Month: June 2014

Words of wisdom on keeping everyone happy

One of our fondest sayings here at Bernstein Crisis Management is, “reputation is your most valuable asset”. Of course, it’s also your most vulnerable asset, constantly at risk of damage from countless angles.

What exactly decides your reputation? Well, besides the obvious, like how you treat your stakeholders and the quality of your product or service there is a lesser known factor, one highlighted in this week’s Crisis Management Quotable, from author, speaker, and Goodwill Ambassador for World Peace, Bryant McGill:

“Unfortunately, your reputation often rests not on your ability to do what you say, but rather on your ability to do what people expect.” – Bryant H. McGill

We’re not saying that it doesn’t matter if you stay true to your word, because it very much does. However, doing what people expect will not only prevent crises, but help you to resolve them more quickly to boot.

How do you know what people expect? The power to put yourself in others’ shoes is a valuable one for crisis management, but the very best one is to ask them! Luckily for you (and us!), it’s easier than ever to ask a few stakeholders how they feel about an issue thanks to the power of social media and ‘net communications in general.

Know what people expect, tell them you’re going to do it, then execute. That’s how you keep your reputation intact.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Could bots sway popular opinion via social media?

Chatbots meant to scam users into visiting phishing sites or those featuring paid services have been employed in online chat rooms and instant messaging services for many years, and now we’re seeing their advanced offspring pop up across social media platforms.

After all, social media presents massive opportunites for not only profit, but also control of public opinion, something that is of ever-increasing importance in today’s world.

In fact, our colleague Andy Russell recently linked us to a BBC article by Chris Baraniuk that examined the experiments of researcher Fabricio Benevenuto and his team, who sought to test just how easy it is to convince Twitter users completely automated bots were real people:

Benevenuto and his colleagues created 120 bot accounts, making sure each one had a convincing profile complete with picture and attributes such as gender. After a month, they found that almost 70% of the bots were left untouched by Twitter’s bot detection mechanisms. What’s more, the bots were pre-programmed to interact with other users and quickly attracted a healthy band of followers, 4,999 in total.

The implications of this are not trivial. “If socialbots could be created in large numbers, they can potentially be used to bias public opinion, for example, by writing large amounts of fake messages and dishonestly improve or damage the public perception about a topic,” the paper notes.

It’s a problem known as ‘astroturfing’, in which a seemingly authentic swell of grass-root opinion is in fact manufactured by a battalion of opinionated bots. The potential for astroturfing to influence elections has already raised concerns, with a Reuters op-ed in January calling for a ban on candidates’ use of bots in the run-up to polls.

The follower numbers gained by Benevenuto’s were not particularly impressive, at approximately 42 each you could gain many more simply by using the tried and true “follow a bunch of people and hope they reciprocate” method, but the fact that most completely evaded detection gives you a hint at what could be lurking on the horizon.

In our opinion, a team of social media experts using a mix of automation and their own savvy to seed sentiment could, and likely already has, swayed public opinion on matters ranging from politics to corporate blunders.

What does this mean to crisis management? Well, just as you wouldn’t (at least we hope!) get your decision-making information from a random person on the street, you can’t trust everyone you hear from on social media. Be careful to fact-check before sharing things you read online, be wary of any and all private messages from users you don’t personally know, and be aware that, while there ARE bots out there trying to trick you into believing something you shouldn’t, the repurcussions that come from believing the wrong thing are going to fall squarely on your shoulders.

We’re sure some of you are wondering how you can compete with these bot nets, and the answer is really quite simple. Use both social media and real-life efforts to recognize and connect with your advocates, and create methods to mobilize them to share when the time comes. People are surprisingly happy to devote some of their own time to organizations or individuals they support if you give them a chance. Just don’t forget to say thank you when they do!

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Another “what were they thinking?” moment from a high-profile ad agency

It’s not uncommon for advertisements to offend, but once in a while one goes so far that you have to wonder how it was ever approved. This week, ad industry leader Ogilvy & Mather came under major scrutiny from the public after its Indian offices created a commercial focused around the extremist shooting of Pakistani teen Malala Yousafzai — for, of all things, a mattress retailer.

HuffPost’s Alexander C. Kaufman reports:

The ad, made for Indian mattress retailer Kurl-on, sparked outrage by grapically picturing the attack on the education activist, who was 14 when she was shot in the head by the Taliban with an AK-47 assault rifle. The ad shows the young girl facing down the gun, being shot, and tumbling through the air while injured. After landing on a Kurl-on mattress, she is able to “bounce back” — the theme of the ad — to be honored for her work.

The execs at Ogilvy, no crisis management slouches themselves, quickly responded with a strong statement:

“We deeply regret this incident and want to apologize to Malala Yousafzai and her family,” Rachel Ufer, a senior partner and spokeswoman for Ogilvy, said in a statement to The Huffington Post. “We are investigating how our standards were compromised in this case and will take whatever corrective action is necessary.”

This case actually offers two lessons. The most obvious is to consider how any messaging you put out there could be perceived negatively by stakeholders. The second is that the actions of one branch of your organization can, and will, affect the reputations of the others.

The first one is really all about common sense and the ability to place yourself in someone else’s shoes.

To steer clear of the second issue, avoid the common trap of creating silos – smaller parts of a larger organization that fail to communicate with one another. In other words, make sure everyone is on the same page regardless of how large you’ve grown. Obviously, the folks running Ogilvy’s Indian office are drastically out of touch with those at their home base here in the States. And as Ogilvy also has a quite reputable PR division, you can bet they weren’t in the loop until it became time for damage control.

Of course, one really must wonder who at the mattress company thought this would be a great angle to push their product, and how their sales figures are looking since this story emerged.

Advertising is an amazing tool, but the risks of employing it carelessly apply to both client and agency. Don’t wind up losing money because you pushed too hard to make a buck.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

[Editor’s note: We’re happy to share another guest article from Tony Jaques’ “Managing Outcomes” newsletter. Not only is the strategy discussed a knee-jerk reaction in many boardrooms, but it’s also one of the quickest ways to make your own crisis situation worse.]

Bashing others doesn’t help your case

It’s not often that outsiders get to see the private detail of an issue management campaign. But the war over premium milk has revealed some of the controversial strategies attempted in pursuit of corporate interests.

Newspapers in Australia and New Zealand exposed a media campaign by Italian dairy giant Parmalat (owners of the Pauls and PhysiCAL milk brands in Australia) to discredit New Zealand-developed A2 milk, claimed to be easier to digest than regular milk.*

It’s no wonder Parmalat are getting nervous. Locally produced A2 brand has gone from zero in 2007 to 5% of Australia’s fresh milk market today. More importantly A2 now holds 9% by value of the important supermarket milk market, and is the only milk brand in the top 20 products sold by Coles and Woolworths.

According to a whistleblower, reported in Fairfax newspapers, Parmalat hired political strategists Crosby Textor to launch a campaign against their kiwi rival. It was not exactly subtle issue management. They decided on an old-school media strategy to plant negative stories attacking the credibility of health claims made for A2 milk.

Apparently, tabloid television showed no interest in the story, but they soon found some willing reporters in print media. Over a few weeks, highly critical stories appeared in Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph, the Australian Financial Review and The Australian (which described A2 milk as a “scam”). And it may be no coincidence that the campaign began soon before Parmalat launched its own lactose-free brand for people with “tummy troubles.”

However, is such a negative media strategy good issue management? Pitching damaging stories against your competitors may seem like a good idea at the time. But it doesn’t seem so smart when you get caught out. It reflects badly on you and your client (not to mention potentially alienating the reporters who played along with the plan). Moreover, it is never good practice when the consultancy itself becomes the news story, because it undermines the credibility of the message and surely reinforces those negative stereotypes about public relations and “spin.”

While bad-mouthing a client’s commercial competitor is not specifically excluded by the Public Relations Institute of Australia Code of Ethics, the Consultants Code of Practice warns against “extravagant claims or unfair comparisons.” Presumably Parmalat would defend any statement about their competitor on the grounds of truth or fair comment, although the truth about A2 milk remains highly contested.

However such an approach on its own is not only questionable in terms of effectiveness, it also smacks of desperation and failure to understand that issue management demands a lot more than just media. With A2 milk now on sale in the United States and reportedly pushing into Parmalat’s home market in Europe, a negative media strategy alone is no adequate response to strong competition and very effective marketing.

Tony Jaques manages Australian-based issue and crisis management consultancy Issue}Outcomes and authors its newsletter Managing Outcomes

*Footnote: The A2 milk controversy has raged for years in scientific circles, in the media and during protracted legal proceedings, and many people are convinced it has improved their health. However the official view of Dairy Australia, the industry’s research body, is that “There is no convincing scientific evidence to indicate that milk containing only A2 beta casein is better for health than regular milk.” For a comprehensive analysis of the controversy see “Devil in the milk: Illness, health and politics in A1 and A2 milk” (2007). by Keith Woodford, Craig Potton Publishing, Nelson, NZ.