Crisis Communications

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Crisis Communications

• November 21, 2006

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What is a crisis (generally)?

• A decisive moment a turning point
• Typically, one that has a distinct possibility of
  turning out bad!

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Whats a PR/communication crisis?

• A situation that threatens the integrity or
  reputation of your organization
• Often because of media or other public
  communication about a problem or unseen negative
  event that affects your organization

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What this means

• When something bad happens to/involving your
  organization
• e.g., legal dispute, theft, accident, injury,
  death, scandal, acts of God/nature, information
  leaks, rumors/lies, human error, clerical error,
  bad supervision, consumer protest, critical media
  coverage, lawsuit, industrial espionage,
  terrorism, employee threats, etc.

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You really have (at least) two problems

• The consequences for the actual victims
• The consequences for your organizations
  reputation or image
• And as a PR professional, youre involved (on
  some level) with solving both

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A good crisis plan

• Addresses both of these problems
• The actual bad event
• Which must be contained and corrected (and,
  ideally, prevented from happening again)
• The effects of the event on your organizations
  reputation
• And, thus, its relationships with its publics

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Sudden crises vs. smoldering crises

• Whats the difference?
• From a PR professionals standpoint, why does the
  difference matter?

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Classic crises requiring crisis plans

• Tylenol poisoning
• Vandals tampered with Tylenol bottles, lacing
  them with cyanide
• Exxon Valdez oil spill
• Oil tanker runs aground 11 million gallons of
  oil spread contaminate 600 miles of shoreline
• Space shuttle explosions two of them!
• Mark Foley page scandal
• Spinach contamination (E. coli)

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In a perfect world

• Organizations write crisis plans BEFORE any
  crisis actually erupts
• So theyre prepared in case something bad ever
  happens
• But even with a crisis plan in the files
• An unanticipated problem can always occur
• And even anticipated problems (in the abstract)
  have unanticipated specific details

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How to respond to a crisis the broad strokes

• What virtually all crisis-management consultants
  (a subcategory of PR professionals agree on)
• Tell it all
• Tell it fast
• Tell the truth
• Be true to your organizations values
• Be consistent in what you stand for

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Your main goal (perhaps, as PR professional, your
only goal)

• Protect integrity/reputation of your organization
• So, never try to
• Lie
• Deny your involvement
• Hide your involvement
• Delay your communication to your publics longer
  than necessary
• You need to plan, but you also need to be quickly
  responsive

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When crisis erupts, what must you do (although
not necessarily in this order)?

• Respond to (solve) the immediate problem
• If you cant eliminate it, then at least reduce
  it as much as possible
• Take steps to ensure problem is not repeated
• Communicate honestly about the problem
• What happened
• What youre doing in response (how youre solving
  it)
• What youre doing now to prevent its reoccurrence
  in future

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What else you must doeither before crisis erupts
or immediately afterward

• Designate a spokesperson
• Who will talk to the media?
• Who will talk to employees, customers, and other
  stakeholders?
• In most cases, the CEO (president) is appropriate
• But you might also use back-up communicators
• experts who can explain technical details if
  necessary
• PR person
• (especially true if CEO is part of problem!)

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What you might need to do, produce, or prepare

• Press conferences
• Speeches
• News releases
• More detailed information
• Information sheets, brochures, drawings

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Your crisis plan must indicate

• Facts about the crisis itself
• What the problem is
• How its being solved
• Who is solving it

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Your crisis plan must communicate your
communication issues

• Your communicator(s)
• Your key message points
• What your communicators(s) will communicate
• What happened
• What youre doing about it right now (short-term
  actions)
• What public(s) need to know or do right now
• How you want people to respond
• What will change in the future (long-term
  actions)
• How/when all of this will be communicated
• which tools/media in which order

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What a top-notch crisis plan will also include

• Ways to turn the crisis into an opportunity
• How can you turn what is undeniably negative into
  something positive?
• Whats the silver lining to your cloud?
• Not spin! Whats the real silver lining?
• How can you communicate the good news in the
  midst of your bad news communication?

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Some good things that can come out of crises

• Long-present (but long-ignored) problems can be
  addressed
• An organization can change
• Its product
• Its people
• Its way of doing business
• Heroes can emerge

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One specific tool you MUST use for this exercise

• A press conference
• One or more of your team members will deliver a
  statement to the press
• And will respond to questions from the press
• Who is the press today?
• Your classmates on the other team
• Me

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Tips about your communication content (what
youre saying)

• Dont be vaguedo be specific
• Dont say no comment to questions from the
  press

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What happens now?

• Divide into teams
• Review your scenario
• Take 10 minutes to prepare your plan
• Hold a 5-minute press conference
• After the press conference, hand in your plan
  outline
• Which you may wish to revise after your press
  conference!