Month: November 2017

Meat lobbying group Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) has created controversy thanks to an ad depicting the Hindu god Ganesha enjoying a lamb dinner. Hindu communities in Australia and abroad have begun petitions and official protests of the ad because Ganesha is never depicted eating meat, something which the MLA should have discovered before it ever produced the commercial. The MLA did provide a statement from spokesman Andrew Howie that said in part, “The campaign features gods, prophets and deities from across a wide range of religions alongside atheism, in a clearly fantastic nature, with the intent of being as inclusive as possible.” However, in learning more aboutthis story I began to wonder if perhaps MLA was deliberately courting controversy rather than haplessly falling into it. After all, the ad shows many representations of religious figures, a risky move in the first place especially for a commercial about food. And, it turns out this isn’t the first ad conflict MLA’s found itself in – last year it was criticized for putting out an ad that some said aggressively attacked vegans and was discriminatory against Indigenous Australians.

The old adage, “Any publicity is good publicity” only holds true to a certain point, and under a very specific set of conditions. Those who toy with it may grab attention, as MLA has here, but from my viewpoint they’re playing with fire. Either the folks behind the ads know they’re courting controversy and are willing to take that risk for exposure, or they’re clueless and walking into the same mistake over and over again. There’s not much room in between.

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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 vice president for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

We love to connect with readers on LinkedIn! Connect with Jonathan | Connect with Erik

 

Keeping your crisis management skills sharp means constantly learning from your own experiences, as well as the experiences of others. We spotted this MarketWatch breakdown of 20 different CEO apologies – some good, some not so much – and thought it a great learning resource to share with you all.

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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 vice president for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

We love to connect with readers on LinkedIn! Connect with Jonathan | Connect with Erik

 

Comms are falling flat? You could be missing one of these vital components.

Today when you have a crisis you’re expected to talk about it. And, if you’re going to talk about it then you’d probably like people to believe you. Whether your communications come in the form of a press release, media interview, tweet, YouTube video or any of the other thousands of possibilities, there are three ingredients you need to include to make this happen.

While the way you communicate will constantly shift, the three pillars found in effective communications, what we call the “3 C’s of Credibility,” hold true for any crisis management scenario.

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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 vice president for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

We love to connect with readers on LinkedIn! Connect with Jonathan | Connect with Erik

Starting from scratch in terms of crisis management is tough. Sometimes the idea of creating the plans and supporting tactics, along with creating the infrastructure that will allow it all to actually function when the mess hits the fan can seem too much to handle. It’s not.

Much like other large-scale projects, getting your organization ready for crisis management is best broken down into a number of steps. And, of course, that means you need a Step 1, so here you are!

Step 1: Identify your vulnerabilities

Knowing where your organization is vulnerable, and what types of issues you’re likely to face, you suddenly have a logical progression into further planning. We use a process we call a vulnerability audit to identify anything in a given organization that could be impacted by, lead to, or worsen a crisis. The main ingredients in this process are a willingness to be 100% honest and to really dig into some topics most people would rather ignore. It’s not the most fun process in the world, but it’s usually only minutes in that we begin to get answers that leave us thinking, “How did this not create a major crisis already?”

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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 vice president for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

We love to connect with readers on LinkedIn! Connect with Jonathan | Connect with Erik