Posts Tagged ‘crisis management’

Susan G. Komen and the PR Profession’s Post-Mortem Race for a Clue

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

By Mary Beth West, APR 

On some issues of heavy consequence in the public relations profession, it sometimes helps to take a step back and watch the dialogue unfold before formulating an opinion.  I had been doing just that on the Susan G. Komen / Planned Parenthood controversy – until today.  Now, it all seems crystal-clear.

Like everyone else, I saw the maelstrom unfold last week throughout the media.  The manner in which the story broke and how the Komen organization reacted with a policy about-face – followed by tough criticism (“they caved!”) – provides a public relations case study that will live in textbooks throughout the next decade. 

An interesting part about it to me, though, is that different public relations professionals are drawing diverse conclusions about who’s right, who’s wrong, and what the real lessons are relative to brand, reputation and effective organizational decision-making. 

One of my PRSA colleagues, Michael Cherenson, APR, Fellow PRSA, posted an entry on the Public Relations Society of America‘s national blog, “Who Really Owns the Komen Brand?”  In it, Mike makes some spot-on observations about the nature of brand advocacy.  He also poses a critical question in his title.  

I disagree, however, with the direction of his conclusion, in which he seems to indicate that Komen simply made a bad decision to no longer support Planned Parenthood, leaving a majority of former Komen supporters feeling betrayed and turning on the brand.  

To me, the answer of who owns the Komen brand – or at least who seized ownership of it last week – is quite simple:  Planned Parenthood.  

It’s Planned Parenthood’s own brand advocates, in my view, who mounted nothing short of a hostile takeover of the Komen brand in order to railroad their message – and their way – with absolute political genius . . . the notion of tying the breast cancer prevention issue intrinsically with women’s reproductive rights vis-à-vis Komen’s prior financial support of Planned Parenthood, with a deep inference that the two cannot be separated.  

In the face of Komen rescinding its funding, Planned Parenthood made an exceptionally swift, underlying case that Komen was turning its back on women.   And the media ate it up with a spoon, as Planned Parenthood well-knew they would.  The Komen folks didn’t know what hit them, with almost total deer-in-the-headlights confusion as to the messaging subterfuge overtaking their reputation. 

I have to ask the question, was it really Komen donors who were posting all those “Never will I give again!” messages on Facebook, or was it the Planned Parenthood Army?  We’ll see what the coming days of analysis into the Internet record bears out. 

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal posted an editorial late last night that gives a far better reality-based assessment of Komen’s rationale for its original decision:

“Planned Parenthood has been and is under congressional and criminal investigation (by attorneys general, local prosecutors and various regulatory agencies in Arizona, Indiana, Alabama, Kansas and Texas) for allegations including failure to report criminal child sex abuse, misuse of health-care and family-planning funds, and failure to comply with parental-involvement laws regarding abortions. . . . It is easy to see why Komen might not wish to be associated with Planned Parenthood. Fighting breast cancer is something all Americans can and do agree on; promoting and performing abortions is something that divides us bitterly.” 

In short, there are two sides to this issue, and Komen’s side got completely hijacked. 

Another colleague of mine posted an essay yesterday that, to me, spoke with a great deal of clarity about the real issue at hand for Komen: lack of conviction. 

With characteristic aplomb, Susan Hart, APR, wrote, “Last week’s nightmare of ‘they fund us, they fund us not’ isn’t about funding at all. It’s about who the Susan G. Komen Foundation is. It’s about the organization’s values, priorities and purpose. It’s the up close and personal part of branding that decidedly determines who you are and what you stand for regardless of public sentiment.  And therein lies the multi-level problem for this pink-until-you-puke group.”

Love it. 

And she’s absolutely right. 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Public Relations | 5 Comments »

Executive Compensation: At What Price Reputation?

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

By Mary Beth West, APR

It’s not without a bit of odd coincidence that our company’s scheduled blog posts for the month of February are set to take on the theme “Demonstrating Value: Transparency and Accountability in Client Services”. . . when one of the biggest executive compensation flaps in recent Knoxville history is unfolding right now. 

At almost this very time two years ago (January 2010), I wrote a blog post, “The Reputational Fallout of Compensation Run Amok,” prompted at the time by a Barron’s article on the topic of out-of-control executive compensation on Wall Street and Washington’s reaction to it.

Whether an organization is public or private-sector, for-profit or non-profit, executive compensation disclosures can take a real toll on relationships with stakeholders, if compensation levels as well as policies aren’t within some reasonable range of public expectations, particularly given the scale of the organization and the context of its work performance.

Of course, you can’t please everyone on this topic.  Some folks misguidedly think anyone working in the non-profit sector shouldn’t make more than $50K a year.  Non-profits that seek to operate with the performance-driven approach of highly competitive companies generally have to pay quite well to attract commensurate talent in keeping with expectations.

As with practically everything else that can impact public attitudes and opinions, balance is the name of the game. 

Board decisions should be made with an underlying expectation that all information is subject to public disclosure and scrutiny and should let that knowledge serve as some form of guidance on executive compensation parameters.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Public Relations | No Comments »

Penn State’s Crisis and Cultures of Denial

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

By Mary Beth West, APR

Dominating the news since last weekend, the alleged Sandusky crimes and the deep implications for Penn State’s leadership are opening a lot of eyes at iconic institutions across the country: 

Could the same thing happen here? 

If confronted with the deepest and most disturbing allegations of criminal wrongdoing among one of our own – particularly when that “one” is a stalwart figurehead – is our leadership and our culture such that we would do the right thing morally and legally, regardless of the near-term ugliness and damage to the institutional brand?

Every organization should take some serious time well-spent and ask itself these questions.  

Looking at another institution’s misfortune, it’s easy to say, “How could they ever have let that happen?”  (It’s always “they,” right?)

In truth, however, there are many cultural nuances within large institutional settings – be they academic, governmental, corporate or otherwise – that place major obstacles to dealing with these kinds of crises in a timely and effective way. 

It’s certainly not a free pass for making bad decisions, but it’s purely a reality – and as such, it’s something that organizational leaderships must be in tune with and show appropriate judgment and character to manage appropriately, whenever circumstances demand. 

Human instinct almost always is to go through phases of disbelief, denial and hope against hope that if an ugly secret is ignored, it will go away.  As is well-documented, it never does.  Deflection of the truth is generally the next phase . . . “he didn’t see what he thought he saw,” “there is an underlying agenda driving the accusations,” “it’s all a big misunderstanding,” etc., etc. 

That human instinct-based reaction is allowed when it lasts about 30 minutes.  Months, years or decades is quite another matter entirely.  All organizations — collegiate institutions in particular, in light of this case — must fight like crazy the elements in their own cultures that allow these types of instincts to manifest themselves and do their untold damage. 

In particular, managing the additional layer of complication tied to legendary — even mythic — programs and individuals must be dealt with and overcome, and it takes true leaders who hold a real grasp of the risks at stake to make that happen.

Penn State’s board had better pull out all the stops to right the ship to whatever extent doing so is even possible at this juncture.  The president and head coach ousters are only starting points on a road that may take as many years to recovery as they took in the perpetration of Sandusky’s alleged crimes.

 

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Public Relations | No Comments »

Remote and Off-Site Resources Critical in a Crisis

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

By Mary Beth West

This week’s flooding in the Midwest and tornados throughout the Southeast should remind organizations of all stripes to include in their crisis plans adequate off-site information and management resources. In some cases, that can mean WAY off-site.

When a company’s facilities are plowed over by a natural disaster that also impacts the larger geographic area, it can throw things into a tailspin that lasts for days or weeks.

Some recommendations:
• Provide employee contact information hard copies to the management team – and perhaps to all of the employee base – to keep at their personal home locations, in the event that employees cannot make it in to the office and need to contact their supervisors or team members. Hard copies help do the trick when power outages or electronic system interferences may render an electronic database inaccessible at one’s home.
• Consider setting up a Yammer account (www.yammer.com) or speak with your IT professional about proprietary capabilities that offer the same kind of social network communications that are closed to people outside the company.
• Scout out one or more off-site locations with office / meeting space and communications capabilities to set up temporary operations, as well as a command center and media center, as a situation might necessitate.
• Partner with your IT provider to make sure computer system back-ups take place daily, with data storage in more than one off-site / out-of-market location.

This list is only a partial set of considerations . . . there are many more. The best way to anticipate as many as may apply to your organization is to conduct a thorough review of potential circumstances and challenges that may be faced in a crisis, including a natural disaster, and get down to the nuts and bolts from there.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Another Look at the BP Oil Spill

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

By Joe Bogardus

Unbelievably, it has been a year since the horrific BP Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico and the start of the largest oil spill ever experienced in the United States.

As the unfortunate drama unfolded, as a communication professional, I watched as BP mounted a response reflective of its mammoth proportions to address the crisis. After some initial floundering, as the company tried to get a handle on the scope of the accident, its communicators did yeoman’s work in deploying various vehicles in an attempt to tell BP’s side of the story.

They purchased hundreds of TV spots using Gulf natives working for BP espousing the company’s commitment to do the right thing. They assembled (and still have functioning) an impressive website detailing the company’s actions and ongoing commitment to restoring the Gulf. They earmarked billions (with a little arm-twisting from the President) to honor claims from affected residents.  They assembled an array of social media tools to deploy the company message. The CEO went to Congress and apologized as he should.

In the end, they spent millions and millions of dollars doing many of the things most professional communicators would suggest to their clients.

Personally, however, I do not think it was enough. It wasn’t the BP communicators who failed. In my mind, the event was so large and the radius of its impact was so great that any BP message was overwhelmed by the circumstances. Plus, on top of the unprecedented nature of this long-term incident, the former CEO and other management leaders of BP consistently gave detractors ammunition to shoot down the company’s best efforts with a host of impolitic remarks. 

Going forward, the solution for the brand must be to continue substantive efforts for the foreseeable future communicate about those efforts, avoid perceptions about placing profit over distribution of continued relief, and, hopefully, over time mitigate the negativity now associated with the BP brand.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Public Relations | No Comments »

The “Smoldering” Crisis: What to do when a crisis situation slowly unfolds

Monday, April 18th, 2011

By Mary Beth West, APR

Fires.  Explosions.  Crashes.  Natural disasters.  People dead or injured.  Business operations destroyed or seriously impaired. 

When most people think of a company crisis, visions of these types of immediate and overwhelming scenarios often run through their minds.

But what about crises that are slow-moving?  The ones that you can see coming from a mile away yet cannot stop or avert, and upon arrival seem to last an eternity, all the while continuously generating all the wrong headlines as well as all forms of negative attention?

In the profession, we often call these “smoldering crises” – ones that ignite a very slow and steady burn.  Examples include situations involving government regulatory actions, litigation, product recalls, investor or consumer activism, and the list goes on.

Companies and organizations should consider these types of possible scenarios as they formulate and regularly review their crisis management and communications plans.  Just as they should in sudden emergencies, management leaders should keep a proactive mindset when considering how they deal with these types of situations.

Some tips for managing a smoldering crisis:

  • Keep your head out of the sand, and deal with pending situations head-on.  When the possibility of the slow-moving crisis first starts appearing on the horizon, don’t treat it as an aberration that’s bound to amount to nothing.  Valuable planning and response time will be lost when that assumption is proven not to be the case.
  • Get a handle on the crisis scope and potential brand impact.  Understand the mindset of the stakeholders who will be most immediately impacted, taking into account the concentric spheres of influence that each stakeholder group also reaches through their own communities, traditional media, social media, etc.  Don’t be hesitant about using market research ahead of the game to start testing messages as well as public reactions to certain policy stances.
  • Develop the operational and the communications response.  Capture the probable sequence of events expected to unfold in a timeline, then process-map specific actions and messages that should follow accordingly.  Stay flexible and immediately responsive as circumstances change, perhaps unexpectedly. 
  • Make sure legal and communications teams work together effectively.  The CEO has to drive the train here and create an environment in which both areas of expertise are engaged, hold an equal seat at the table and can arrive at reasonable solutions that neither enflame liability risk nor destroy reputation through a policy of non-communication.

Smoldering crises have every bit as much the potential to inflict long-term reputational and financial damage as ones that happen in an instant.  Stay in tune with your organization’s risks for these events, and as always, don’t wait to do tomorrow what you can do today to prepare and respond.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Public Relations | No Comments »

Yikes. If you thought you were having a bad week at the office . . .

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

By Mary Beth West, APR

I’m counting my blessings this week that I’m not in the shoes of Nestle’s MarCom Department.  With that said, however, I’m in the public relations business.  And if you’re not an avid student of real-world case studies for guidance on how to handle your own next “really bad week” at the office, then you don’t belong in this profession.  So I’m paying attention here, because this one’s a doozy.

As you can read from The Wall Street Journal piece, Nestle is getting swarmed on the social media front by Greenpeace and Greenpeace wannabes over the candy company’s selection of palm oil vendors (of which the greens are no fans, quite apparently – read for yourself the details). 

With Nestle now counting 95,000 fans on its Facebook fan page – “now mostly protesters,” as the WSJ reports – the question has to be asked:  With “friends” like these, who needs enemies?

Note to self: add to client crisis management plans without fail a Plan B, C and D for when activist groups hijack your client’s fan page.

The WSJ article closes by saying “Marketing experts are split as to whether the company should simply shut down its Facebook page,” citing a few sources on either side of the argument, with one saying that doing so would “cut off all lines of communication” (to which I disagree, since Facebook is a great tool, but come on – it’s not the alpha and the omega of all public contact as we know it); another source saying “The damage has been so done, it might not be a bad idea to shut down the page and start over” (to which I ask the obvious follow-up question – what’s going to keep activists from simply doing the same thing all over again on the new fan page or wherever else?). 

So this is our world, and very few folks in even the highest levels of corporate marketing are used to it yet. 

In this world, the corporation has limited control of messages pertaining to their own entities in the good times and, seemingly, very little to no control in the bad times.  Social media platforms are a shared stage with the rest of the world, and everybody gets a backstage pass, regardless of whether they’re groupies or stalkers.  But you know what?  It ain’t going away. 

To Nestle’s credit, I truly think they are fighting the good fight here, trying to use some restraint and navigate this highly public, ugly situation with some class.  As their spokeswoman was quoted, the company wants to show “we are listening, which we obviously are, while not getting involved in a shouting match.”  Amen to that.  It’s a slippery slope between a level-headed, well-balanced response to criticism and suddenly realizing you’re in a place you don’t want to be – particularly when you’re operating from a supposition of corporate niceness and you’re dealing with a freewheeling, black-ops type of communications insurgency that delights in shock-value.

My final take-away from the temporary sanctuary of the sidelines is that these horror stories don’t give any of us a pass from deepening our engagement in social media – using the judgment of true professionals in how to take the high road, particularly in the face of fringe elements and tactical offensives.  After all, if there’s a battle being fought out there – and there always is – you can’t win it if you don’t show up.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Public Relations, social media | No Comments »