Author: Jonathan & Erik Bernstein

How do reputation-related issues affect the bottom line?

Reputation is a major factor in your market performance. To illustrate that fact, and to demonstrate just how much of a market shift various crises create, Freshfields Bruckhaus published the chart below, featuring the findings of a survey polling over 100 PR pros:

An infographic to help you determine the ideal response to negativity on the ‘net

Every organization will face reputation threats these days, but how much it impacts yours will be determined by your reaction. While practice and training will help you determine the ideal response, the Chatterbox infographic below will give you a solid start:

Failing to live up to stakeholder expectations is a quick way to sink your reputation

Living up to stakeholder expectations is an important part of reputation management. Today, many stakeholders expect you to be socially responsible, but what does that mean to them, and what can you do about it?

Online research group Lab42 put out a great infographic explaining this concept, take a look:

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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]

What to watch for when it comes to cyber security

Cyber threats make up the fastest-growing set of crises we’ve seen over the past two years, and they show little sign of stopping. While some organizations are beefing up security and putting hack-related crisis management plans in place, too often it’s as a reaction to being hit, rather than a preventative measure.

McAfee shared the below infographic that highlights what their experts anticipate to be the biggest threats, aka the bare minimum you should be prepared to face:

 

Crashed site raises ire of Twitter users trying to purchase items from new collection

Target’s refreshed its image and carved out a new niche for itself in today’s crowded market by collaborating with trendy designers to make it a cheap-chic destination. However, during the launch of its new Lilly Pulitzer collection, the retailer’s failure to predict online demand left many would-be customers feeling frustrated. Of course that meant heading to social media to vent, and Target took quite the beating on Twitter. NBC News’ Martha C. White reports:

Frustrated consumers complained on Twitter when the demand overwhelmed Target’s site and mobile shopping app, prompting comparisons to Target’s 2011 Missoni collection that crashed the store’s site for several hours.”It certainly gets them press,” said Bob Phibbs, CEO of the Retail Doctor, a consulting firm. “I don’t know how effective it is at building loyalty and repeat business.”

The technological issues that dogged the launch could have been prevented, said Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

“This is not rocket science at this point,” she said. “We’ve had 20 years of e-commerce history where there are bursts in demand.” Other online retailers such as Amazon have managed to cope with surges in use, she pointed out, and Target should have expected that visits to its site would surge and done more to prevent the problems some users experienced.

It’s not particularly difficult to add more capacity to servers when there are signs pointing toward a surge in use. This leaves us with a few options. One, Target failed to predict the demand for a product line its focused quite a bit of effort on creating buzz over. This is possible, but if nobody in the room even mentioned the possibility we’d be awfully surprised. Two, execs didn’t want to spend the extra bucks. Again this is quite possible. After all, it can be hard to convince those holding the purse strings to shell out, especially when the increased server load is all but guaranteed to be temporary. Yet a third option is that the previous two were considered and the Target team figured a site overload would grab the attention of the media (which it obviously did because we, and many others, covered the story.)

If it’s one or two, it’s a pretty obvious mistake with immediate ramifications. If it’s number three, it’s probably given those behind the decision confidence in their decision, and they’re likely to do it again. Problem is, especially given how fast people are to outrage these days, a repeat “mistake” can quickly turn from a savvy PR maneuver into a reputation-damaging event.

Whatever the cause behind the troubles, Target should be careful to take a deep breath and think carefully about the possibilities before its next big launch.

 

Sometimes crisis management means telling the bossman to stop talking

Chip Wilson made his fortune selling yoga pants at $100 a pop, but as we found out last year during the Lululemon sheer pants debacle was that while he had marketing savvy, he was pretty darn stupid regarding how to speak to stakeholders.

Wilson went into a semi-forced silence (according to him board members told him it was his “duty” to stop talking), but as his family launches a new business venture he’s stepping into the public eye once again. In February, Wilson spoke with NY Times reporter Amy Wallace, and dropped several quotes that made pretty darn clear why he was previously asked to zip it. Here’s a taste:

“I mean, how women can say these things about me given everything I’ve done to build the women’s company?”

and how about…

“I think that Lululemon was so successful because I was probably the only straight guy that was making women’s apparel, and I knew what a guy liked.”

Cringy, no?

It can be difficult to tell the boss he’s not the right person to speak for his organization, but failing to do so can set you on a course down an awfully slippery slope. Some people aren’t trainable – Wilson may be one of them!

Connecting with your audience requires using the right tools for communication

Knowing how your audience is communicating and what tools they’re using is critical to crisis communications, making this infographic from the European Commission a must-see.

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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]

Playing ostrich is not a reputation management strategy

Seeing the mistakes of their peers in nationwide headlines has many scared to engage in public Internet use at all. Problem is, avoiding that altogether is just another way to create issues for yourself.

Ahh, we can hear you now…“But if I don’t create social media profiles or publish anything under my name, then how can I run into trouble?”

Simple really. If you’re not proactive in securing your online presence – creating profiles, publishing information about yourself, and generally making the info you put out easy to find – someone else will do it for you. This ranges from the automatic, ie. search bots pulling up anything with your name in it (old arrests or since-dismissed accusations are some of the most common we see), to the malicious, like someone purposely creating false social media accounts to post derogatory messages, and everything in between.

Although we caution you to take your time and please, please understand that everything you put out there may as well be permanent, having a full online presence that you own is an absolute must for crisis management today.

Even “private” and “temporary” messages can come back to haunt you

Everyone knows Snapchat images are supposed to vanish after a set time period, but since the app’s release many have found out (through painful experience) that isn’t always the case.

Well, you can add newly appointed Royal Bank of Scotland chairman Rory Cullinan to that list. Cullinan sent some Snapchats to his daughter during a busy day of work, and they wound up costing him big time. The Telegraph’s Peter Spence has more details:

Rory Cullinan used photo-sharing app Snapchat to send images featuring captions that read: “Not a fan of board meetings xx”, “Boring meeting xx” and “Another friggin meeting”.

The pictures then ended up being posted on Instagram around Father’s Day last year by the investment banker’s daughter, but only revealed in a national newspaper early this month. Mr Cullinan’s daughter had uploaded the photos with the message: “Happy Father’s Day to the indisputable king of Snapchat.”

Cullinan, who had been with the bank for six years, came under heavy fire from critics immediately. The bank’s official statement effectively said nothing, with no reason for departure stated at all, but considering Cullinan was on his way out mere weeks after the Snapchats were posted the connection is hard to ignore.

For crisis management and reputation protection purposes we like to tell people it’s OK to be a little paranoid when it comes to your personal messages. No matter how private you think they are, no matter how thoroughly you think they were destroyed, there’s a very real possibility that they could be made public. Remember that fact and act accordingly.

 

Crisis management lessons learned painfully by The Daily Show’s new host

Comedian Trevor Noah has some massive shoes to fill as Jon Stewart’s replacement on The Daily Show. Noah was bound to face criticism purely because Stewart was so beloved, but thanks to the Internet and social media in particular he’s being taken to task for his past as well.

Immediately after Comedy Central’s announcement of Noah as the new host people began poring through his online presence. E-detectives pulled up a number of old posts deemed by some as sexist or anti-Semitic and quickly began circulating them around the web, where they combined with debate on his merits as a host to create a PR problem.

“Oh yeah the weekend. People are gonna get drunk & think that I’m sexy!” – fat chicks everywhere.

— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) October 14, 2011

Almost bumped a Jewish kid crossing the road. He didn’t look b4 crossing but I still would hav felt so bad in my german car!

— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) September 18, 2009

Both Noah and Comedy Central replied independently with what we thought were mediocre messages that didn’t directly address the bigoted nature of the slurs.

“To reduce my views to a handful of jokes that didn’t land is not a true reflection of my character, nor my evolution as a comedian.”

— Trevor Noah (@Trevornoah) March 31, 2015

“Like many comedians, Trevor Noah pushes boundaries; he is provocative and spares no one, himself included,” said the network in emailed statements. “To judge him or his comedy based on a handful of jokes is unfair. Trevor is a talented comedian with a bright future at Comedy Central.”

We’re not here to debate the appropriateness of the jokes (if you’re interested a quick Google will return quite a few results for places you can do that), but there is a crisis management lesson to be learned. Whether you’re starting a new job search, heading to a new employer, or maybe just haven’t taken a look back on your posts from the past couple years, it’s critical to remember that your posts provide a chronicle of your past. And, despite however unfair you may feel it is, you WILL be judged on that past.

Whether you stand behind what you said and leave it posted or clear things out and start with a new slate is up to you, but you absolutely must be aware of the issues that may arise. It’s always important to remember who your audience is as well – in Noah’s case Comedy Central is standing behind him and dismissing the posts as a couple of jokes that missed the park, but if you work in, say, social services or investment banking you’ll have far less leeway.

Good crisis management means being aware of potential outcomes, and when we’re talking social media the world will be the jury that decides your fate.