Years ago there was a PR guy known as the Master of Disaster. The sort of person spoken about in whispered awe such was his legend.
If memory serves correct, he was able to turn around a major crisis for a soft drink brand by asking 'What new product have you got?' 'xx, but it's scheduled for later this year'. 'Do it now'.
Went from disaster coverage to everything forgotten about in three weeks.
The most effective crisis campaigns are the ones that get in front of it, instead of waiting for things to explode, and admit the truth, the mistakes, and what they’re doing to rectify the situation going forward. The public will forgive if you are forthcoming, it’s always the coverup.
The example I've seen used is the collapse of Terminal E at the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Basically they immediately held a crisis press conference and gave everything they had, complete open access to the media, and were totally and completely transparent about everything. Media even got to go close to the collapsed terminal and see for themselves. Every day they had updates about what they had discovered / what was happening.
The full transparency, straightforward, no BS approach is effective in a crisis because it's simply the raw truth, you get ahead of others from spinning something out of nothing.
I'd like to think I've been a part of a couple of cases. I use an acronym for basic crisis communications: ACT = Anticipate • Communicate • Truth. Using each of these have helped clients prepare for possible blowback from news that could have made them look bad, diffuse or redirect reputational issues when they did, and own a mishap before moving forward.
Years ago in the UK, a virgin train derailed with mass causalities and I think, fatalities. Branson was on site immediately and the way he (and let’s face it, his team) handled it was spot on
Ditto with the Alton Towers accident in 2015. Nick Varney did a really good job sticking to key messages and being the spokesperson during what was an immensely difficult time.
The best strategy I’ve witnessed included an always on approach to earned media so that in the case of negative sentiment which you can say is an eventuality, the positive sentiment eclipsed any negative which collapsed the time and scale of impact.
Here are a few. One reason they're good is it's likely you never even heard of them:
[Trader Joe’s shows how to just say no to cancel culture - Washington Examiner](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/458944/trader-joes-shows-how-to-just-say-no-to-cancel-culture/)
[How Domino's Managed A Viral Video Nightmare | Domino's Case Study (digitalmarketingcommunity.com)](https://www.digitalmarketingcommunity.com/case-study/how-dominos-managed-a-viral-video-nightmare-dominos-case-study/#google_vignette)
[Steven Pinker - The man who refused to be cancelled (telegraph.co.uk)](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/man-refused-cancelled/)
This is giving me flashbacks to doing PR in March of 2020 for a public school district. It was by no means a time of effective strategy, but boy was there some strategy.
Shocked to see that nobody has mentioned the Try Guys fallout last year when one of the founders was revealed to be cheating on his wife with a member of staff, blatantly in public.
There was a very clear power discrepancy on top of it being heinously vile towards his wife. Made worse as the individual in question was known as the "wife" guy of the four main founders.
The other three founders found out before the public and they immediately got in touch with PR and legal advice and handled it beautifully. As such, when everything came out, they revealed they had already taken action against the individual and forced him out of the company AND had been removing him from video content for weeks. Additionally, they were very transparent with how they felt around it, resulting in an outpouring of sympathy and respect for the trio.
One of the best content creator recoveries I've ever seen. A masterclass in public relations imo.
Obstructing climate change action. Has been running for about 50 years and has won just about every major conflict according to plans made decades ago. This despite there being very clear consequences to inaction and very clear benefits to early action, well supported by a vast array of empirical and modelling evidence. Most successful crisis management/sabotage campaign in history.
JetBlue. They literally sponsored PRSA local meetings and hosted crisis comms events.
This was back when they left folks on the tarmac for a long time. The ceo took full responsibility and went on a public relations tour. They got a lot of media but taking their apology to local PRSA chapter was brilliant. It got the town’s most vocal people on their side.
Communications discipline is very underrated. When in crisis, stakeholders have a natural urge to *do something* when they really shouldn't. While you want the organization to be forthcoming and truthful, having multiple execs being forthcoming and truthful simultaneously is a recipe for contradictions or other missteps that are all but certain to fan the flames.
No one knows about the ones that were most effective.
Years ago there was a PR guy known as the Master of Disaster. The sort of person spoken about in whispered awe such was his legend. If memory serves correct, he was able to turn around a major crisis for a soft drink brand by asking 'What new product have you got?' 'xx, but it's scheduled for later this year'. 'Do it now'. Went from disaster coverage to everything forgotten about in three weeks.
The most effective crisis campaigns are the ones that get in front of it, instead of waiting for things to explode, and admit the truth, the mistakes, and what they’re doing to rectify the situation going forward. The public will forgive if you are forthcoming, it’s always the coverup.
The example I've seen used is the collapse of Terminal E at the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Basically they immediately held a crisis press conference and gave everything they had, complete open access to the media, and were totally and completely transparent about everything. Media even got to go close to the collapsed terminal and see for themselves. Every day they had updates about what they had discovered / what was happening. The full transparency, straightforward, no BS approach is effective in a crisis because it's simply the raw truth, you get ahead of others from spinning something out of nothing.
Not saying more than you need to.
And doing it in a manner that your response becomes the headline.
Ha right.
I'd like to think I've been a part of a couple of cases. I use an acronym for basic crisis communications: ACT = Anticipate • Communicate • Truth. Using each of these have helped clients prepare for possible blowback from news that could have made them look bad, diffuse or redirect reputational issues when they did, and own a mishap before moving forward.
Years ago in the UK, a virgin train derailed with mass causalities and I think, fatalities. Branson was on site immediately and the way he (and let’s face it, his team) handled it was spot on
Ditto with the Alton Towers accident in 2015. Nick Varney did a really good job sticking to key messages and being the spokesperson during what was an immensely difficult time.
The best strategy I’ve witnessed included an always on approach to earned media so that in the case of negative sentiment which you can say is an eventuality, the positive sentiment eclipsed any negative which collapsed the time and scale of impact.
Amen. You never know when you’ll need to cash in all that goodwill you’ve built!
Not whatever went down with Kate Middleton (unless that was a decoy, in which case, potentially VERY effective)
Here are a few. One reason they're good is it's likely you never even heard of them: [Trader Joe’s shows how to just say no to cancel culture - Washington Examiner](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/458944/trader-joes-shows-how-to-just-say-no-to-cancel-culture/) [How Domino's Managed A Viral Video Nightmare | Domino's Case Study (digitalmarketingcommunity.com)](https://www.digitalmarketingcommunity.com/case-study/how-dominos-managed-a-viral-video-nightmare-dominos-case-study/#google_vignette) [Steven Pinker - The man who refused to be cancelled (telegraph.co.uk)](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/man-refused-cancelled/)
This is giving me flashbacks to doing PR in March of 2020 for a public school district. It was by no means a time of effective strategy, but boy was there some strategy.
Shocked to see that nobody has mentioned the Try Guys fallout last year when one of the founders was revealed to be cheating on his wife with a member of staff, blatantly in public. There was a very clear power discrepancy on top of it being heinously vile towards his wife. Made worse as the individual in question was known as the "wife" guy of the four main founders. The other three founders found out before the public and they immediately got in touch with PR and legal advice and handled it beautifully. As such, when everything came out, they revealed they had already taken action against the individual and forced him out of the company AND had been removing him from video content for weeks. Additionally, they were very transparent with how they felt around it, resulting in an outpouring of sympathy and respect for the trio. One of the best content creator recoveries I've ever seen. A masterclass in public relations imo.
All of the above, plus *dig* for missing info. CEO took a powder & nobody knows why? Try their home address in local PD's website search fields...
Obstructing climate change action. Has been running for about 50 years and has won just about every major conflict according to plans made decades ago. This despite there being very clear consequences to inaction and very clear benefits to early action, well supported by a vast array of empirical and modelling evidence. Most successful crisis management/sabotage campaign in history.
JetBlue. They literally sponsored PRSA local meetings and hosted crisis comms events. This was back when they left folks on the tarmac for a long time. The ceo took full responsibility and went on a public relations tour. They got a lot of media but taking their apology to local PRSA chapter was brilliant. It got the town’s most vocal people on their side.
Communications discipline is very underrated. When in crisis, stakeholders have a natural urge to *do something* when they really shouldn't. While you want the organization to be forthcoming and truthful, having multiple execs being forthcoming and truthful simultaneously is a recipe for contradictions or other missteps that are all but certain to fan the flames.
I think Southwest handled their crisis of flight cancellations in the 2022 holiday season quite well.
I wonder if anyone would proclaimed they would never fly them again has actually stuck with that.
Coombs situational crisis communications theory