Author: Jonathan & Erik Bernstein

Is it an oxymoron?

We consistently pound on the fact that the best way to handle a crisis is to confront it head on by admitting the mistakes that caused it. The thing is, this advice often clashes with the advice your insurance company would issue after say, a car crash involving a company vehicle.

What do you do then, when your need to act with transparency and honesty clashes with someone else’s bottom line? That was the question posed by “Mr. Media Training,” Brad Phillips, in a recent article. A quote:

Let’s be clear. Insurance companies care primarily about two things: reducing payouts and increasing profits.

On the other hand, crisis communications professionals care about your company’s long-term reputation, your personal reputation, employee morale, your ability to attract and retain employees, your professional relationships with vendors and lenders, and the long-term financial consequences of the crisis.

So what are you supposed to do when you know you should apologize and move on, but can’t out of fear that your insurance contracts will be voided? Here are three ideas:

1. Find an Insurance Company That “Gets It”

Jonathan Bernstein, President of Bernstein Crisis Management, says there are some far-sighted companies out there: “AIG (surprisingly) is one of the more progressive insurance companies in this regard.”

Bernstein adds, “In my experience, more and more insurance companies are aware that settlements tend to be lower, even when an organization is factually liable, if the court of public opinion is engaged in accordance with crisis management best practices.”

2. Find a Carrier That Offers a Crisis Management Policy

According to Bob Sobel, Vice President of Sales for Oxford Insurance, “There are some errors and omissions insurance contracts that have a crisis management component. The insurance companies would normally send you to one of their own pre-approved crisis management vendors.”

Still, analyze the language in your policy carefully. Although some plans may allow you to use a crisis management firm to help you notify customers of a breach of credit card information, for example, they may not allow you to admit responsibility for other types of crises.

3. Go It Alone

If the potential payout is relatively low but the risk of inaction is high, you might consider going it alone. Read your policy to see whether this would void the contract altogether, or whether the insurance company would void it only for that one event. This decision is risky, so consult a professional before making your final choice.

All of these solutions have something in common – they seek ways to avoid sacrificing your integrity as an organization while maintaining the insurance that’s required to run a business.

Remember, your associates’ behavior reflects on you as a company as well. Make sure those that provide a service to you are on the same page in terms of ethics and behavior, or risk a reputation crisis.

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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, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

How do you cope when your brand gets hijacked?

Today’s news includes the story of a hoax launched as an attack on coal company Peabody Energy. In short, an activist group calling itself Coal is Killing Kids developed a false campaign including a news release, a Coal Cares website and a Twitter account. The campaign positions itself as a Peabody Energy sponsored initiative (it’s not) to provide free inhalers and discounts for asthma medication for children living within 200 miles of a coal plant.

This quote, from a post by Marijean Jaggers on the Jaggers Communication blog, brings to light an interesting and dangerous crisis. Simply due to the nature of their industry, a large number of businesses are guaranteed to upset people, and this impostor method can be devastating to an already-precarious reputation.

Missouri-based Peabody Energy has been slow to respond, which makes its problem all the worse, choosing to issue a stodgy traditional statement on its website which, not surprisingly, major news outlets “failed to notice” when crafting their own stories on the issue.

In order to save face, Peabody will have to go digital, engaging stakeholders in the same places they found the false campaign via Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

Through all of this, the energy company will have to go above and beyond to show that it is doing its best to run a safe and environmentally responsible program while promoting the large role that coal plays in our economy. With sufficient effort the current smear campaign will pass, and Peabody will be stronger against the inevitable ones to come.

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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, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

P&G PR lead shares learnings from 2010 crisis

Last year, Proctor & Gamble was plunged into crisis management as a result of negative backlash from the launch of a new diaper that gathered enough attention to spill over from social media to the mainstream. Luckily for us, analyzing the mistakes of others is perhaps one of the finest ways to learn how to better yourself, and it especially helps when those responsible for the mistakes are helpful enough to do that analysis themselves.

In this quote from a iMediaConnection article by Lori Luecthefeld, Bryan McCleary, director of public relations for Proctor & Gamble baby care, gives his personal insights into mistakes P&G made, and how it could have done better:

Don’t default to an apology
After the crisis broke, interactive gurus called on P&G to apologize to consumers, McClearly said. But that’s the one thing the company couldn’t do. It had to maintain that the product was safe.

That said, there are different ways of communicating safety, McCleary added. And the company’s first tactic — insisting that there were no examples to support allegations — came off as a guilty response. Quickly, the company shifted course. Its representatives communicated with parents on a personal level — as parents themselves. They noted that, as moms and dads, they’d be the first people to pull a product from the shelf if they believed there was any danger to their children.

Arm your front lines
Make sure your consumer relations staff has the resources it needs to respond. P&G was slow to do that, McClearly noted. Early responses came off as robotic, which only fueled the fires.

Try to change the narrative
The Pampers situation was irresistible to mainstream media: Pampers vs. moms. Thus, the company had to shift the story line by bringing parents and mom bloggers onto its side as well.

Track, track, track
Know where you stand, McClearly advised. Track consumer awareness and willingness to purchase throughout the process so you know if — and when — the conversations begin to turn.

Repeat the Serenity Prayer to yourself regularly
Know what you can influence. Know what you can’t influence. And have the wisdom to know the difference. For a company like P&G, which prides itself on remaining in control at all times, that posed a challenge, McClearly noted.

Accentuate the positive
Don’t exist entirely in a defensive stance, if possible. In the case of Pampers, the brand found it was useful to find something that it could apologize for: its initial corporate response to the allegations. And with that, the brand was able to turn the focus to education.

 

Be human
Consumers expect corporate-speak from a company the size of P&G — so Pampers had to break that perception. Instead, the brand engaged in a two-way dialogue and sought to put a human face on the people behind its product.

What’s the underlying message behind all of this? Communicate.

Communicate with the media, communicate with your staff, communicate with supporters, fans, critics and yes, communicate with the opposition. The turning point of this crisis was when P&G reached out to the concerned parties, in this case angry “mommy bloggers,” and involved them in fixing the problem. Not only did this remove the juicy angle the media was attracted to, but also gave P&G a reputation boost, demonstrating the company’s willingness to cooperate and learn from adversity.

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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, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

Not just a branding tool

Your company’s blog is one of its most valuable assets, serving as a tool for marketing, customer service, and, of most interest to us here, crisis management. With some forethought, your blog can become the focal point for information distribution in times of crisis, getting the story you want to the media and keeping both employees and stakeholders informed 24/7, even when nobody’s in the office.

In a recent Ragan.com article, Jeff Domansky gave an excellent list of ways to make the best use of your blog during a crisis, here are a couple of my favorites:

Updates

Quick, timely updates through your blog can be invaluable in keeping employees, customers, regulators, fire and safety officials, the media and the public informed of developments. Remember, your updates can be very brief and factual. It’s important to show that even if you have not yet resolved the crisis, you’re working to solve it.

BP attempted to use a blog for Gulf of Mexico oil spill cleanup updates, but it received pointed criticism for its attempts to paint the recovery unrealistically. BP has since shuttered this blog and removed the posts, demonstrating how transparent and objective you must be for success.

Media relations

It may be difficult to reach media outlets in the heat of a crisis. Your blog can provide essential media information as well as links to press releases, fact sheets, FAQs, photos, video and everything else reporters might need if they can’t reach a spokesperson. Make sure to provide your blog address and 24-hour phone contacts.

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark’s blog, craigconnects, has a simple press page that works well.

Blogs are incredibly flexible communications platforms and, especially since the explosion in popularity of social media, very easy to promote. For low-cost campaigns, simply create social media accounts and echo or link to blog postings while responding to any stakeholder questions or comments. Do that regularly and you will have the base on which to build your crisis management effort on when the need arises.

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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, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

Weak start to communications hinders crisis management

Last week, Sony’s “Playstation Network” suffered one of the largest breaches of confidential user information in history. With over 75 million users affected, to say that Sony has a crisis management case on its hands would be an understatement.

The electronics giant put itself in a bad place due to dishonest communication from the start, at first painting the issue as a mere outage before finally admitting that hackers had broken into the PSN service and stolen customer information, including (possibly) financial data. In another necessary but customer-angering move, Sony’s PC gaming service Qriocity was taken down just yesterday, likely due to having the same security flaw as the PSN.

The entire issue leaves many questions unanswered, and Sony is not stepping up to fill this role as it should. As a result, it’s been left up to members of the media, such as PCWorld’s Matt Peckham, to fill the gap with quotes like this one:

What sort of compensation will Sony provide Qriocity and PSN members (note that many pay $50 a year for PlayStation Plus premium membership)? Has Sony identified the parties involved? Does the presumably criminal activity constitute a serious enough felony (or series of felonies) to involve the FBI? What sort of security measures is Sony taking to ensure an attack like this–or worse–won’t happen again? How will it convey that to its over 75 million PSN members and convince them not to jump ship?

All good questions, and ones that Sony has a responsibility to answer. Until it goes just that, those millions of customers are at risk of jumping ship. Tech fans are fickle, and an error left uncorrected for long will see their dollars invested in products from a rival company.

Sony has begun in the right direction, linking its own official timeline and explanation via social media, but it will take much more comprehensive communication to come out ahead on this one.

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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, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

Airline learns from crisis management mistakes

Southwest Airlines is no stranger to crisis management, just earlier this month coping with a messy communication situation after a flight was forced to make an emergency landing due to a a ruptured fuselage, so when a landing flight not only slid off of a runway in Chicago, but was photographed seemingly pointed directly at a nearby White Castle burger joint, the airline leapt into action.

PR Daily has more details:

Southwest Airlines’ crisis PR team is working overtime.

Today they are responding to media calls and posting on social media outlets about a flight that skidded off the runway at Chicago’s Midway Airport and into a patch of mud. No injuries were reported in the incident, but it worked its way into the top news story on websites and television.

The Chicago Tribune posted a video of the plane sitting at the end of runway, its nose pointing at a White Castle drive-thru restaurant across the street.

Almost immediately following today’s report, Southwest put out a statement confirming that the plane slid off the end of the runway and none of the passengers were injured. The airline pointed out that there were reports of heavy rain in the area at the time the aircraft landed.

 

 

 

Southwest’s statement on the incident was posted on its Facebook page shortly after it occurred, and it drew a whopping 128 “likes” and 170 comments. Most backed up the airlines and lay the blame on Midway and the weather.

Southwest not only addressed the situation on Facebook, but Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn, Gowalla, FourSquare, and its company blog. Once again it’s been proven that simple, honest communication pays off, as Southwest’s approach resulted in the crisis quickly moving from story of the day to a non-incident overnight.

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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, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

A crisis communications success story

From late December 2010 to early January 2011, massive flooding occurred throughout Queensland, Australia. The crisis tested the mettle of first responders and government agencies alike, and also, as in most recent disasters, highlighted the importance and effectiveness of technology and social media in crisis management.

In an article for Social Media Today, Stephen Collins describes a prime example, the Queensland Police Service:

• QPS presence in social media (on Facebook) was signed off May 10 2010 at Deputy Commissioner level as a six month trial. As a early December 2010, prior to the floods, they had 6000 “Likes” on their Facebook page. They were delighted at this point and had no idea what was to come;

 

• the entire media team is responsible for social media and it is tightly integrated into other comms and public safety work;
• QPS has no formalised social media policy. It has become a case of just do it. The benefits are there to be realised. Kym noted specifically that as a part of QPS’ overall strategic communications that the social media component is the “easiest, fastest, most efficient way to get information to the people of Queensland as well as our media stakeholders.” She noted that elements of the traditional media have expressed a level of unhappiness that they are no longer the gatekeepers for information coming from QPS;
• social media “really provided a connection” to Queenslanders during the floods and now, on an ongoing basis as QPS has made real efforts to engage with their audience. The same material that goes out over social media goes out over more traditional channels such as radio and television;
• the dissemination of public safety information via social media is seen as having a direct correlation to saving lives. Clearance for information distribution is at the sworn officer level, as it is for discussions of such matters with the media and public generally. No additional clearance process is necessary. On the matter of officers using social media directly in the field, the matter is under consideration, but not ready for action;
• at 12 months into a serious effort on social media, QPS are “still new at this”;

 

• QPS media now has over 178,000 Likes on Facebook and has an active engagement with many of those people. Often, things are posted by the public on QPS’s Facebook page that they had not anticipated (examples were given such as family members of offenders and victims posting information or tributes). This does not stop them being posted. Little is ever removed unless it breaches the page code of conduct published there.

The QPS has not gained its massive following (and thus communication power) through marketing tricks or some type of voodoo, but by engaging the public at a personal level while continuing to deliver pertinent and timely information. It really is that simple. Give people a reason to come back and they will, in droves.

Kudos to the QPS for setting an example for fellow agencies, keep up the good work!

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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, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

Don’t play friendly with the bad guys

It doesn’t require a deep look to know that Khamis Gadhafi, son Muammar Gadhafi, is going to be involved in controversy, so what would drive a U.S. company to bring him on as a high-level intern? Greed perhaps, or just foolishness? Here’s the story, from a Yahoo article by Zachary Roth:

The internship, which lasted a month, was sponsored by AECOM, a Los Angeles-based global engineering and design company that has been working with the Libyan regime to modernize the country’s infrastructure. Khadis made stops in San Francisco, Colorado, Houston, Washington, and New York City, meeting with high-tech companies (including Google, Apple, and Intel), universities, and defense contractors like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. While in the Big Apple, Khamis even took in the Broadway show “Mamma Mia.”

News of Khamis’s internship, which was approved by the State Department, was first reported by ABC News.

Since coming home, Khamis appears to have played a key role in helping his father’s regime in its violent campaign to quell the uprising. He has led the elite 32nd Reinforced Brigade, known at the Khamis Brigade, which reportedly has been involved in brutally suppressing rebel forces.

The old saying, “if you lie down with dogs, you end up with fleas” is still around for a reason. AECOM took Khamis on what was essentially a paid vacation throughout the US, in a move that looks very much like an exchange for contracts in Libya. While of course AECOM has issued the standard press release mea culpa, this half-hearted crisis management effort will do little towards repairing its reputation.

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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, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

Tweets are forever, think twice (or more!) before you post

Although the service is simple at it’s core, Twitter presents significant risk of crisis if not handled carefully. We’ve seen several recent examples of users inadvertently posting personal messages from corporate accounts, usually resulting in a quick apology (and, often, firing of the responsible party). While that mistake can be avoided by simply double checking a name, sometimes a message with no ill intent but spectacularly bad wording causes trouble. Social media expert Jay Baer calls these messages “Tone Deaf,” and describes them here in a quote from his Convince and Convert blog:

These types of Twitter mistakes are a bit more disconcerting, as you get into questions of appropriateness and poor listening. The Tone Deaf error occurs when the official company account (or personal account of a high-ranking officer) throws up an air ball of a tweet that is outside customary social and societal norms.

Of course the most famous recent example of Tone Deaf twitter self-destruction was Kenneth Cole’s ridiculous linkage of Egyptian freedom riots with his new Spring collection.

Another cringe-worthy one was @UnitedAirlines tweeting the lyrics to the theme song of Frasier after a customer tweeted “Thanks to @unitedairlines I can finally watch that Frasier episode I missed in 1994.” The company entirely missed the sarcasm and frustration of the customer, which is bewildering because she’d sent 5 angry tweets within one minute.

The Kenneth Cole tweet, “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at http://bit.ly/KCairo -KC” is probably the #1 example in terms of how incredibly tone deaf someone can be. That single post sparked a massive wave of resentment and anger against the retailer that spanned all types of media and cost a bundle of money, along with a large chunk of reputation.

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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, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]

Bad communication spoils airline’s response

Southwest Airlines is in trouble following an incident that caused its entire fleet of Boeing 737s to be grounded for inspection, canceling hundreds and delaying literally thousands of flights. Compounding the issue is the terrible crisis management from Southwest, which has sparked negative commentaries like this one, from a Portfolio.com blog post by Joe Brancatelli, across the Web:

Remember Saturday when Southwest was mum on both its website and Twitter feed about its troubled operations? Late Sunday, it added insult to injury by finally posting a statement on its website. Southwest’s verbiage is brazen, self-serving baloney. (See it here.) Southwest claims it “is experiencing relatively few flight delays and cancellations.”

Needless to say, 300 cancellations represent about 10 percent of Southwest’s normal daily schedule. A 10 percent cancellation rate is not “relatively few.” It’s a catastrophe, since airlines rarely cancel more than 1 or 2 percent of their flights each day. And a thousand delays are not “relatively few,” either. That’s a third of the airline’s schedule.

Refusing to own up to obvious problems is a sure-fire way to worsen any crisis. There’s just no sense in it, the public can already see, and if they can’t then the media will happily ensure they do. Southwest is going to permanently lose customers as a result of not only the incident, but also its inept handling afterwards.

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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, and author of Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training.]