How the Type of PR Crisis Determines the Response

Subway severed its relationship with its pitchman, Jared Fogle, after the FBI searched his home, stopping a potential PR crisis. Photo credit: Examiner.com

No organization, whether private or public, corporation or nonprofit, small or large, is immune to the devastating impact of a public relations crisis. Preparing for the different categories of crisis can help organizations survive.

In part one of this series, we defined the different categories of PR crises. In this post, we’ll delve into responses to those types of crisis.

The two main types of crises are expected and not expected. Those two main categories can be divided into the subcategories of accidents/disasters, service or staff snafus, scandals/shenanigans and antagonistic attacks.

Accidents and Disasters

Accidents and disasters include terrorist attacks, bombings, fires, explosions, vehicle crashes, disease outbreaks, floods and other natural and man-made disasters.

The British Petroleum (BP) Oil Company oil spill in the Caribbean was an environmental disaster that caused its CEO to resign and led to billion-dollar lawsuits against the company. BP was slow to apologize and respond — a sluggishness that damaged its reputation which has yet to recover.

On the other hand, Johnson and Johnson (J&J) responded quickly to Tylenol poisonings. The company got word out fast, apologized immediately, and removed all Tylenol from store shelves. It immediately launched an investigation and discovered that the cause was an individual tampering with bottles in the stores. The company quickly designed more protective packaging (which remains the model today for over-the-counter drug packaging making it hard to open and/or showing that the package has been opened previously.)

All these steps helped the Tylenol brand and J&J recover from the crisis. Its quick and strong actions are regarded as one of the most successful sequences of crisis management in history. The Tylenol playbook became the model for crises management campaigns.

The Importance of Speed

The lesson of these differing reactions is that organizations need to react quickly and be transparent. Accidents and disasters required working effectively with safety officials and regulators and communicating to the public though all available means, including social media, media advisories and press briefings. Withholding information or responding slowly to these types of crises causes more turmoil and tarnishes the brand.

Information accuracy is crucial. Larry Smith of the Institute for Crisis Management told Slate. “Don’t speculate. If you know, say so. If you don’t know, say you don’t know.” After the BP oil spill, the company was criticized for understating the extent of the spill and trying to deflect blame, making it seem like it tried to cover up.

In responding early on to an accident or disaster, a company must demonstrate that it cares by acknowledging the seriousness of the incident and providing full support for the affected individuals. The company’s public communications must explain what the company is doing to solve the problem. The company should position itself as the credible source of complete information. The company must also demonstrate its full cooperation with any government agencies that are involved.

Well-Delivered Apologies

Delivering an appropriate, timely and sincere apology is a vital part of responding to a crisis. PR and business executives can learn from previous corporate apologies. As explained in Inc., Takata’s CEO Shigehisa Takada issued a statement of regret after the company’s airbags were blamed for eight deaths and hundreds of injuries. However, his apology was criticized for being slow in coming and for not saying if the company would provide any compensation to accident victims.

Apple demonstrated an entirely different tack. When Taylor Swift complained publicly that the company was not paying royalty fees to artists during a free three-month trial period for its new music service, Apple responded quickly. It immediately reversed the policy and announced its decision on Twitter where the singer voiced her complaint.

Service/Staff Snafus

Service/staff snafus include negative customer experiences, staff misbehavior or mistakes. The incidents include food service workers being rude to customers, workers at a franchise pizza restaurant contaminating customers’ food, and contact-center employees verbally abusing callers. Sometimes the incident is captured on cell phones by citizen journalists and the video goes viral.

The company’s best recourse is to admit the wrongdoing by apologizing to customers and resolve the problem. It’s important for the organization to define steps it will take to ensure the problem doesn’t happen again. Carefully-designed training for workers can help prevent such problems from occurring.

Scandals and Shenanigans

Scandals/shenanigans involve misbehavior by employees — often high-level managers or celebrity spokespersons. The scandals usually surface from law enforcement actions, investigative journalism, leaks by employees or public comments by the involved individual(s).

In almost all cases, the company should cut ties with the offender. Distancing the company from the alleged offender is almost always the key early decision in a serious scandal. Subway, the sandwich shop, illustrates the point. After the FBI searched the home of Subway pitchman Jared Fogle as part of a child pornography investigation, the sandwich franchise severed its relationship with Fogle.

Although Fogle at this point has not been charged with a crime or even confirmed to be under investigation, Subway made the correct PR decision. People in courtrooms may be innocent until proven guilty, but people can be found guilty in the court of public opinion without a trial or investigation. Organizations that don’t severe ties will suffer through their association.

Answering these questions can determine the seriousness of the situation.

Does the incident negatively affect the organization or its reputation? The company may not want to react publicly at all if the breach does not impair the company or its reputation. The scandal can be handled as an internal personnel matter.
What will be the public reaction if the organization does nothing? In the past, organizations ignored private scandals that didn’t affect an employee’s work. That’s not the case now. Sports leagues and teams now punish players for personal, private transgressions. So do many companies. The message of the punishment is: We don’t tolerate this type of behavior.
How big is the issue? How much is it being blown up? If the incident is so big it creates an “elephant in the room,” distancing the organization from the individual is almost always the wisest choice, even if the distancing is only temporary.
Are there privacy or security issues to be considered? Other employees may need to be protected. However, it’s important to recognize that almost nothing can be covered up these days; just about everything eventually gets out. It may be preferable to have the company reveal the problem and control the message instead of letting it leak. Leaks make problems appear worse.

Antagonistic Attacks

Attacks initiated by competitors, activists or anyone who has a beef with the company can cause serious damage to an organization, whether or not the accusations are true.

Noted crisis counselor Jim Lukaszewski of e911 explains that companies have many strategy and communications options in situations where there is a committed, dedicated, and successful antagonist, but it’s essential to evaluate all options carefully. Every response the company makes can energize the attack and cause others to join the critics. Operating decisions and communication choices should be focused on reducing the momentum of the attack and minimizing its emotional impact. When attacked by an antagonist, establishing customer and public trust requires less in the way of typical public relations techniques and more of a direct response and actions that demonstrate sincerity, honesty, integrity, and willingness to compromise, Lukaszewski says. In other words, focus primarily on solving the underlying problem, not on PR messaging.

Lukazewski recommends the following actions:

Evaluate the critic’s problem and recommended solution. Involve the antagonist in the effort to devise a solution. Sometimes the solution the critic suggests, or some version of it, may be appropriate.
Evaluate the public relations impact. Assess how continuing the practice, behavior or policy being criticized can impact corporate reputation versus negotiating a solution.
Establish a tone for communications that is open, helpful, cooperative, respectful, disciplined and focused on constructive resolution. Organizations can combat antagonistic attacks and unfavorable media coverage through owned and social media. In earlier times, companies could only hope for a quote giving its side at the end of an unfavorable newspaper article or television program. Now, they can place their entire statement on corporate blogs, YouTube and other social media accounts.
Avoid third party endorsements. Other organizations have their own agendas and will retreat quickly if they are attacked because they are defending you. Third parties are best used as a back channel information source for the news media and your opposition.
Consider putting in place a credible, temporary oversight process that can independently validate the company’s good-faith attempts to resolve the situation and prevent similar situations from occurring.

A seasoned crisis management advisor like Lukaszewski may be helpful in guiding a company through the many strategic decisions required during a PR crisis triggered by an antagonistic attack.

Strategies Applying to Most All Types of PR Crisis

Some strategies are valid for most all types of PR crises.

Prepare plans. Prepare a PR crisis management plan outlining how to respond to all types of crisis imaginable. The plan should define who will make decisions, who will speak to the media, what media outlets will be contacted, what communications channels will be used, and what stakeholders will be kept updated. In some case, companies can prepare responses and practice crisis responses.

Act quickly. Speed is essential in crisis communication. Media outlets will publish stories and the public reach conclusions whether the company comments or not. Silence enables speculation and reflects badly on the brand. Jennifer Risi, head of media relations for Ogilvy Public Relations in North America, told Fast Money that being proactive is key. “A lot of people are sometimes too slow to act,” she said, “or they could think they’re making too much of this too soon. But it’s better to be safe than sorry, better to be proactive and really get ahead of what’s going on, as opposed to letting the issue drive the news.”

Arwa Mahdawi, chief strategy and innovations officer at cummins&partners, agrees: “The most important thing is speed of response … you just have to go out as soon as possible to feed that appetite for news and end any speculation.” Organizations can respond to accusations immediately through social media.

Make amends. Actions speak louder than words in these situations. Provide help for any victims and their families. Demonstrate that the company is taking steps to protect the public.

Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. Provide all the information you have in an open dialogue with the press and the public, using both traditional and social media channels, including the organization’s website and other owned media.

Involve your employees. Employees can be transformed into brand ambassadors to help spread information and restore the organization’s image.

Monitor the situation. A media monitoring service can help brands judge the status of the crisis and the effectiveness of their PR crisis communications. Monitoring for media mentions of the brand can alert PR to any media articles that call for responses. Monitoring and measuring social media can alert organizations about any change in public reaction to the situation. In a crisis, daily alerts are insufficient, especially for broadcast monitoring. Near-real-time alerts are essential. Seek a media monitoring service that can deliver clients up-to-the-minute reports during a PR crisis.

Bottom Line: It’s critical for organizations to prepare a PR Crisis Plan that outlines strategies and responses to the different types of crisis. Response strategies depend on the type and seriousness of the PR crisis. The organization must demonstrate its concern for affected individuals. Communications must be quick, thorough and forthright. Monitoring news and social media will provide insights into public reactions to the crisis and help guide responses.

William Comcowich

William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.