the news media covered the event.

            Kryptonite, a Massachusetts-based division of Ingersoll-Rand of Bermuda, had at the time about 30 employees with a one-person public relations office.

            The public relations manager is responsible for Kryptonite’s public relations efforts worldwide. When the crisis hit, she received more than 100 calls from the media in the first days.

Kryptonite’s public relations manager was not familiar with Bike Forums prior to the crisis, but said she routinely monitored many cycling and traditional media Internet sites daily. Kryptonite executives also kept an eye on other Internet sites and passed along pertinent information.

            At the time of the crisis, Kryptonite had two media tracking services – but no Web tracking service – to monitor Web sites, discussion groups or blog activity.

Kryptonite relied on its Web site and the mainstream news media to communicate its messages. Kryptonite chose not to respond directly on Bike Forums or other Internet sites that discussed or carried the story. The public relations manager said the potential flood of questions and comments that a Kryptonite posting could generate would easily overwhelm Kryptonite’s ability to respond responsibly. “We didn’t want people to think Kryptonite was ignoring them [by not answering posters].”

Minutes after an official statement was released to the media, it would appear on Bikeforums.net anyway, she said.

             Kryptonite issued three news releases Sept. 16, 17 and 22. The first one announced the company’s broad plan for a lock exchange program for certain models of tubular cylinder locks susceptible to pen attacks. The brief news release mentioned an upgrade for certain Kryptonite locks but was short on details and did little to answer Bike Forums’ discussion group questions.

            It was plain that the details of this lock upgrade program were being sorted out as Kryptonite issued the first two news releases and until the third release was issued Sept. 22. Lack of specific information drove readers and viewers who had heard about the problem from the mass media to Bike Forums.

            Under growing pressure from worried and confused customers, Kryptonite announced a broad product exchange program for “all consumers who are concerned about the security of their current Kryptonite tubular cylinder locks” Sept. 22, 2004.

Sept. 16, 2004 Kryptonite Statement

Kryptonite Issues Statement on Tubular Cylinder Lock Consumer Concerns

CANTON, Ma., Sept. 16, 2004

For more than 30 years, Kryptonite has focused on delivering innovative advances that establish the benchmark for lock technology, product performance and enhanced security.

In light of recent demonstrations on the Internet that explain how to criminally defeat tubular cylinder lock technology, which has performed successfully for more than three decades, Kryptonite intends to expedite the introduction of its upgraded Evolution and KryptoLok lines. These products will have the disc-style cylinder that has the same technology as the company's famous New York Lock.

Specifically, Kryptonite will provide the owners of Evolution and KryptoLok series products the ability to upgrade their cross bars to the new disc-style cylinder, where possible. This new cylinder provides greatly enhanced security and performance.

Kryptonite is finalizing the details of this upgrade process and will publicly communicate these details as soon as possible.  

Tomorrow’s Blog Segment