Ocean Spray Annual Meeting - Day One

1/16/01 -- The first day of the Ocean Spray Annual meeting in San Diego featured Hollywood style presentations with visual effects and music. It was a positive and uplifting presentation about the turnaround plan and on cranberry, citrus, overseas, and new products. Statements about how well the test marketing and the overall turnaround plan were working drew enthusiastic applause. 

According to reliable sources, Robert Hawthorne's promised review of the Bain and the Merrill Lynch reports didn't distort the reports or skew the numbers; but it only included the company "spin" and was prejudicial. One observer noted that "if you believed the presentation you'd conclude that the 12 board members that voted for sale were crazy. Hawthorne's presentation painted a worst case scenario of the Bain and Merrill Lynch report instead of giving two or three other scenarios. For example they didn't offer a scenario involving a bidding war between companies that wanted to acquire the brand badly, like the bidding war between Coke and Pepsi for Quaker Oats."

Hawthorne explained how a cash sale, with capital gains taxes and other associated costs might net the Ocean Spray grower only $ 40-50 per share.

Hawthorne spoke of eliminating the dissension between Ocean Spray growers. He alluded to the effects the conflicts were having on morale. Hawthorne is a CEO who takes pride in telling the truth. However, he rejected the request made by supporters of the alternate proxy to have an observer present during the vote count. He also commented in his remarks that a job candidate that Ocean Spray was interested in hiring decide to withdraw his name for consideration after reading Cranberry Stressline and reading about the turmoil in the company.

The majority of growers seemed to respond positively to the combination of the message and the medium. They left the meetings feeling optimistic about the turnaround plan. Another observer likened part of the meeting to a presidential debate with only one candidate and no moderator. She said "numbers and facts and logic don't work, it was all emotion with the music, colored lights, Hollywood type staging and showmanship to hide the fact that for the next couple of years, at least, there will be no money coming while the turnaround takes hold. It was an exercise in "mind control"  that from the audience response was very successful."

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