Top Ten Crisis Skills for PR: Hard-Won Lessons and Proven

Top Ten Crisis Skills for PR: Hard-Won Lessons and Proven Methods for Controlling Crises with Confidence

Thursday, April 24, 20081:00PM EDT/12:00PM CDT/11:00AM MDT/10:00AM PDT

Featuring• Donna Tocci, Manager, Media and External Relations, Kryptonite;

Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies• W. Timothy Coombs, Associate Professor, Crisis Communication,

Communication Studies, Eastern Illinois University; Author,“Code Red in the Boardroom,” “Ongoing Crisis Communication:Planning, Managing and Responding”

• Michael Fineman, President, Fineman PR• Steven B. Fink, President and CEO, Lexicon Communications;

Author, “Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable”

2008 Infocom Group

presents

Thank you for participating in “Top Ten CrisisSkills for PR: Hard-Won Lessons and ProvenMethods for Controlling Crises with Confidence.”This conference manual contains importantinformation to help ensure that you receivemaximum value from today’s PR Universitytraining session.

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ATTENTION: It is unlawful to copy or electronically redistribute this page without express written permission from Bulldog Reporter. APRIL 24, 2008 1

Welcome to PR University’s audio conference

“Top Ten Crisis Skills for PR: Hard-Won Lessons and Proven Methods for Controlling Crises with Confidence”


Donna Tocci, Manager, Media and External Relations, Kryptonite; Ingersoll Rand Security TechnologiesKryptoniteIngersoll Rand Security Technologies437 Turnpike StreetCanton, MA 02021 USA(781) [email protected]

Donna Tocci is manager of media and external relations for Kryptonite. Her current role includes creatingstrategies designed to build and enhance brand reputation, identity and image internationally to thecompany’s multiple audiences. She identifies and develops communications platforms, including newmedia, to display the brand’s leadership position. Donna managed all media activities during theKryptonite lock crisis initiated in the blogosphere and has since worked successfully to re-establish andmaintain Kryptonite’s brand image online. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

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W. Timothy Coombs, Associate Professor, Crisis Communication, Communication Studies, Eastern IllinoisUniversity; Author, “Code Red in the Boardroom,” “Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managingand Responding”6460 Lincoln Highway RoadCharleston, IL 61920(217) 581-3324(217) 581-5718 [email protected]

W. Timothy Coombs, Ph.D., Purdue University, researches and consults in the area of crisis communication.He has published book chapters and articles on crisis communication, including two books: “Code Redin the Boardroom” and “Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing and Responding.” He hasconsulted with corporations in healthcare and petrochemicals in addition to work for the federalgovernment.

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Michael Fineman, President, Fineman PRFineman PR330 Townsend St., Ste. 119San Francisco, CA 94107(415) 392-1000 ext. 21(415) 392-1099 [email protected]

Michael Fineman formed Fineman PR in 1988 in San Francisco and serves clients in consumer-facingcategories. He was named one of the nation’s leading crisis communications counselors by PR Week in2004. His high profile crisis experience includes issues campaigns for Foster Farms Poultry related toAvian Influenza, animal activists and labor actions, food safety issues for Odwalla and the packagedsalad industry, the reopening of embattled KPFA radio station in Berkeley, California, and for wine-relatedbusinesses faced with product quality allegations. Michael’s annual “Top 10 PR Blunders List” advisesorganizations on what not to do in crisis situations by highlighting each year’s most egregious publicrelations blunders. The list has been featured in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Time and theWashington Post.

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Steven B. Fink, President and CEO, Lexicon Communications; Author, “Crisis Management: Planning forthe Inevitable”Lexicon Communications [email protected]

Steven B. Fink is one of the nation’s leading authorities in the areas of crisis management and crisiscommunications. He is author of “Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable.” As president of LosAngeles-based Lexicon Communications Corp. (www.CrisisManagement.com), he counsels some of theworld’s most prestigious companies in strategic public relations, crisis management, crisiscommunication, and issues relating to economic espionage. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

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1. Drawing Distinctions: Crisis Management Vs. Crisis Communications________________________________________________________________________________________

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2. Forecasting Crises: Conducting Audits and Vulnerability Assessments________________________________________________________________________________________

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3. Pinpointing Crises Spokespeople, Teams and Drafting Key Messages________________________________________________________________________________________

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4. Executing Pre-Crisis Training, Drills and Tests ________________________________________________________________________________________

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5. Creating Crisis Materials; Elements of Successful Crisis Plans

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6. Managing Media & Publics: Key Communication Channels to Consider

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7. Responding to Crisis: Typical Crises Sequences and How to React ________________________________________________________________________________________

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8. Studying Best Practices: Lessons Learned from Recent Crises

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9. Applying New Media Tools: Tips for Using the Internet and Web 2.0 During Crises

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10. Post Crisis Management: How to Follow Through After Crises Erupt

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11. Bonus Ideas: Ensuring Good Decision Making Under Stress, Coping with RecalcitrantManagement

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Crises Don't Follow the Calendar:PR Must Be More PreparedBy Andrew Gilman, President, CommCoreConsulting Group

It would be nice to think that crises mark thecalendar like the rest of us, leaving bad newsbehind to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne."Unfortunately, like the excess pounds we gainedover last month's holidays and last week's SuperBowl festivities, crises continue to follow and staywith us.

Several crises from 2007 appear to have legsinto 2008, and they remind us about theimportance of keeping crisis managementstrategies up-to-date.Three with the longest legsare sub-prime mortgages; the performanceenhancing drug scandal; and random violence onschool campuses.

The sub-prime mortgage debacle shows nosigns of abating. Recent articles detailing thefinancial freefall of major financial institutions andnews about mergers between mortgage lendinggiants have consumers, economists and regulatorsworried about the future. If the U.S. economylands in a recession, the 2007 sub-prime mortgagecrisis will be considered a chief catalyst andcontributor.

Meanwhile, the performance-enhancing drugscandal leaves major league baseball with anotherset of Congressional hearings, and more currentand former ballplayers with tarnished reputations.Will Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds join PeteRose and Mark McGwire as athletes who deservethe Hall of Fame based on statistics, but can't getin because of gambling or the drugs scandal? Theparadox:All the scandals have not impactedbaseball attendance, which hit an all-time high in2007.Watch for any fallout.

On the optimistic front, the tragedy of theVirginia Tech shootings prompted one of the mostpositive crisis prevention efforts in years.Hundreds of schools have looked at the VirginiaTech lessons to change their rapid responsesystems. Cell phone and Internet technology isbeing harnessed to allow students to receive

instantaneous text messages and/or emails in theevent of an emergency; mental health services arebeing increased on many campuses; and freshmenorientations now include more comprehensivesafety sessions.

Regardless of whether your organization is inthe financial, athletic or academic arenas—ornone of the above—each crisis provides anopportunity to analyze what occurred and canoffer direction for ways to avoid a similar event ordisaster.That said, here are some quick crisisguidelines:

• Hold up the mirror. While we would all loveto think that a crisis will never happen to us,history has shown that crises strike when leastexpected.As the above examples demonstrate,some have staying power.The most importantthing you can do is be prepared.Analyze the wayothers have weathered their crises, then hold upthe mirror to your situation. For example,VirginiaTech's events occurred in a relatively self-contained area of Blacksburg,Virginia.A similarcrisis for Columbia University would involve amuch different set of circumstances in New YorkCity.

• Practice, practice, practice. A plan is only asgood as its implementation. Once you have a solidplan in place, drill on it. Communicate the strategyinternally so that everyone is aware of the chain-of-command and message strategy. Be sure youhave a central place where you keep all keyparties' contact information so that in event of acrisis, you can spring into action.This roster canbe kept on an internal server and/or printedcopies of contact information can be handed out.

• Focus on facts. Make sure that all key playersare kept informed. Second, while facts are facts,communications teams that focus on what isbeing done to control the hemorrhaging can go along way toward building internal and externalconfidence. Speculating on negative outcomes orfocusing on hypotheticals can lead you down therabbit hole. Instead, only speak to facts you knowor can confirm, stay on message and focus on thethings within your control.

• Think one message, many mediums. It's

Bonus: Practical Reports from the Archives of Bulldog Reporter


better to speak with one voice—especially if thatvoice is the "Communicator-in-Chief." The leaderwho comes out in front of the troops, and deliversa strong message does wonders for morale—bothinternally and externally.And it goes withoutsaying that your website is a crucial tool inmaking this happen—harness its power.Thoughreporters may only pick up on one or two of yourmessages during a crisis, you can use your websiteor blog to tell the complete version of your story.

To conclude, crises often can't be prevented.But they can be mitigated.The best policy, then, isto prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and ifa flood comes, be ready with an ark and a path tohigher ground.

Andrew Gilman is a reporter and lawyer andpresident of CommCore Consulting Group,which is based in Washington, New York andLos Angeles. Andrew has provided counsel insome of the most high-profile crises includingTylenol, SARS, and the Space Shuttle disasters.

This article appeared in Bulldog Reporter’s Daily ‘Dog.

For more information go towww.bulldogreporter.com/dailydog.

The Crisis Simulation: A Case ofMistaken IdentityBy James Donnelly, SVP, Crisis Management,Ketchum

Crisis simulations are misunderstood. Let’s setthe record straight—a simulation is not a panaceafor improving an organization’s complete crisismanagement capability.

Certainly, simulations bring some benefits.Agreater appreciation for reputation management isgained. Commitments to improve coordinationamong departments are made. Crisis plans gettweaked.And strategic insights are uncovered forprescribed scenarios. Good results, all.

However, without a broader learning andimprovement program in place, these exercisessoon become distant memories of an intenseworkshop … and nothing more. Crisis plans don’talways get updated with key learnings gleanedfrom a simulation. Sometimes, real crises emergeand echo the elements of the mock exercise—andcompanies stumble through many of the same

mistakes. Other times, a team tested throughsimulation becomes marginalized when a realcrisis happens and top management suddenlytakes control. (Unfortunately, we too often witnesssenior managers who sponsor and invest insimulations, but do not participate nor benefitfrom the exercise’s key learnings themselves.)

Thus, to truly improve the ability to managecrises, the company must focus on changingmindsets and building behaviors. Simulations area part of this equation, but a gold-standardcapability cannot be achieved solely through a“lightning in a bottle” exercise.

Therefore, some of the most overlookedopportunities in crisis management are choosingthe right learning program to fit your needs. Inorder to improve the total ability to managecrises, you must consider the following elementswhen designing your learning program:

• Goal-setting: pinpointing the areas forimprovement?

• Programming for learning andimprovement: orchestrating programs thatimprove capabilities

Goal-SettingYou need to know what’s broken before

applying a fix.While simulations can helpcompanies identify barriers to success, they can’tfix problems such as a lack of role clarity,organizational silos, or individual skill gaps amongkey crisis managers.

As general rule, if an organization is trying toidentify gaps in its crisis response capability, asimulation is probably the best bet.When theobjective is to improve organizational orindividual skills, a more holistic learning programshould be considered. Refer to the followingguidelines:

A simulation is good for:

• Testing the effectiveness and usability of acrisis plan ?• Ensuring comprehension andfamiliarity with a new crisis plan?• Gauging anorganization’s information-sharing, leadership andresponse capabilities

A more complete learning program may bebetter for:

• Understanding the mindset of effective crisismanagers?• Improving the skills of individualcrisis management team members?• Helping


managers learn behaviors that contribute tosuccess in managing crises ?• Equipping crisismanagers to evaluate threats and make gooddecisions?• Examining proven best practices?•Enhancing team work?• Promoting a morefocused approach to specific types of situations

Programming for Learning and ImprovementSimulations need to be designed to achieve

specific goals and therefore, they come in manyshapes, sizes and flavors.Too many to enumeratehere.

When focusing on broader learning programs,too many of us default to the standard seminar.And let’s face it—there are plenty of seminarsavailable on crisis management. Unfortunately, theparticipant is often left head-scratching over howto operationalize anecdotes about the 25-year-oldTylenol case.

Real on-the-job impact and a modification ofattitudes, skills or behaviors can only comethrough learning and improvement programs thatinclude three distinct phases:

11.. CCoonnddiittiioonniinngg:: IItt bbeeggiinnss wwiitthh aann aaddvvaanncceeddaasssseessssmmeenntt aanndd iinnddiivviidduuaall rreefflleeccttiioonn.. Conditioningincludes some pre-work that helps orientparticipants by stimulating some thinking on crisismanagement.This phase allows crisis managers touncover strengths and weaknesses and “marinate”on a few provocative and challenging questions, tobe best engaged in the learning to come.

Note: Simulations rarely include thisconditioning phase.“Be ready for anything, brushup on your crisis plans and prepare to bechallenged” is a common prelude to a simulation.This is probably the wrong approach for someorganizations, especially those with inexperiencedstaff in crisis management.This approach mayleave participants feeling overwhelmed,vulnerable and determined to avoid future realcrisis management situations.

22..AAccttiivvee LLeeaarrnniinngg:: dduurriinngg wwhhiicchh eexxppeerrttss tteeaacchhaanndd ccooaacchh.. Most current crisis managementlearning programs provide basic tactical guidance(e.g., control the flow of information, verify facts,and communicate quickly and often).This is amistake.

Active learning should target the improvementof the mindsets and behaviors of crisis managers.This allows successful crisis managers to analyzespecific situations, design strategies to respond,

and lead teams in efficient implementation.Thisbuilds confidence and makes it easier for theparticipant to recall what’s necessary when a realcrisis occurs.

For this type of active learning, storytelling,realistic cases, visual examples and a lot ofpractice (including smaller real-world exercises)are all required to embed information in aparticipant’s long-term memory, where it couldactually be recalled in a crisis.

33.. SSuussttaaiinnmmeenntt PPrrooggrraamm:: aa ccaammppaaiiggnn ttoo pprroolloonngglleeaarrnniinngg aanndd ffaacciilliittaattee iimmpprroovveemmeenntt.. Just like asimulation is not a magic pill, a more robustlearning intervention on its own isn’t enough.Even the best “training” alone won’t eradicate askill deficiency and measurably improveperformance. New behaviors must be coachedand sustained long after the learning event hasconcluded.

Note:A sustainment plan should include regularcontent refreshers, regularly scheduled simulationsto keep everyone sharp, and, importantly,consideration of other factors affecting the crisisteam’s ability to perform.

In summary, simulations have not shared thespotlight adequately with other forms of well-crafted learning programs, some of which providebetter opportunities to improve a crisismanagement capability. Organizations mustchoose the right types of learning solutions toachieve identified goals.

Ketchum and Stromberg Consulting havecollaborated on the Executive Crisis ManagementAcademy (ECMA)—the most comprehensiveprogram ever offered on the subject. For moreinformation contact:[email protected].




Pet Food Contamination Lessons forPR: It's Not Always Easy to Do theRight ThingBy Ellen Snook, Management Supervisor,Peppercom Strategic Communications

We've all seen it—fellow PR professionals,lawyers and lobbyists saying and doing what theclient wants them to, regardless of how wrong itis.This is especially challenging for PRpractitioners, for we must consider the opinionnot just of our direct client contact during crisissituations, but also of the client's legal counsel,CFO and CEO—all of whom will have their ownagendas and strong opinions.Yet to be consideredtrue strategic counselors, we must be brutallyhonest with our clients, and tell them whatactions we believe will be best for theircompany's reputation in the long run.Anythingelse is just spin.

Let me illustrate:This summer when we foundourselves in the middle of the second wave of petfood contamination, I got a first-hand view of howhard it could be at times to distinguish the rightthing from the wrong thing to do.What ourinstinct and experience were telling us was rightwas different than what the client thought wouldbe best for their business—and more difficult fortheir customers' businesses.

On the surface, it seemed cut and dry: Ourclient,Wilbur-Ellis, a San Francisco-basedagricultural product marketer and distributor,found a bag stamped "melamine" in a shipment ofrice protein from China. Melamine, as you willrecall, was the chemical that had been found inthe wheat gluten used as an ingredient in petfoods and was thought to have caused the deathsof thousands of pets across the U.S.Wilbur-Ellis'rice protein was also intended to be sent ontomanufacturers for use in pet food.

While Wilbur-Ellis immediately sent thesuspected product for testing, and halted allshipments from China, it was unclear what thenext steps should be. Should we go to the FDAwithout all the facts, knowing that customerswould be pressured to recall product—possibly atgreat expense and harm to their reputation? Orshould we keep quiet until all the facts were in?

Our client was inclined to keep quiet.Whycause alarm and possibly damage customer

relations if there was no proof of contamination?Peppercom argued the other side—if the testscame back positive both the FDA and customerswould be upset and angry that they hadn't beentold earlier. Certainly, there were risks in notifyingcustomers and the FDA at this point, but we felt inthe long run, it would serve them well. It was thehard thing to do, but it was the right thing to do.

Ultimately, our client listened to our advice.When their customers were notified, it was of apotential issue—not of a full-blown crisis.Theyhad time to prepare for a recall situation, ifnecessary, rather than react in crisis mode.TheFDA, too, was happy to be alerted so that theycould be proactive.

Once the word was out, we had anotherconstituent to deal with—the media.We beganreceiving calls from local and national top-tiermedia, and our client did not want to talk.Although Wilbur-Ellis is a $1.7 billion globalcorporation, it's a family-owned business that isunaccustomed to attention from the mainstreammedia.Again, we stood firm—talking to the mediawould be difficult, but it was definitely the rightthing to do.And, it's Crisis 101:You do the talking,and you control the message.

As the situation continued to unfold, it evolvedinto a recall situation, and the media attentionintensified, not to mention the angry calls fromconsumers. Fortunately, we were prepared and incontrol.To handle consumers, we had encouragedour client to set up an 800-number and keep theirwebsite updated with accurate information.Dealing appropriately with angry customers notonly was the right thing to do, but making surethey understood the situation and were placatedmeant better relations with Wilbur-Ellis'customers.

In the end, we did interviews with The WallStreet Journal, New York Times,Washington Postand AP, as well as with local network affiliates.Throughout the crisis,Wilbur-Ellis was treatedvery fairly in the press. Several reporterscomplimented them on their willingness to speakwith the media, as well as for being forthright andhonest. For Peppercom, it was a win-win situation.The client appreciated our persistent advice andhas retained us for additional projects, and we'vefurther developed relationships with keyreporters at top national and local news outlets.

It's a lesson to the rest of the industry to


position yourself as strategic counsel at theexecutive level—not just as a media handler.Especially during a crisis situation, your client willbe in panic mode and relying on you to offersound, level-headed advice. Don't be intimidatedby a CEO saying how he or she thinks thingsshould be. Let the CEO know how, with youryears of experience, you believe the situationshould be handled—and don't be afraid to bestraightforward and honest. In the end, your clientwill thank you.



Click of a Button CrisisCommunications: New MediaMakes Mass Notification EssentialBy David Henderson, Author, Making News

If there is an essential element in today'sapproach to crisis communications—in additionto clear, accurate and consistent messages—it isthe need for instantaneous delivery of importantand often-critical information to audiences,sometimes to large numbers of people.Whatbetter way to communicate while underscoringtransparency and responsiveness? It is akin to thatlong talked about concept of reaching the worldat the click of a button.

In the aftermath of nearly any event—from thehorrific murders at Virginia Tech to FEMAattempting to respond to people stricken after anatural disaster—questions often center aroundcommunications and what could have been donebetter. It is human nature, I suppose, to second-guess after the fact, and I have been guilty of it, asI suppose many of us have.

When 9-11 happened, communications wereparalyzed in some parts of the country.A friendwho is a member of congress told me that in herCapitol Hill office, she had no landline telephoneor cell phone service and no Internet that day—but her Blackberry still functioned as her onlyform of communication. Nonetheless, in theaftermath of 9-11, some large organizations merelyupdated their manual phone trees as a core ofcrisis communications planning, a woefully

outdated tactic.

The point driven home during any urgentcommunications event—in addition toappropriately quick responsiveness and clarity—has been the absolute need to use multiplechannels for efficiently reaching key audiences,utilizing all standardized forms of communication.It is also important to have the ability to getconfirmation a message was received.

Even though a lot is still to be learned aboutcommunications during the early hours of April 16when a mad gunman went on a killing spree atVirginia Tech, what we are seeing is that relyingon one method of communications—email—toreach students, faculty and staff was not sufficientor effective.

The leaders of Virginia Tech as well as manyother major universities, governments andorganizations are evaluating notification networksthat will instantly communicate messages to tensor tens of thousands of people anywhere, anytimeand on any device—such as landline telephone,cell or satellite phone, PDA, instant message (IM),pager, computer and fax—using voice and textcommunications.There is some discussion ofincluding internal television and public addresssystems and sirens although these are notcommonly associated with mass notificationnetworks today.The idea is a communicationsnetwork, accessible from anywhere, that cancontact essential audiences with voice or textwithin minutes, not hours.

There are only a few companies today that offersuch services although recent events will nodoubt bring a rash of startups.

I spoke recently with Patrick Stuver, co-founderof 3n, a Glendale, Calif., company that has quicklygrown to become the largest and only globalprovider of instantaneous mass communications.Stuver, a long-time technology consultant, told methat the idea behind 3n came out of 9-11, and theneed to reach large numbers of people in a shortperiod of time.

While the pieces of instant message deliveryhave existed in one form or another, what Stuverdiscovered during his initial research was theneed for one single system that would give adesignated communicator the ability to record orwrite a message, select a recipient group and letthe network automatically sort out the best wayto reach everyone within moments. Furthermore,


he envisioned a system that would confirm whena message had been received.As newcommunications tools are developed andintroduced—such as Apple's anticipated iPhone—the system would simply adapt and expand.

An urgent message carried over such a systemmay, for example, reach you on your PDA, me viaemail and a host of our colleagues in many otherways but all at the same time, anywhere in theworld. Stuver's company has that kind of networkup and running today. Many of its customers arecompanies that use the speed and flexibility ofthe mass notification system for day-to-daycommunications needs during routine business.

When you start thinking about the potential ofsuch a communication system, it is not limited justto crisis or emergency situations as much as it canbe used for clear and consistent everydaycommunications within an organization and itsvarious stakeholders. It is a method, for example,for a global corporation to interact immediatelywith key personnel.

But the underlying importance is in crisiscommunications—a system that reaches out toany standard technological standard or platformfor interactive communication and deliversconfirmation that messages are received.

It can become another evolving form of NewMedia, perhaps one of tomorrow's leading multi-path tools of interactive communications forcommunities of people with shared interests,needs or missions.

David Henderson is an author,national/international communicationsstrategist based in Washington, D.C., and anEmmy Award winning former CBS NetworkNews correspondent. His latest book, "MakingNews," focuses on the convergence of mediarelations in today New Media world.This articleappeared on Bulldog Reporter’s Daily ’Dogwebsite.


Tragedy Communications: VirginiaTech's Use of New Media ToolsExemplaryBy David Henderson, Author, Making News

In the aftermath of the worst and mosthorrific handgun-killing spree in America's history,there should be no second-guessing or Mondaymorning quarterbacking the crisiscommunications of Virginia Tech University. By anystandard, it was exemplary and should set newstandards for clear and concise crisiscommunications using the tools of New Media.

By midday on Monday,April 16,Virginia Tech'swebsite was being updated constantly withinformation, alerts, directions and resources.Theuniversity had posted the first of what would bethe first of many podcasts of statements fromofficials, including Tech's president, Charles W.Steger.

Within just a few hours, the university hadtaken charge of its communications and wasspeaking with a clear and consistent voice. Evenbefore the deeply sorrowful task of identifying thedead, those few early updates that the universityhad were immediately communicated to theinformation needs of students, faculty, parents, theBlacksburg community and the world.There wasno speculation, just facts.

With the experience of years both as ajournalist and in strategic communicationsworldwide, I have never before witnessed anorganization communicate more effectively duringa tragedy and crisis of such a scale than VirginiaTech.What struck me most was how theleadership of the university managed to respondso quickly and in such an efficient manner at atime when shock and grief tends to beoverwhelming.

Tuesday morning,Tech President Steger wasbeing interviewed by NBC's Matt Lauer on the"Today" show. Even though Lauer pushed for anexplanation why the university had not "lockeddown" (a prison term that is unfortunately appliedto our schools) the entire campus, Steger stuck toclear, logical and consistent messages. Heexplained to Lauer that with over 26,000 students,Virginia Tech has the population of many towns,and it would not be responsible to impulsively


over-react without knowing all the facts. He gavean exceptional interview to the talk show host, aformer entertainment reporter at VH-1, who didn'tquite seem to comprehend.

At the same time,Virginia Tech's site had beengiven over completely to reflect the gravity ofevents.The university's normal site was gone, anda new site provided even more information, oftenupdated every few minutes, about news,memorials and events.

The site—which reflected simplicity andclarity—had been divided into three sections: atthe top, a series of remarkable photographs withquotes from leaders; at the bottom, one sectionlabeled "The Latest" and another under theheading, "Resources/Related Content." In thelatter, there was a new section, among many, thatguided students and faculty to grief counselingservices.

This was not a stereotypical example of a"dark site" brought to life, as some PR agenciespromote.VT-dot-edu was new in response to acrisis of unbelievable proportions and reflectedboth the impact of what had happened andresponsibly provided information leadership tothe university community. Most of all, it wascredible.

By clicking on a link, you were taken to thesite's "back-end" that was using blog and HTMLtechnology for instantaneous updates by multiplepeople.There were transcripts and streamingaudio and video, and, yes, you could find elementsof the university's normal site. It is unprecedentedin the history of crisis communications on theInternet.

Here's the important part: It was all beingdone within the university by a team of studentsand administrators working around the clock andsomehow finding the inner strength to managetheir grief and emotions with a commitment tocommunicate accurately with the world.

David Henderson is an author, strategiccommunications consultant and journalist basedin Washington, DC. His latest book, "MakingNews," provides an insider's perspective ontoday's convergence of media relations, NewMedia and the news industry.Visit his blog orwebsite for details.

This article appeared on Bulldog Reporter’s Daily ’Dog website.


Crisis Lessons from Virginia Tech:Social Media Critical in ReachingAll StakeholdersBy Jon Harmon, Founder, Force for GoodCommunications

Virginia Tech will never be the same after thehorrible shooting incident Monday. Neither willthe practice of crisis communications at auniversity or other large institution.

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger is comingunder a lot of heat, most of it unfair in myopinion, for the way the crisis was managed. Butunfair or not, the criticism from students, parents,alumni and others is part of this whole hellishweek for Virginia Tech, and it demands a properresponse. Diane Sawyer asked Steger point blankTuesday on Good Morning America if he wouldresign.

Much of the criticism has centered on how theuniversity communicated to its students and otherstakeholders in the critical two-hour period beforethe second shooting incident.

In countless interviews including this from theAP, Steger has emphasized that the universityclosed off the dorm after the first attack anddecided to rely on email to spread the word to therest of the campus. Unfortunately, it apparentlytook a precious two hours to send the emails.

Most communications people likely would havefollowed a similar communications strategy,relying heavily on email to reach students andothers throughout the campus.We rely on emailand certainly would check it frequently in time ofcrisis. But that's not the way college studentscommunicate today.Talk to students at anyuniversity if you don't believe it, but they rarelycheck their email; they rely on Facebook. Studentsmay check their email just once a week and theirFacebook account 30 or more times a day.

Facebook was far and away the preferredmeans of getting on-the-spot information forstudents during the first critical two hours andbeyond, even after the mass media arrived on the


scene and began blanket coverage.

Twenty-four hours after the shooting stopped,more than 500 Facebook groups had contributedsignificantly to the global conversation about theslayings. One group with an astounding 62,356members, mostly students at other universities,encouraged all to wear VT school colors ofmaroon and orange Wednesday, saying "Forget anyand all college affiliations today. For today we areall Hokies." The group also designated an AIM chatname of "TodayWeAreAllHokies" for a giantinstant-messaging conversation.

These conversations were not only critical ingetting information to people who desperatelywanted it; they continue to shape the university'sreputation with the global community of collegestudents, a critical constituency for any university.

Crisis plans often focus on the mass media withinadequate thought paid to other importantstakeholder groups. Every large organization'scrisis plan should include rapid means ofcommunicating with all stakeholders, in themanner most effective for reaching each group.Don't overlook social media, such as Facebook fortoday's university students; myspace for today'shigh school students; and likely something elsealtogether tomorrow.

Jon Harmon is a consultant specializing incrisis communications. He is a former Fordpublic relations executive who handled mediaand internal communications during the epicFord-Firestone tire crisis. Contact him [email protected] or through his blog, Forcefor Good.



Rats! Stuck on the Tarmac! It'sTime to Put Digital CrisisManagement at the Top of theAgenda

By Ed McLaughlin, Vice President, E-BusinessStrategy at SVM E-Business Solutions

Just for kicks, try two things right now: Go toGoogle and search on "Taco Bell" and "JetBlue."

After you've done that, do the same thing atYouTube. On Google, you'll find that Taco Bell isleveraging pay-per-click advertising to grab the topsponsored link on the site for a variety of keywordterms, including "Taco Bell" and "Taco Bell rats."

Click on the "Taco Bell Responds" link andyou'll end up at the "Latest News" section of theTaco Bell website, where you can watch EmilBrolick, president of U.S.Yum! Brands, parentcompany of Taco Bell, issue an apology andassurances of the standards of health and qualityat Taco Bell establishments (a tough sell thesedays).

Look for Taco Bell on YouTube, and you findnothing from Brolick, but you do find plenty of ratfootage. Conversely, JetBlue isn't leveragingGoogle's pay-per-click engine at all to attempt toengage consumers on its recent tarmac crisis, butlook at what it is doing on YouTube:The top linkreturned in the "JetBlue" search results is "OurPromise to You:A message to customers of JetBlueAirways from founder and CEO David Neeleman."Though the story is several weeks old now, it stillbears saying: Nice work, JetBlue.

Both companies have attempted to add a digitalcomponent to their crisis management efforts,JetBlue more effectively than Taco Bell. But in bothcases, these efforts appear to have dawned on thecompanies only after the fact.

It's time now for organizations to establish a"Digital Crisis Management Strategy." While no onecan anticipate the specific events, locations orpeople involved in the next crisis, there is muchthat can be anticipated about the general natureof potential crises an organization might face.

In advance of such crises, proactiveorganizations can prepare content for "crisisinformation websites," ready to be deployed at amoment's notice.And at the time of crisis, theprepared organization can launch those websitesand drive the public to them by leveraging searchengines and social media. Using digital media, anorganization can manage the message andinfluence public perceptions of its handling of acrisis in a way not possible before.

Here are six steps you can take to prepare andimplement your organization's "Digital CrisisManagement Strategy"—before bad news strikes:

11.. IIddeennttiiffyy yyoouurr ddiiggiittaall ccrriissiiss mmaannaaggeemmeenntt tteeaamm..Digital crisis management is going to require a


team that has technical know-how and digitalmedia savvy.You can rely on internal or externalresources, but recognize that the team will needto be made up of writers, digital designers, webdevelopers, audio and video producers, andpeople with expertise in PR, crisis managementand online communications.You should form thatteam now; don't wait for a crisis to occur.

22.. PPrreeppaarree ccrriissiiss iinnffoorrmmaattiioonn wweebbssiitteess aarroouunnddppootteennttiiaall ccrriissiiss ttooppiiccss.. Imagine what could gowrong—and get ready. For example, a fast foodcompany might create a website that anticipated acrisis related to a food-born illness, such as an E-coli outbreak.A consumer product companymight anticipate that one of its products isrecalled for safety reasons.

Such crisis sites should be designed to answerthis question: "If a certain type of crisis occurs,what information could we provide right nowabout that type of crisis that will help to assurethe public that we are responsible andconscientious corporate citizens, handling thecrisis proactively, honestly and openly?"

These websites should be designed astemplates, leaving open the space that will befilled with information on the "who, what, where,when and why" of an actual crisis.They shouldcontain background information on your companyrelated to the type of crisis the site addresses.Beyond informing the public during a crisis, thesewebsites will help define your company on yourterms, so the crisis and the media (new and old)don't become the only defining factors.

In addition to background information, the sitesshould include a media center where the presscan obtain information related to the crisis.And itshould encourage visitors to sign-up for emailnotifications, keeping people up-to-date on thecrisis and allowing you to establish a one-to-onerelationship with members of the public,something valuable during and after the crisis.

Until a crisis strikes, these sites will beinaccessible to the public, locked behind apassword protected login, but hosted onproduction level web servers, ready to be openedto the public at a moment's notice.

33.. PPeerrffoorrmm kkeeyywwoorrdd rreesseeaarrcchh.. When a crisisstrikes, a company's ability to communicatedirectly with the consumer is critical. Keywordresearch with tools commonly used by pay-per-click and search engine marketers will provide

you with insights into the language of theconsumer as it relates to your industry, yourcompany and your products and services, whichmay be different from your "corporate" language.You will use that research to populate the contentof your crisis website, optimizing it for searchengines.And when a crisis strikes, you will alsoleverage those keywords to get top visibility andtraffic from pay-per-click ads and social mediasites.

44.. IIddeennttiiffyy yyoouurr ppooiinnttss ooff ddiissttrriibbuuttiioonn.. You willneed to know in advance where you will beconnecting with the consumer and media: Google,Yahoo, MSN (through their pay-per-click and newschannels);YouTube, MySpace, blogs, podcast sitesand other social media sites; and online pressrelease distribution services.All these, pluswhatever new online outlets emerge betweennow and the time of your crisis, need to beidentified.

55.. BBee llaauunncchh--rreeaaddyy.. The time to learn how tomanage a pay-per-click campaign, or post a videoto YouTube is now, not in the heat of a crisis. Startusing an online press release distribution servicefor your day-to-day media relations and be sure topick a service that posts to the news sites of thetop search engines. Use podcasts, blogs and videocasts now to promote your brand. Regularlyreview and revise your crisis website's content.Incorporating these tools and practices into yourwork now ensures that you and your team willknow how to use them before a crisis.

66.. LLaauunncchh!! When a crisis strikes, your team rollsinto action.The first step is to incorporateinformation on the actual crisis into the crisiswebsite, including the steps your organization istaking to address it, and then to open that site tothe public.You'll then leverage your knowledge ofdigital media and your points of distribution toimmediately propagate your information on thecrisis online and drive people to your crisiswebsite, where you can engage them on yourterms.The process or revising, appending anddistributing content will last until the crisis isover.

When a crisis strikes, your company will be onYouTube, on Google News, in blogs, popping upon cell phones and handhelds—emergingwherever digital media can be created andconsumed.The question isn't whether or notdigital media will have an impact on a company


during crisis—it might even be the cause of acrisis.The question is, during a crisis, will digitalmedia manage your company or will you manageit?

Ed McLaughlin is vice president of e-businessstrategy at SVM E-Business Solutions. He can bereached at: [email protected].



JetBlue Has a Johnson & JohnsonMoment

By Bill McKibben, Senior Partner, BusinessEthics Practice, The Great Lakes Group

It was the best of weeks and the worst ofweeks for JetBlue.The airline was one of the 28companies that made the final cut into Firms ofEndearment.The long awaited book identifies thevery best companies in the country based on arange of standards that we should all be strivingfor.The book was released on February 9th. Justfive days later, the company was mired in acustomer service nightmare. Flights at New York'sJFK airport were snarled in an ice storm thatended up leaving JetBlue and other airlinesgridlocked.

Two factors thrust JetBlue into the forefront ofthe public relations maelstrom. First, the carrier isa major player at JFK, so it had a lot of flightsenmeshed in the situation.The second factor wasa bad judgment call.They bet on the weathergetting better.That would allow JetBlue's flights totake off, albeit late.The alternative was to unloadthe passengers at the gate and cancel the flights.They lost the bet.The result:They sent planes fullof passengers away from the gates to wait on thetarmac for as much as nine hours.

As the storm settled in, the situation wascomplicated by the glut of planes on the ground.The freezing rain encased everything.The tractorsused to move planes around literally froze to thepavement. Meanwhile, the snack foods aboard theplanes were gone, the bathrooms were kaput, andthe passengers were hot, physically andemotionally. JetBlue was simply overwhelmed.Thedomino effect carried on for days. Crews andaircraft were scattered across the system in all the

wrong places.

It seemed JetBlue couldn't do anything right.However, the company did one thing exactlyright: From the very beginning, it took fullresponsibility for the mess.The company's founderand CEO, David Neeleman, was out front from dayone taking the heat.There was no whining, nolegal department dancing.

The New York Times reported five days into theevent that, "Neeleman, his voice cracking at times,called himself 'humiliated and mortified.'" With allflights up and running on the sixth day, theJetBlue chairman made the rounds of the mediawith a plan in place to deal with futurecatastrophic events.

JetBlue will recover.That's what goodcompanies do when things go wrong.They do theright thing ... and they recover. Like all goodcompanies, JetBlue's values are rooted at the topand they run throughout the organization.AsNeeleman noted on CNN's "American Morning,""It's not really what happens to you, it's how youreact to it."

A quarter of a century ago, Johnson & Johnson(another of the 28 companies that made the finalcut into Firms Of Endearment) became a publicrelations icon with its response to the Tylenoltragedy. My money is on JetBlue to be the next PRposter child for transparent communications intimes of crises.Wouldn't it be nice if thesecommon sense responses became commonplace?Nothing stands in the way of that goal but findingthe courage to do the right thing no matter howbad things look.

Bill McKibben is Senior Partner, BusinessEthics Practice, with The Great Lakes Group inBuffalo, New York. His book, "Play Nice, MakeMoney", will be published this spring. Contacthim at 716.883.4695 or [email protected].




Damage Control: Author DezenhallChallenges Tylenol Cyanide ScareResponse, Conventional PRWisdomThis week's spotlight: Eric Dezenhall, CEO,Dezenhall Resources

The old rules of crisis management don't cut itanymore, believes D.C.-based communicationsexec and author Eric Dezenhall.What's more:Thisis 25th anniversary of the Tylenol cyanide scare,which Dezenhall says should not be upheld as amodel of crisis management. "The myth is theyimmediately recalled the product, but it actuallytook eight days. Retailers began pulling it first,"says Dezenhall, who began his career in the WhiteHouse Office of Communications during theReagan presidency and has since managed"monster controversies" for top brands andpersonalities in the pharmaceuticals,petrochemical and entertainment sectors.

"This is important because you now haveeverybody upholding the 'instant recall.' But it'sunrealistic because companies would constantlybe in recall mode if they were to follow that lineof thinking," explains Dezenhall, whose recentlyreleased Damage Control:Why Everything YouKnow about Crisis Management is Wrongadvances similar claims and more.

"Another reason this is a bad model is nobodywas blaming Johnson & Johnson for poisoningpeople," Dezenhall continues. "Everyoneunderstood there was a madman on the loose andthe company was a victim. It's easier to get out ofa crisis in such 'sniper crises.' Far more commonare 'character crises,' where the company is thevillain.Those are harder to manage."

In addition: "There was also a very easy actionyou could take if you didn't want to die duringthe Tylenol scare.You threw out your Tylenol. Butimagine telling a woman with breast implants totake them out," Dezenhall posits. "Imagine tellingsomeone who bought a $40,000 SUV to take itback. Ridiculous.You can't. So the Tylenol case wasa relative storm of very easy actions and scenariosthat shouldn't be held up for today'spractitioners," he reiterates. "It's not the model weshould be following—just as Calamine lotion isn't

the antidote to diabetes. It's the wrong set of'solutions' for managing the types of crises mostof us face."

Read on for more of Dezenhall's controversialtake on this sacred cow of crisis communications,his assessment of JetBlue's recent crisisresponse—and his sometimes surprising "newrules" of practicing PR in an increasinglyadversarial age:

How did the Tylenol case come to be so iconic ifit's such a bad model?

The reason it became known for being sobrilliantly managed is that a PR firm that didn'thandle it wrote a case study declaring it to bebrilliant.They rewrote the facts and went aroundon road shows for years proselytizing the case.

Basically, it came down to some very clever PRpeople rewriting how it went down, positioning itas their own work—and then using it as arainmaking tool. From there, lots of PR peoplepreached this case for new business developmentpurposes. Business school professors also love thiscase study and the "theories" behind it because it'sso neat and tidy. But the truth is crises aretypically far messier.Traditional crisiscommunications is rarely up to the task.

What's "wrong" with crisis communications aswe know it?

Conventional crisis communications is aboutissuing apologies, staying on message and gettingout there quickly.That's insufficient. It should bemore about recognizing that modern crises aren'talways organic and simple. Instead, they're agenda-driven conflicts catalyzed by motivatedadversaries.The best way to answer the question,then, is to say that modern crises aren'tcommunications problems.They're conflicts.

Conventional PR is anchored in the belief thatthe public want to be educated, as if the public iswaiting to hear more about what an industrialpolluter has to say. But the truth is the public isn'tlistening.The Edward Bernays school of PRassumes that the public is a blank state to bemanipulated. But my experience is they're noteven listening.The public doesn't yearn to beeducated by multinationals. So my perspective isthat true crisis communications now is moreguerrilla warfare than conventional warfare.


You claim in your book that PR isn't the bestdiscipline to combat crisis—why?

The answer is it's not in the DNA of most PRpeople to do what's necessary to manage a crisis.PR people by nature tend to be positive peoplewho are very uncomfortable with the existence ofconflict.They want it all to be OK.The problemwith that is everything won't be OK when you'redealing with conflicts.What you have to look at inany crisis is not only what the problem is, but alsowhat the DNA is of the people at table.

Corporate PR people are used tocommunicating positive information.They're notused to sparring with people who want to hurtthem.Their job is about building and maintaining"relations." That makes sense when the focus is onnews releases, speeches and the usual corporatecommunications mission. In that sphere, theirDNA is correct. But not when you're dealing withcrisis management, where you're facing hostileparties. Political-oriented PR people are lesslimited that way.

How does that critique of the typical PR mindsettranslate to advice for readers?

For starters, corporations and their PRrepresentatives should be better at attractingpeople to the table who have been throughlitigation. Bring on people who know what it'slike to have protesters out there. Hire PR teammembers who have dealt with savage litigationand blanket negative media coverage. Realize thatPR people who come from the marketing or"promotional" sphere are disasters at mitigatingcrisis.

Another tip that comes out of this is to beaware of your own hard wiring. If you abhorconfrontation, don't volunteer for crisis work.Admit that you should be on the marketing side—and work hard to find the right partners to sitwith you at the table when crisis strikes.

Who are those right people—who should be inthe war room?

Let's start with who shouldn't be there. Mid-level people with no decision-making power—getthem out of the room. Others include: technicalpeople with no capacity to summarizecomplicated things for public consumption, andnote-takers or people who feel compelled to send

detailed emails on laptops about the proceedings.When there's someone in the room takingdetailed notes, I get up. I've had too manysituations where I've later seen my memos in thenewspaper.You never know the loyalties of thepeople in the room.

Could you explain that statement—why do yousay that?

A corporation under siege is no longer acompany. It's a collection of individuals lookingfor self preservation, so you never know who willsend that email to The Wall Street Journal.

So back to the question: Who absolutely mustbe in the room?

The top lawyer, the top business manager oryour CEO, a crisis counselor and an expert onwhatever the technical issue or question is that'sunder consideration.That's it.And yes, you need aPR person in the room—but it has to be someonewho is adept at dealing with bad news. If that'snot you, find that person and get him or her inthere.

What are some of your "new rules" of crisismanagement?

For starters, don't always apologize. Bill Clintonand Martha Stewart survived scandals by avoidingapologies.Also: Seek recovery, not popularity. O.J.Simpson is reviled by much of the public, but hesucceeded at avoiding jail.Another one is to fightback assertively instead of making nice. Forexample, Microsoft's vigorous fight during its anti-trust battle had much more impact on saving itsreputation than Gates' attempt to appear morelikable by wearing sweaters.

Don't try to spin a public that doesn't want tobe spun. For example, BP's feel-good advertisingdidn't win over the public following 2005-6allegations of leaks and commodity trading fraud.And don't confuse crises with conflicts, nuisancesor marketplace assaults. HP made the mistake ofinflating its 2006 boardroom leak nuisance into acrisis.

How do you think JetBlue responded to itsrecent crisis?

I think they did fine.When the story broke, aninterviewer for a TV news program asked me whyJetBlue was in such a mess. I said one reason was


they—and the rest of the media—were askingguests every hour on the hour why the companywas in trouble. My argument was the media wasin effect creating the crisis, as far as the responseto it goes.

Related to that was the incorrect assumption bythe part of the interviewer that the media wouldhave covered JetBlue's response had it beenhandled correctly.That was a wrong assumptionbecause then there would be no story.The oldmother goose notion that if you do the right thingand apologize is total BS these days, because themedia and online sites like some blogs are activeinvestors in perpetuating the crisis.They only gainif they keep the crisis afloat.They need it to fillthe news hole, get more viewers and, ultimately,be more profitable.

That aside, I gave JetBlue very high marks.Modern crisis management is personality driven,not "plan" or strategy driven. So having their CEOout there in an evangelical way was fantastic.People want to see the person, not the plan.That'swhat we respond to, and it worked for them.

The belief in the "plan" really is the ultimate PRavoidance strategy. Obsessing about what thecrisis plan should be is the best way to sound likeyou're doing something when you're really justavoiding the issue at hands. Honestly, it takes asecond to determine strategy.What you need isthe vehicle for communicating that plan—andtoday, it really comes down to people standing infront of the problem like their CEO did.

When I talk to a client under siege, I first askwho the lead is. If they say they need to flesh outthe strategy first, that's when we push back fromthe table.

What did JetBlue do wrong?I think it was the original sin. Crisis

management all comes down to control.Whenyou have people stuck on the runway for 11hours, you have committed an unforgivable sin.Those people had no control over their lives.Better to cancel flights and piss people off than toleave them in a coffin for 11 hours.When all issaid and done, crisis management is about givingconsumers control.

What did you think of JetBlue's apology—did it

give consumers that control?I thought it was great. I thought it was more

than just the typical PR apology. It actually cameequipped with penitence and action.The greatmistake of crisis management is the belief that theapology is the answer. I savage that in the book.The apology must come with an offering or athreat. JetBlue came with the offering of its"Passenger Bill of Rights" and actions that includedrefunds.That's why it works. But the problem withmost PR messaging is that it isn't supported withbehaviors driving the company. It's just that—messaging.

What other crises have you been watching—what lessons spring from them?

The biggest is the Department of Justicescandal. Here's why:When a crisis begins, there'salways a tremendous pressure to respond quickly.PR 101 insists that you get out there fast.Theproblem with this is that you often don't knowsquat right away. But if you say that, it looks likestonewalling to the media.

So, Gonzales got out there and pretended likehe knew. He probably didn't lie willfully, but hecame out half-cocked and looked like he lied. Nowhe's in the impossible situation of convincingpeople that he didn't lie.You never get that moralequity back. It's far better to piss people off for afew days while you get your act together than it isto attempt to feed the news hole and speakquickly.Another example is the pet food story.They don't know what caused the problem, butthe media's still clamoring for an answer nomatter what.

How have the blogosphere and new mediachanged the nature of crisis?

The blogosphere is an active investor in atarget's destruction. It is a beast that demands andfeeds on negative information. It actively resistsany vindicating information about a target ofattack.Why? It's human nature.We all like to bethe ones to traffic in dirt.We want to be the firstones forwarding the email of Britney with hershaved head because it gives us power over thetarget.

People want control. Obama is popular rightnow in part because we are responsible formaking him a god. Once he gets too big and


forgets the little people, we will tear him town.Martha got so big that her base ceased to be ableto relate to her as "one of us who made good."Then she got more coverage than ever when shewent to prison.You couldn't turn around withoutseeing another Martha headline.

Also, blogs want to break things first. It's theirway to get their name out and tear down theirenemies without research or barriers.Years ago, ifI wanted to place a bad story, I would have toconvince an investigative reporter. He'd resist dueto journalistic standards. He'd have to spendweeks, if not months, on the research. But online,someone can plant a rumor that you're beinginvestigated by the Department of Justice, forexample.The rumor will spread, without anyresearch.To top it off, newspapers will contributeto the rumor by reporting that "there arerumblings online that X person is beinginvestigated by the Department of Justice."

What is the best way to defuse an onlinesituation like that?

I think it can sometimes happen only throughlegal action directed at the perpetrator, and bydrawing attention in the broader media to the factthat someone is using this technique online.Knowing that they're being watched can have achilling effect on hostile actors—and that includesblogs.The mistake many PR people make isthinking that if they refute the claims and talkabout good things, it will outweigh the negative.My perspective is that doesn't work.You have toinstead put the bulls-eye back on the attacker.

Do you believe the media is always looking for a"villain" and a "hero" in a crisis?

Every crisis has three Vs: the victim, the villainand the vindicator.The public only understandsnarratives, not crises.We want to know who tolike, who to believe and who to hate.That's howthe media tells its stories related to crises.

So how do you make yourself the vindicator andnot the villain?

A crisis is resolved when you muddy the rigidroles of these three types of characters or whenyou reverse the roles. For example,Wendy's wasthe villain initially during the chili crisis.Thevictims were the public and the woman who"found" the finger.The crisis was resolved when

the narrative was switched and Wendy's becamethe victim and the woman became the villain.

Candidly, it rarely switches that quickly. So thegoal of PR person is to enact that switch. In thecase of Wendy's, it took at investigation to exposethere was a real villain in this other than the oneinitially believed to be the villain. So as a PRperson, ask yourself if it's possible to alter thevillain. If so, will that take investigative, lawenforcement or even legal elements? Also, beaware of this model—that the media is looking forthose three characters in its crisis stories.Knowing this will give you a framework withinwhich to work.

What is the number one crisis tip you learnedduring your tenure at the White House?

The most important factor in who survives acrisis is the fundamental likeability of the target.People liked Reagan.They let him slide on a lot ofthings. I was a 22 year old kid. I wasn't a powerplayer, but I do recall that Deputy White HouseChief of Staff Mike Deaver would rarely let Reagantalk to hostile audiences with the belief he wouldwin them over. Instead, he was just put insituations where he was strong and audiencesliked him.

So the tip is this: Nothing is to be gained bytrying to convince people who hate you to likeyou. Preach to the choir instead.



Lessons Learned: Annual PRBlunders List Creator ConcedesFaux Pas Frazzle, Shares CrisisCounsel to Help CommunicatorsAvoid Inclusion in 2008Brian Pittman’s weekly spotlight: MichaelFineman, President, Fineman PR

"This time of year is a huge period of anxietyfor me," admits Michael Fineman, president of SanFrancisco-based Fineman PR, which publishes itsannual "PR Blunders List" each December. "I don’t


look at these lists in a frivolous way," he shares. "Idon’t want to rub people’s noses in theirmistakes.That’s not what this is about. I don’tbelieve the best of us are flacks.The best of us arepeople who really do care about our businessesand clients—and the positive role we can make inthe business environment. So, we’re not trying toput public relations down here. It’s the exactopposite—we want to communicate that peopleneed PR."

This year’s list included faux pas ranging fromFEMA’s phony news conference, to the CartoonNetwork’ buzz marketing campaign turned bombscare in Boston, to the contaminated pet foodfrom China situation and beyond.

"When PR is practiced properly, you don’t windup on these lists," assures Fineman, whose crisismanagement efforts for Pacifica Foundation/KPFA,Odwalla, leading packaged salad producers,general contractors and construction equipmentmanufacturers has been honored with variousnational awards through the years.

Specifically, Fineman offers this advice forensuring you, your company or client don’t windup in the hot seat next year: "Don’t becomeinsular," he warns. "That’s the biggest mistakepeople in this business make. Most in PR areprobably already on top of what their investors ordirect consumers are saying and what they wantto hear. But they might not understand, forexample, the community around their plant."

Also: "Demonstrate respect for themarketplace—not doing so communicatescorporate hubris, and the public has littleforgiveness for that. Keep the ‘edge’ out of yourresponses to the market when things go wrong,"Fineman counsels. "If your messaging is arrogantin any way, rewrite it. If you’ve done somethingwrong, issue a mea culpa and it will be overquickly. But if you bluster, deny and exhibitpetulance—that’s what gets you in trouble." Readon for more:

What big three PR mistakes topped your listthis year—and why?

We try to put the most egregious at the top ofour list, so the FEMA "faux news conference"blunder was pretty much number one.You justcan’t ignore it. Here’s an organization operatingunder false pretenses and based on its pasthistory.That just doesn’t generate a lot of

confidence.

Number two was the Boston buzz marketinggone bust story. It was an example of what can gowrong by turning your PR over to a guerrillamarketing agency.They’ll dream up greatpromotions, sure. But those ideas might not bestrategic fits for your organization or community.They might not be appropriate for the audienceyou’re trying to reach. I’d also say this case was anexample of the disciplines not integrating.This iswhat happens when departments or agenciesoperate in silos.That said, they did receive a lot ofplay—just not the kind most of us would wish forour clients. Someone was fired over this.That’s notgood PR, as some of the blogs have suggested itwas. I don’t believe the saying, "Any news is goodnews." It’s just not true.

The third big PR mistake, from our perspective,was the "Why I hate blacks" column in AsianWeek.This really hurt the credibility andreputation of that publication. It shows why thereare good reasons to have limits on free speech,particularly if it incites danger, hatred andviolence.

What crisis lessons can we learn from thosethree blunders?

The FEMA lesson is pretty clear: Don’t operateunder false pretenses.They just had no credibilitywhen they needed it most after Katrina. So theywanted to do something big and spectacular toshow that they were "on it" and to let the publicknow what they were doing—but they chose thewrong method or way of communicating that.

So what’s your advice to FEMA now?I think they’re trying to show that they’re

trying to learn lessons here.You see that in theirgetting crisis communications input and trainingfrom PRSA. Basically, they are getting counsel onhow to make sure they don’t put their foot in itagain. On that particular day, however, they couldhave gotten the information out in a variety ofways beyond a press conference.They could havesent out mass emails, phone calls, faxes and whathave you.They could have posted releases and liveupdates in an online newsroom.They could haveused multimedia or online video of theiradministrator making an official announcement.

Most PR practitioners have at some point intheir career had a press conference that fell flatand got no interest. But most of us would also


have a fallback position in case things didn’t gowell.What’s your plan B in case nobody showsup? They should have had that outlined inadvance.

Why do you think they made such a horriblemistake—what factors contributed to it?

I can only guess. But when media relations isbeing handled in house, it’s hard in a crisissituation to get a handle on how you’re reallydoing and what the best course of action mightbe. In those cases, you have nobody from theoutside with an objective view point to provideperspective. Simply put: Bosses andcommunications departments have a mandate toget the word out.The thinking becomes: "Betterhave a press conference!" Everybody is worriedabout their jobs, so it’s understandable.

That’s why consultants and agencies fulfill animportant function.This situation would havebeen a good time to do something like that.Whenin doubt—especially during a crisis situation—seek an outside opinion. Insular thinking and thecrush of time drive most mistakes when it comesto crisis communications, and this was noexception.You have to be able to take the time tolook at the situation clearly and consider variousoptions.That said, I want to stress that myknowledge of all of these PR blunders on our listis fairly superficial—my off the cuff prescriptionsare precisely that. I haven’t actually examined thepatient.

Then let’s switch to one you have—FosterFarms’ response to Avian Influenza. Whatlessons come out of that?

There was such widespread information aboutAvian Influenza at that time.There was a period ofabout a year where the coverage was trulyhysterical.TV movies were being made about it.Doctors were saying millions of people would die.It wasn’t if, but when.The poultry industry wasbeing blamed or looked at as a source. FosterFarms understood its responsibility andpredicament.They had a similar situation yearsbefore with Exotic Newcastle Disease. So they putinto place some really up-to-date, strict bio-security measures to make sure their flocksweren’t infected.They were very thorough. Ifthere’s a threat where all a company’s inventorywill disappear, then you can rest assured it will beaddressed—especially if you’re talking about a $2

billion company.

They were looking at these news reports andknew that poultry purchases would go down. Butthey were determined to make sure peopleunderstood this [disease] wasn’t going to comefrom Foster Farms.They were really diligent inproviding information to the media, consumersand so on. So the biggest challenge for us as theiragency was to first correct misinformation andthen to differentiate Foster Farms practices fromoverseas producers, where some of the problemswere occurring.

How exactly did you do that?We used every communications tool at our

disposal.We used their website to get the wordout.We also worked with third parties at UCDavis, the USDA and various other associationsand sources of expertise. But the one thing thathad the biggest impact was inviting handpickedand very key media to come out to the ranches tosee what kinds of bio-security practices were inplace.These tours were conducted by Foster Farmveterinarians who were specialists in these kindsof diseases.

There’s no substitute for that in media relationswhen it comes to demystifying the story.Accessand information are key in crisis communications.As a result of that kind of access and expertise,the story about what Foster Farms was doingappeared in regional papers.Then USA Todaycame out and did a front page cover story on thepains the poultry industry was taking.They usedFoster Farms as the poster child for these efforts.Another thing we did in the beginning was thatwe worked with poultry industry associations as asort of clearing house of information.They all hadcommunications resources, and were extremelyhelpful to us.

Can you bullet some takeaway crisis tips basedon that client case study?

First is exclusivity. In a crisis, look at yourvarious media vehicles and determine which willbe the most strategic placements. Because thisstory impacted a national audience, it made senseto contact USA Today.We worked with one oftheir reporters who had put in calls to us in thepast—so it wasn’t a "cold" call.That’s important,too. Second would be to build relationships withyour key beat reporters at wide-reaching, strategicoutlets in advance so they know who you are


when things go bad. In this case, that one storyturned the tone of coverage everywhere aroundfor us. Beyond that, we had TV crews come out.The media wants visuals and access, especiallyduring a crisis story.We actually invited CNN tocome out and do a shoot.They were licking theirchops for that story. But they ended up notrunning it because the facts and what they sawdidn’t match the negative, hysterical story I thinkthey were planning on doing.

Three would be not to go it alone. Use thirdparties like industry associations, governmentalagencies, universities, academics, etc. to helpcounter a crisis and get the message out. Beyondthese things, make sure everything is availableonline for the public—and that anyannouncements are easily searchable, because thepublic isn’t always going through the press forupdates.They’ll just search using Google.

Also, don’t overlook the importance of internalcommunications and leveraging your employeesas ambassadors. Foster Farms made sure all theiremployees had the information at their fingertips,so their staff could respond to media questionsintelligently. Specifically, they held employeeforums to educate staff on steps the company wastaking to make sure Avian Influenza wouldn’tcome through Foster Farms. Finally, theimportance of offering access and opencommunication with front-liners can’t beoverstated. In this case, the experts were theveterinarians. So, empower midlevel staff and thereal experts to speak to the press—don’t alwaysrun that through the C-suite. Match the messagewith the messenger.

What’s the most interesting part of yourbusiness these days?

Our Latino/Multicultural Communicationsdivision that we launched in 2005 has become themost interesting part, I think.We launched thisback in late 2004, because Foster Farms wasconsidering a change in its Latino agency.We hadbeen their PR agency for several years and weasked them if they’d consider finding an option tobring all their PR under one roof.We understoodfrom the very beginning that it had to be asituation that wasn’t just Anglos who could speakSpanish—that we had to bring on Latino peoplewho understood how messages could beculturally relevant.That goes deeper than languageusage.

Any minority or ethnic outreach requirescultural relevance.We knew that.You have toshow you have a commitment to thecommunity—that you’re not raking dollars out ofit.That was always part of our counsel and wehave put our money where our mouth is. Forexample, we started by doing pro bono with theLatino Community Foundation and the LatinaBreast Cancer Awareness Agency.We did thatbecause we wanted to reach out to thecommunity and show we understood them.Theresult of this type of commitment is that this hasbeen a success story from the very beginning.

The big issue here is that 13 percent of the U.S.population is Latino, and 33 percent of California’sis—shame on us all if we ignore that. So rightnow, we’re evolving our multicultural division byappointing a director who has been with us for afew years—he’s going to direct that division andgive it a new name.We’ll announce that and somemajor clients in January, or close to it.

What you love about this work—what keeps yougoing?

That we can make a difference. PR is not "allfluff." It’s well considered, strategic responses incommunications with various stakeholders. Often,as an outside agency, we’re asked how anorganization’s product or action will be perceivedor marketed.That makes this rewarding work,because we can make a difference in that—andwe can also help companies choose betweendoing something good and something bad orwrong.That’s why we started the "PR BlundersList," actually—to let people know that goodpublic relations counsel is counter to the negativeheadlines and communications mistakes thepublic always seems to hear about.




When Blogs Attack: Kryptonite'sTocci on Tackling OnlineDetractors—and Why PR's NewYear's Resolutions Should IncludeUsing New Media to Drive (EvenReinvent) BrandThis week's spotlight: Donna Tocci, Manager,Media and External Relations, Kryptonite

"You don't want to engage blogs during acrisis," says Donna Tocci, manager of media andexternal relations at Kryptonite. "You want toengage them before a crisis," she stresses. "It's allabout pre-planning and researching who is in yourspace before bad news breaks. I learned the hardway," concedes Tocci, who faced a damaging blogblitz two years ago when videos circulated onlineillustrating how the company's tubular pintumbler bicycle locks could be opened with BICpens.

The story grew legs after it was picked up by abiking trade title.Then the mainstream press piledon, heaping clip after clip of negative publicityonto the company.Though Kryptonite respondedwith a lock exchange offer within a few days, thestory is still widely covered online (see TheIntuitive Life Business Blog for a recent post) andreferenced in PR circles as a case study in blogrelations. In fact, the incident and its fallout arecovered in Robert Scoble and Shel Israel's NakedConversations: How Blogs are Changing the WayBusinesses Talk with Customers, a book about PR'semerging role in new media (more on this later).

"Those were the busiest two weeks of my life,"Tocci recalls now. "It started on September 13,2004 when we saw a forum post saying the brandnew bicycle locks weren't safe.Then someonefigured out they could pick the U-locks with apen."

What did Tocci and team do when they saw thevideos? "The first steps were for us to research itinternally.We didn't go public with it during thefirst two days," she allows. "Then on the third day,we released statements through our customerservice representatives with the offer to replacethe locks. But the media couldn't wait until then.They started reporting it as soon as they saw the

video."

For example: "A New York Times article—whichwe now call the 'how-to' article because itgraphically showed people how to pick thelocks—came out on Friday that week, before ourannouncement," she says.The result: "Peoplethought we were hiding. But we weren't.Weneeded cylinders to replace the locks with andthat took time to line up.We didn't want to over-promise and under-deliver. Because of the timelinewe put in place, we ultimately replaced 400,000locks for free.That doesn't happen overnight,despite what the media wants to see."

So what would Tocci have done differently, nowthat she's experienced the blogosphere's darkerside firsthand? "Besides knowing who some ofthese bloggers were before this happened, I nowthink we could have posted on our websitesooner that there was an issue and we wereresearching it.That should have been done if thefirst two days.The basic lesson is that the Internetis immediate and rapid response is critical," sheadds. "That means companies—especially those inmanufacturing, like ours—should look intostreamlining their approval processes formessaging in times of crises."

In addition: "This story blew up because of theonline video," Tocci says. "And without the blogs,there would have been no story. I had norelationships with bloggers then. But I do now. Iknow the influencers in the marketing andbicycle spaces. I've cultivated them. So my advicecomes down to finding your online influencersnow, before it's too late. Have conversations withthem and you'll probably avoid the type ofnightmare I experienced," she advises. "Start theprocess by searching by your company name,brand or key words on Technorati, for example.This will tell you how many blogs are linking toyou or stories about you. In our case, we had 1.2million blog posts in one day when thishappened."

Here Tocci shares further blog relations tips,reveals how the U-lock incident has helpedKryptonite refocus its business and branding …and outlines several New Year's resolutions for PRpractitioners still coming up to speed with blogsand all things new media:


How do bloggers differ from traditionaljournalists—and what does that mean to PR?

A primary difference is that a blogger doesn'thave an editor—there is no system of checks andbalances in place.When I work with Outsidemagazine, for example, I get calls from a factchecker. But a blogger just writes about whateverthey want to write about—they also include postsfocusing on what they think and feel.Those postsaren't always factually accurate and both sides ofthe story aren't always part of what you seeonline. So, a lot of it is opinion based, and it'smuch more conversational.

What that means for PR is that you've got toreach out to them, instead of the other wayaround. If you can, call them to give yourperspective. Email them when that doesn't work.Most effective is to engage in a conversation withthem. Post comments.The way to do that is to finda post that is about something you know about.When you comment, move the discussionforward, instead of just providing corporate speak.Most bloggers do want to get the facts straightand are willing to listen and adjust.

I discovered that when working with RobertScoble and Shel Israel when they were workingon their book.They were including a sectionabout the whole Kryptonite lock "issue."

How did that dialog come about?This was when they were posting chapters to

Naked Conversations online. Every time they hada new chapter, they posted it—and their chaptersincluded perspectives on how and how not toengage with bloggers. Ours was an example ofhow not to do it.

So I went on their blog and said something like,"If you want to contact me, let me know." Theresponse was great.An hour went by and Shel wasemailing me.We did an email interview and theyposted it.Then I got trashed for a while in thecomments. But that was OK, because they rewrotethat part of the chapter.

What blog relations lessons came out of thatparticular experience?

The lessons that come out of that are you needto reach out quickly. If you respond rapidly tosomething you see that might not be right,

bloggers will likely do the same and even correcttheir information when appropriate.Also, don't beafraid to offer comments on their sites. I justjumped in.The moment I hit the submit button, Iwas in a big panic. But you have to have courageand a thick skin.

Similarly, you have to let go of some of theusual approvals processes. I was winging it aloneand just had to get our side out. Sure, people werehostile to me at first. But I jumped right back inand actually contributed something valuable tothe conversation. I found that it's OK todisagree—and the result was that I built somestrong relationships out of the interaction.

How has the whole experience changed the wayyou and Kryptonite do business?

I would say that PR is seen as more of astrategic partner here. I keep going to my boss,saying things like, "Have you seen SecondLife?"Knowing what happened to us online, we'vedetermined to use these channels as ways toreach out in a more engaging way with our targetaudiences. So, it's opened the door to useful,ongoing conversations with the people who useour products.We're basically changing the way wetalk to and with our customers. Part of that has todo with what we've gone through and seen.Nontraditional media and citizen journalism havechanged our world forever—and we're committedto participating in that instead of just watching ithappen.

How did you take what you learned and apply itto the company's business model—anyspecifics?

I've spent a lot of time in the last couple ofyears getting up to speed on all kinds of "newmedia," not just blogging. I'm not proficient in all[of them], but I am at least aware of most of them.We evaluate all of these new technologies and seewhat the right fit is for us.We've made somedecisions in the last couple of months that reflectall that internal knowledge as we will berelaunching our brand in 2007 and incorporatinga lot of what we have learned into that launch.

We will be communicating with our corecustomers in a very different way than we have inthe past.As a matter of fact, our media strategy inthe new year may not include any traditional


media advertising at all.We are still finalizing theplans but it promises to be exciting.

So that's Kryptonite's big news for 2007?Yes, Kryptonite will be relaunching the brand

in 2007.With that, we will have a new websiteand a whole new "essence" of the brand, if youwill, by spring.We took a long, hard look atourselves and realized that we were not talking inthe same language as our target markets.We needto talk with them, not at them. Our whole newapproach will be geared towards talking withthese folks more often and better. It's an excitingtime for the company.

What should other PR practitioners know aboutyou—why do you love this work?

What I like most about what I do is that itenables me to meet so many different peoplefrom so many different parts of the world. I trulyenjoy meeting new people and having a chance tochat with them about a variety of things, includingour company, but not just that; I enjoy connectingwith people over common interests. I'm interestedin the markets that we touch—bike, motorcycle,ski, snowboard and so on. I couldn't do my job if Iwasn't.

Do you now have a blog of your own?I started my own blog a little over a year ago.

Although I felt very comfortable commenting onother people's blogs, and did so frequently, Iwanted my own outlet to talk about my own ideasand introduce new topics that interested me. It'snot always focused on one thing—one day it willbe about marketing the next about NASCAR—butit has been very well received. I'm completelyflattered by that.

Any closing advice for staying relevant in a Web2.0 world?

There is so much information coming at us allday, every day. It's hard to keep up; there isn't any"easy fix" of how to keep on top of it all. It takestime, but if you focus your energies on a fewdifferent areas instead of "everything," you willnot feel as overwhelmed. If you are just startingout generally research what all is out there (blogs,podcasts, vlogs, mobisodes and so on) andevaluate what impact getting involved with eachwill have on your company.

When you have decided what one or twothings would best suit your company andcustomers, jump right in. Do research, startconversations, join existing conversations.Thereare a lot of very smart cookies out there.TheInternet and blogosphere has brought them allinto your office/living room. Converse with them,brainstorm with them, collaborate with them. It'snot scary, it's kind of wonderful. Collaboratingwith people all over the globe easily now issomething I enjoy very much.

What New Year's resolutions do you wish PRpractitioners would make for the year ahead?

I cut out a quote once a long time ago anddon't remember where it came from or who saidit. But it is right here in my office and I see itevery day.The person is talking about goodcommunication being "based on certainprinciples: honesty, accuracy, candor, creativity andhumor." That is as true today as it was years agowhen I cut it out.We all need to remember that,no matter whether we are talking to "traditional"media, "non-traditional" media or even ourcustomers directly.

What're your resolutions?For me? In addition to living by the above?

Getting on my treadmill more and eating less ofthe holiday goodies that linger into January!

Appendix

4/17/08 3:01 PMEight First Steps in A crisis

Page 1 of 2http://www.finemanpr.com/buzz_content.html

Eight First Steps in A Crisis

March 10, 2008

When a crisis is imminent, always do a PANTCHEK:

Public welfare is the first priority Tell the public all they need to know for their safety and assurance.All bad news out at once Don’t let it come out slowly and painfully.No blame, no speculation and do not repeat the charges Maintain your integrity and dignity.Tell your side of the story, first and with facts, or Take responsibility if you are wrong Counter false charges and misinformation; set the record straight.Care and concern for affected audiences Though anxiety for self is high, demonstrate regard and consideration of others.High level organization spokesperson must be accessible and responsive Don’t let a shill do the talking for you; get a trainer to rehearse, quickly.Ensure that it will not happen again, and describe how and why not. Do what it takes to reestablish market trust.Keep separate plan for moving ahead Separate the crisis from continuing operations if at all possible.

.............................

Sincerity vs. Spin (01/08)

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Crisis Management and Communications, by W. Timothy Coombs, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2007, Institute for Public Relations www.instituteforpr.org

Crisis Management and Communications

by

W. Timothy Coombs, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies Eastern Illinois University

Published by the Institute for Public Relations December 2007



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Crisis Management and Communications

W. Timothy Coombs, Ph.D.

Introduction Crisis management is a critical organizational function. Failure can result in serious harm to stakeholders, losses for an organization, or end its very existence. Public relations practitioners are an integral part of crisis management teams. So a set of best practices and lessons gleaned from our knowledge of crisis management would be a very useful resource for those in public relations. Volumes have been written about crisis management by both practitioners and researchers from many different disciplines making it a challenge to synthesize what we know about crisis management and public relations’ place in that knowledge base. The best place to start this effort is by defining critical concepts.

W. Timothy Coombs, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Eastern Illinois University in the Department of Communication Studies. He holds a Ph.D. from Purdue University in Issues Management and Public Affairs. Dr. Coombs has been involved in the teaching and practice of public relations for over 20 years. His primary research area is crisis research with a focus on the development and testing of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory.

Contents

Introduction

Definitions

Pre-Crisis Phase

Crisis Management Plan

Crisis Management Team

Spokesperson

Pre-draft Messages

Communication Channels

Crisis Response Phase

Initial Response

Reputation Repair and Behavioral Intentions

Post-Crisis

Conclusion

Annotated Bibliography

Tables

Table 1: Crisis Preparation Best Practices

Table 2: Crisis Media Training Best Practices

Table 3: Crisis Communication Channel Preparation

Best Practices

Table 4: Initial Crisis Response Best Practices

Table 5: Master List of Reputation Repair Strategies

Table 6: Crisis Types by Attribution of Crisis

Responsibility

Table 7: Attribution Theory-based Crisis Communication

Best Practices

Table 8: Post-Crisis Phase Best Practices



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Definitions There are plenty of definitions for a crisis. For this entry, the definition reflects key points found in the various discussions of what constitutes a crisis. A crisis is defined here as a significant threat to operations that can have negative consequences if not handled properly. In crisis management, the threat is the potential damage a crisis can inflict on an organization, its stakeholders, and an industry. A crisis can create three related threats: (1) public safety, (2) financial loss, and (3) reputation loss. Some crises, such as industrial accidents and product harm, can result in injuries and even loss of lives. Crises can create financial loss by disrupting operations, creating a loss of market share/purchase intentions, or spawning lawsuits related to the crisis. As Dilenschneider (2000) noted in The Corporate Communications Bible, all crises threaten to tarnish an organization’s reputation. A crisis reflects poorly on an organization and will damage a reputation to some degree. Clearly these three threats are interrelated. Injuries or deaths will result in financial and reputation loss while reputations have a financial impact on organizations. Effective crisis management handles the threats sequentially. The primary concern in a crisis has to be public safety. A failure to address public safety intensifies the damage from a crisis. Reputation and financial concerns are considered after public safety has been remedied. Ultimately, crisis management is designed to protect an organization and its stakeholders from threats and/or reduce the impact felt by threats. Crisis management is a process designed to prevent or lessen the damage a crisis can inflict on an organization and its stakeholders. As a process, crisis management is not just one thing. Crisis management can be divided into three phases: (1) pre-crisis, (2) crisis response, and (3) post-crisis. The pre-crisis phase is concerned with prevention and preparation. The crisis response phase is when management must actually respond to a crisis. The post-crisis phase looks for ways to better prepare for the next crisis and fulfills commitments made during the crisis phase including follow-up information. The tri-part view of crisis management serves as the organizing framework for this entry. Pre-Crisis Phase Prevention involves seeking to reduce known risks that could lead to a crisis. This is part of an organization’s risk management program. Preparation involves creating the crisis management plan, selecting and training the crisis management team, and conducting exercises to test the crisis management plan and crisis management team. Both Barton (2001) and Coombs (2006) document that organizations are better able to handle crises when they (1) have a crisis management plan that is updated at least annually, (2) have a designated crisis management team, (3) conduct exercises to test the plans and teams at least annually, and (4) pre-draft some crisis messages. Table 1 lists the Crisis Preparation Best Practices. The planning and preparation allow crisis teams to react faster and to make more effective decisions. Refer to Barton’s (2001) Crisis in Organizations II or Coombs’ (2006) Code Red in the Boardroom for more information on these four lessons. Table 1: Crisis Preparation Best Practices

1. Have a crisis management plan and update it at least annually. 2. Have a designate crisis management team that is properly trained. 3. Conduct exercise at least annually to test the crisis management plan and team. 4. Pre-draft select crisis management messages including content for dark web sites and

templates for crisis statements. Have the legal department review and pre-approve these messages.

Crisis Management Plan



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A crisis management plan (CMP) is a reference tool, not a blueprint. A CMP provides lists of key contact information, reminders of what typically should be done in a crisis, and forms to be used to document the crisis response. A CMP is not a step-by-step guide to how to manage a crisis. Barton (2001), Coombs (2007a), and Fearn-Banks (2001) have noted how a CMP saves time during a crisis by pre-assigning some tasks, pre-collecting some information, and serving as a reference source. Pre-assigning tasks presumes there is a designated crisis team. The team members should know what tasks and responsibilities they have during a crisis. Crisis Management Team Barton (2001) identifies the common members of the crisis team as public relations, legal, security, operations, finance, and human resources. However, the composition will vary based on the nature of the crisis. For instance, information technology would be required if the crisis involved the computer system. Time is saved because the team has already decided on who will do the basic tasks required in a crisis. Augustine (1995) notes that plans and teams are of little value if they are never tested. Management does not know if or how well an untested crisis management plan with work or if the crisis team can perform to expectations. Mitroff, Harrington, and Gia (1996) emphasize that training is needed so that team members can practice making decisions in a crisis situation. As noted earlier, a CMP serves only as a rough guide. Each crisis is unique demanding that crisis teams make decisions. Coombs (2007a) summaries the research and shows how practice improves a crisis team’s decision making and related task performance. For additional information on the value of teams and exercises refer to Coombs (2006) and the Corporate Leadership Council’s (2003) report on crisis management strategies. Spokesperson A key component of crisis team training is spokesperson training. Organizational members must be prepared to talk to the news media during a crisis. Lerbinger (1997), Feran-Banks (2001), and Coombs (2007a) devote considerable attention to media relations in a crisis. Media training should be provided before a crisis hits. The Crisis Media Training Best Practices in Table 2 were drawn from these three books: Table 2: Crisis Media Training Best Practices

1. Avoid the phrase “no comment” because people think it means the organization is guilty and trying to hide something

2. Present information clearly by avoiding jargon or technical terms. Lack of clarity makes people think the organization is purposefully being confusing in order to hide something.

3. Appear pleasant on camera by avoiding nervous habits that people interpret as deception. A spokesperson needs to have strong eye contact, limited disfluencies such as “uhms” or uhs,” and avoid distracting nervous gestures such as fidgeting or pacing. Coombs (2007a) reports on research that documents how people will be perceived as deceptive if they lack eye contact, have a lot of disfluencies, or display obvious nervous gestures.

4. Brief all potential spokespersons on the latest crisis information and the key message points the organization is trying to convey to stakeholders.

Public relations can play a critical role in preparing spokespersons for handling questions from the news media. The media relations element of public relations is a highly valued skill in crisis management. The public relations personnel can provide training and support because in most cases they are not the spokesperson during the crisis. Pre-draft Messages



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Finally, crisis managers can pre-draft messages that will be used during a crisis. More accurately, crisis managers create templates for crisis messages. Templates include statements by top management, news releases, and dark web sites. Both the Corporate Leadership Council (2003) and the Business Roundtable (2002) strongly recommend the use of templates. The templates leave blank spots where key information is inserted once it is known. Public relations personnel can help to draft these messages. The legal department can then pre-approve the use of the messages. Time is saved during a crisis as specific information is simply inserted and messages sent and/or made available on a web site. Communication Channels An organization may create a separate web site for the crisis or designate a section of its current web site for the crisis. Taylor and Kent’s (2007) research finds that having a crisis web sites is a best practice for using an Internet during a crisis. The site should be designed prior to the crisis. This requires the crisis team to anticipate the types of crises an organization will face and the types of information needed for the web site. For instances, any organization that makes consumer goods is likely to have a product harm crisis that will require a recall. The Corporate Leadership Council (2003) highlights the value of a crisis web site designed to help people identify if their product is part of the recall and how the recall will be handled. Stakeholders, including the news media, will turn to the Internet during a crisis. Crisis managers should utilize some form of web-based response or risk appearing to be ineffective. A good example is Taco Bell’s E. coli outbreak in 2006. The company was criticized in the media for being slow to place crisis-related information on its web site. Of course not placing information on the web site can be strategic. An organization may not want to publicize the crisis by placing information about it on the web site. This assumes the crisis is very small and that stakeholders are unlikely to hear about it from another source. In today’s traditional and online media environment, that is a misguided if not dangerous assumption. Taylor and Kent (2007) and the Corporate Leadership Council emphasize that a web site is another means for an organization to present its side of the story and not using it creates a risk of losing how the crisis story is told. Refer to the PR News story “Lackluster Online PR No Aid in Crisis Response” (2002) for additional information about using dark web sites in a crisis, Intranet sites can also be used during a crisis. Intranet sites limit access, typically to employees only though some will include suppliers and customers. Intranet sites provide direct access to specific stakeholders so long as those stakeholders have access to the Intranet. Dowling’s (2003) research documents the value of American Airlines’ use of its Intranet system as an effective way to communicate with its employees following the 9/11 tragedy. Coombs (2007a) notes that the communication value of an Intranet site is increased when used in conjunction with mass notification systems designed to reach employees and other key stakeholders. With a mass notification system, contact information (phones numbers, e-mail, etc.) are programmed in prior to a crisis. Contacts can be any group that can be affected by the crisis including employees, customers, and community members living near a facility. Crisis managers can enter short messages into the system then tell the mass notification system who should receive which messages and which channel or channels to use for the delivery. The mass notification system provides a mechanism for people to respond to messages as well. The response feature is critical when crisis managers want to verify that the target has received the message. Table 3 summarizes the Crisis Communication Channel Preparation Best Practices. Table 3: Crisis Communication Channel Preparation Best Practices

1. Be prepared to use a unique web site or part of your current web site to address crisis concerns.

2. Be prepared to use the Intranet as one of the channels for reaching employees and any other stakeholders than may have access to your Intranet.



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3. Be prepared to utilize a mass notification system for reaching employees and other key stakeholders during a crisis.

Crisis Response The crisis response is what management does and says after the crisis hits. Public relations plays a critical role in the crisis response by helping to develop the messages that are sent to various publics. A great deal of research has examined the crisis response. That research has been divided into two sections: (1) the initial crisis response and (2) reputation repair and behavioral intentions. Initial Response Practitioner experience and academic research have combined to create a clear set of guidelines for how to respond once a crisis hits. The initial crisis response guidelines focus on three points: (1) be quick, (2) be accurate, and (3) be consistent. Be quick seems rather simple, provide a response in the first hour after the crisis occurs. That puts a great deal of pressure on crisis managers to have a message ready in a short period of time. Again, we can appreciate the value of preparation and templates. The rationale behind being quick is the need for the organization to tell its side of the story. In reality, the organization’s side of the story are the key points management wants to convey about the crisis to its stakeholders. When a crisis occurs, people want to know what happened. Crisis experts often talk of an information vacuum being created by a crisis. The news media will lead the charge to fill the information vacuum and be a key source of initial crisis information. (We will consider shortly the use of the Internet as well). If the organization having the crisis does not speak to the news media, other people will be happy to talk to the media. These people may have inaccurate information or may try to use the crisis as an opportunity to attack the organization. As a result, crisis managers must have a quick response. An early response may not have much “new” information but the organization positions itself as a source and begins to present its side of the story. Carney and Jorden (1993) note a quick response is active and shows an organization is in control. Hearit’s (1994) research illustrates how silence is too passive. It lets others control the story and suggests the organization has yet to gain control of the situation. Arpan and Rosko-Ewoldsen (2005) conducted a study that documented how a quick, early response allows an organization to generate greater credibility than a slow response. Crisis preparation will make it easier for crisis managers to respond quickly. Obviously accuracy is important anytime an organization communicates with publics. People want accurate information about what happened and how that event might affect them. Because of the time pressure in a crisis, there is a risk of inaccurate information. If mistakes are made, they must be corrected. However, inaccuracies make an organization look inconsistent. Incorrect statements must be corrected making an organization appear to be incompetent. The philosophy of speaking with one voice in a crisis is a way to maintain accuracy. Speaking with one voice does not mean only one person speaks for the organization for the duration of the crisis. As Barton (2001) notes, it is physically impossible to expect one person to speak for an organization if a crisis lasts for over a day. Watch news coverage of a crisis and you most likely will see multiple people speak. The news media want to ask questions of experts so they may need to talk to a person in operations or one from security. That is why Coombs (2007a) emphasizes the public relations department plays more of a support role rather than being “the” crisis spokespersons. The crisis team needs to share information so that different people can still convey a consistent message. The spokespersons should be briefed on the same information and the key points the organization is trying to convey in the messages. The public relations department should be instrumental in preparing the spokespersons. Ideally, potential spokespersons are trained and practice media relations skills prior to any crisis. The



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focus during a crisis then should be on the key information to be delivered rather than how to handle the media. Once more preparation helps by making sure the various spokespersons have the proper media relations training and skills. Quickness and accuracy play an important role in public safety. When public safety is a concern, people need to know what they must do to protect themselves. Sturges (1994) refer to this information as instructing information. Instructing information must be quick and accurate to be useful. For instance, people must know as soon as possible not to eat contaminated foods or to shelter-in-place during a chemical release. A slow or inaccurate response can increase the risk of injuries and possibly deaths. Quick actions can also save money by preventing further damage and protecting reputations by showing that the organization is in control. However, speed is meaningless if the information is wrong. Inaccurate information can increase rather than decrease the threat to public safety. The news media are drawn to crises and are a useful way to reach a wide array of publics quickly. So it is logical that crisis response research has devoted considerable attention to media relations. Media relations allows crisis managers to reach a wide range of stakeholders fast. Fast and wide ranging is perfect for public safety—get the message out quickly and to as many people as possible. Clearly there is waste as non-targets receive the message but speed and reach are more important at the initial stage of the crisis. However, the news media is not the only channel crisis managers can and should use to reach stakeholders. Web sites, Intranet sites, and mass notification systems add to the news media coverage and help to provide a quick response. Crisis managers can supply greater amounts of their own information on a web site. Not all targets will use the web site but enough do to justify the inclusion of web-base communication in a crisis response. Taylor and Kent’s (2007) extensive analysis of crisis web sites over a multiyear period found a slow progression in organizations utilizing web sites and the interactive nature of the web during a crisis. Mass notification systems deliver short messages to specific individuals through a mix of phone, text messaging, voice messages, and e-mail. The systems also allow people to send responses. In organizations with effective Intranet systems, the Intranet is a useful vehicle for reaching employees as well. If an organization integrates its Intranet with suppliers and customers, these stakeholders can be reached as well. As the crisis management effort progresses, the channels can be more selective. More recently, crisis experts have recommended a third component to an initial crisis response, crisis managers should express concern/sympathy for any victims of the crisis. Victims are the people that are hurt or inconvenienced in some way by the crisis. Victims might have lost money, become ill, had to evacuate, or suffered property damage. Kellerman (2006) details when it is appropriate to express regret. Expressions of concern help to lessen reputational damage and to reduce financial losses. Experimental studies by Coombs and Holladay (1996) and by Dean (2004) found that organizations did experience less reputational damage when an expression of concern is offered verses a response lacking an expression of concern. Cohen (1999) examined legal cases and found early expressions of concern help to reduce the number and amount of claims made against an organization for the crisis. However, Tyler (1997) reminds us that there are limits to expressions of concern. Lawyers may try to use expressions of concern as admissions of guilt. A number of states have laws that protect expressions of concern from being used against an organization. Another concern is that as more crisis managers express concern, the expressions of concern may lose their effect of people. Hearit (2007) cautions that expressions of concern will seem too routine. Still, a failure to provide a routine response could hurt an organization. Hence, expressions of concern may be expected and provide little benefit when used but can inflict damage when not used. Argenti (2002) interviewed a number of managers that survived the 9/11 attacks. His strongest lesson was that crisis managers should never forget employees are important publics during a



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crisis. The Business Roundtable (2002) and Corporate Leadership Council (2003) remind us that employees need to know what happened, what they should do, and how the crisis will affect them. The earlier discussions of mass notification systems and the Intranet are examples of how to reach employees with information. West Pharmaceuticals had a production facility in Kinston, North Carolina leveled by an explosion in January 2003. Coombs (2004b) examined how West Pharmaceuticals used a mix of channels to keep employees apprised of how the plant explosion would affect them in terms of when they would work, where they would work, and their benefits. Moreover, Coombs (2007a) identifies research that suggest well informed employees provide an additional channel of communication for reaching other stakeholders. When the crisis results in serious injuries or deaths, crisis management must include stress and trauma counseling for employees and other victims. One illustration is the trauma teams dispatched by airlines following a plane crash. The trauma teams address the needs of employees as well as victims’ families. Both the Business Roundtable (2002) and Coombs (2007a) note that crisis managers must consider how the crisis stress might affect the employees, victims, and their families. Organizations must provide the necessary resources to help these groups cope. We can take a specific set of both form and content lessons from the writing on the initial crisis response. Table 4 provides a summary of the Initial Crisis Response Best Practices. Form refers to the basic structure of the response. The initial crisis response should be delivered in the first hour after a crisis and be vetted for accuracy. Content refers to what is covered in the initial crisis response. The initial message must provide any information needed to aid public safety, provide basic information about what has happened, and offer concern if there are victims. In addition, crisis managers must work to have a consistent message between spokespersons. Table 4: Initial Crisis Response Best Practices

1. Be quick and try to have initial response within the first hour. 2. Be accurate by carefully checking all facts. 3. Be consistent by keeping spokespeople informed of crisis events and key message

points. 4. Make public safety the number one priority. 5. Use all of the available communication channels including the Internet, Intranet, and

mass notification systems. 6. Provide some expression of concern/sympathy for victims 7. Remember to include employees in the initial response. 8. Be ready to provide stress and trauma counseling to victims of the crisis and their

families, including employees. Reputation Repair and Behavioral Intentions A number of researchers in public relations, communication, and marketing have shed light on how to repair the reputational damage a crisis inflicts on an organization. At the center of this research is a list of reputation repair strategies. Bill Benoit (1995; 1997) has done the most to identify the reputation repair strategies. He analyzed and synthesized strategies from many different research traditions that shared a concern for reputation repair. Coombs (2007a) integrated the work of Benoit with others to create a master list that integrated various writings into one list. Table 5 presents the Master List of Reputation Repair Strategies. The reputation repair strategies vary in terms of how much they accommodate victims of this crisis (those at risk or harmed by the crisis). Accommodate means that the response focuses more on helping the victims than on addressing organizational concerns. The master list arranges the reputation repair strategies from the least to the most accommodative reputation repair strategies. (For more information on reputation repair strategies see also Ulmer, Sellnow, and Seeger, 2006). Table 5: Master List of Reputation Repair Strategies



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1. Attack the accuser: crisis manager confronts the person or group claiming something is wrong with the organization.

2. Denial: crisis manager asserts that there is no crisis. 3. Scapegoat: crisis manager blames some person or group outside of the organization for

the crisis. 4. Excuse: crisis manager minimizes organizational responsibility by denying intent to do

harm and/or claiming inability to control the events that triggered the crisis. Provocation: crisis was a result of response to some one else’s actions.

Defeasibility: lack of information about events leading to the crisis situation. Accidental: lack of control over events leading to the crisis situation

Good intentions: organization meant to do well 5. Justification: crisis manager minimizes the perceived damage caused by the crisis. 6. Reminder: crisis managers tell stakeholders about the past good works of the

organization. 7. Ingratiation: crisis manager praises stakeholders for their actions. 8. Compensation: crisis manager offers money or other gifts to victims. 9. Apology: crisis manager indicates the organization takes full responsibility for the crisis

and asks stakeholders for forgiveness.

It should be noted that reputation repair can be used in the crisis response phase, post-crisis phase, or both. Not all crises need reputation repair efforts. Frequently the instructing information and expressions of concern are enough to protect the reputation. When a strong reputation repair effort is required, that effort will carry over into the post-crisis phase. Or, crisis managers may feel more comfortable waiting until the post-crisis phase to address reputation concerns. A list of reputation repair strategies by itself has little utility. Researchers have begun to explore when a specific reputation repair strategy or combination of strategies should be used. These researchers frequently have used attribution theory to develop guidelines for the use of reputation repair strategies. A short explanation of attribution theory is provided along with its relationship to crisis management followed by a summary of lessons learned from this research. Attribution theory believes that people try to explain why events happen, especially events that are sudden and negative. Generally, people either attribute responsibility for the event to the situation or the person in the situation. Attributions generate emotions and affect how people interact with those involved in the event. Crises are negative (create damage or threat of damage) and are often sudden so they create attributions of responsibility. People either blame the organization in crisis or the situation. If people blame the organization, anger is created and people react negatively toward the organization. Three negative reactions to attributing crisis responsibility to an organization have been documented: (1) increased damage to an organization’s reputation, (2) reduced purchase intentions and (3) increased likelihood of engaging in negative word-of-mouth (Coombs, 2007b; Coombs & Holladay, 2006). Most of the research has focused on establishing the link between attribution of crisis responsibility and the threat to the organization’s reputation. A number of studies have proven this connection exists (Coombs, 2004a; Coombs & Holladay, 1996; Coombs & Holladay, 2002; Coombs & Holladay, 2006). The research linking organizational reputation with purchase intention and negative word-of-mouth is less developed but so far has confirmed these two links as well (Coombs, 2007b; Coombs & Holladay, 2006). Coombs (1995) pioneered the application of attribution theory to crisis management in the public relations literature. His 1995 article began to lay out a theory-based approach to matching the reputation repair strategies to the crisis situation. A series of studies have tested the recommendations and assumptions such as Coombs and Holladay (1996), Coombs & Holladay,



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(2002) and Coombs (2004a), and Coombs, (2007b). This research has evolved into the Situation Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT). SCCT argues that crisis managers match their reputation repair strategies to the reputational threat of the crisis situation. Crisis managers should use increasingly accommodative the reputation repair strategies as the reputational threat from the crisis intensifies (Coombs & Holladay, 1996; Coombs, 2007b). Crisis managers follow a two-step process to assess the reputational threat of a crisis. The first step is to determine the basic crisis type. A crisis managers considers how the news media and other stakeholders are defining the crisis. Coombs and Holladay (2002) had respondents evaluate crisis types based on attributions of crisis responsibility. They distilled this data to group the basic crises according to the reputational threat each one posed. Table 6 provides a list the basic crisis types and their reputational threat. Table 6: Crisis Types by Attribution of Crisis Responsibility Victim Crises: Minimal Crisis Responsibility Natural disasters: acts of nature such as tornadoes or earthquakes.

Rumors: false and damaging information being circulated about you organization. Workplace violence: attack by former or current employee on current employees on-site. Product Tampering/Malevolence: external agent causes damage to the organization.

Accident Crises: Low Crisis Responsibility

Challenges: stakeholder claim that the organization is operating in an inappropriate manner. Technical error accidents: equipment or technology failure that cause an industrial accident. Technical error product harm: equipment or technology failure that cause a product to be defective or potentially harmful.

Preventable Crises: Strong Crisis Responsibility Human-error accidents: industrial accident caused by human error.

Human-error product harm: product is defective or potentially harmful because of human error. Organizational misdeed: management actions that put stakeholders at risk and/or violate the law.

The second step is to review the intensifying factors of crisis history and prior reputation. If an organization has a history of similar crises or has a negative prior reputation, the reputational threat is intensified. A series of experimental studies have documented the intensifying value of crisis history (Coombs, 2004a) and prior reputation (Coombs & Holladay, 2001; Coombs & Holladay, 2006; Klein & Dawar, 2004). The same crisis was found to be perceived as having much strong crisis responsibility (a great reputational threat) when the organization had either a previous crisis (Coombs, 2004a) or the organization was known not to treat stakeholders well/negative prior reputation (Coombs & Holladay, 2001; Coombs & Holladay, 2006; Klein & Dewar, 2004). Table 7 is a set of crisis communication best practices derived from attribution theory-based research in SCCT (Coombs, 2007b, Coombs & Holladay, 1996; Coombs & Holladay, 2001; Coombs & Holladay, 2006). Table 7: Attribution Theory-based Crisis Communication Best Practices

1. All victims or potential victims should receive instructing information, including recall information. This is one-half of the base response to a crisis.

2. All victims should be provided an expression of sympathy, any information about corrective actions, and trauma counseling when needed. This can be called the “care response.” This is the second-half of the base response to a crisis.



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3. For crises with minimal attributions of crisis responsibility and no intensifying factors, instructing information and care response is sufficient.

4. For crises with minimal attributions of crisis responsibility and an intensifying factor, add excuse and/or justification strategies to the instructing information and care response.

5. For crises with low attributions of crisis responsibility, and no intensifying factors, add excuse and/or justification strategies to the instructing information and care response.

6. For crises with low attributions of crisis responsibility and an intensifying factor, add compensation and/or apology strategies to the instructing information and care response.

7. For crises with strong attributions of crisis responsibility, add compensation and/or apology strategies to the instructing information and care response.

8. The compensation strategy is used anytime victims suffer serious harm. 9. The reminder and ingratiation strategies can be used to supplement any response. 10. Denial and attack the accuser strategies are best used only for rumor and challenge

crises. In general, a reputation is how stakeholder perceive an organization. A reputation is widely recognized as a valuable, intangible asset for an organization and is worth protecting. But the threat posed by a crisis extends to behavioral intentions as well. Increased attributions of organizational responsibility for a crisis result in a greater likelihood of negative word-of-mouth about the organization and reduced purchase intention from the organization. Early research suggests that lessons designed to protect the organization’s reputation will help to reduce the likelihood of negative word-of-mouth and the negative effect on purchase intentions as well (Coombs, 2007b). Post-Crisis Phase In the post-crisis phase, the organization is returning to business as usual. The crisis is no longer the focal point of management’s attention but still requires some attention. As noted earlier, reputation repair may be continued or initiated during this phase. There is important follow-up communication that is required. First, crisis managers often promise to provide additional information during the crisis phase. The crisis managers must deliver on those informational promises or risk losing the trust of publics wanting the information. Second, the organization needs to release updates on the recovery process, corrective actions, and/or investigations of the crisis. The amount of follow-up communication required depends on the amount of information promised during the crisis and the length of time it takes to complete the recovery process. If you promised a reporter a damage estimate, for example, be sure to deliver that estimate when it is ready. West Pharmaceuticals provided recovery updates for over a year because that is how long it took to build a new facility to replace the one destroyed in an explosion. As Dowling (2003), the Corporate Leadership Counsel (2003), and the Business Roundtable (2002) observe, Intranets are an excellent way to keep employees updated, if the employees have ways to access the site. Coombs (2007a) reports how mass notification systems can be used as well to deliver update messages to employees and other publics via phones, text messages, voice messages, and e-mail. Personal e-mails and phone calls can be used too. Crisis managers agree that a crisis should be a learning experience. The crisis management effort needs to be evaluated to see what is working and what needs improvement. The same holds true for exercises. Coombs (2006) recommends every crisis management exercise be carefully dissected as a learning experience. The organization should seek ways to improve prevention, preparation, and/or the response. As most books on crisis management note, those lessons are then integrated into the pre-crisis and crisis response phases. That is how management learns and improves its crisis management process. Table 8 lists the Post-Crisis Phase Best Practices. Table 8: Post-Crisis Phase Best Practices



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1. Deliver all information promised to stakeholders as soon as that information is known. 2. Keep stakeholders updated on the progression of recovery efforts including any

corrective measures being taken and the progress of investigations. 3. Analyze the crisis management effort for lessons and integrate those lessons in to the

organization’s crisis management system. Conclusion It is difficult to distill all that is known about crisis management into one, concise entry. I have tried to identify the best practices and lessons created by crisis management researchers and analysts. While crises begin as a negative/threat, effective crisis management can minimize the damage and in some case allow an organization to emerge stronger than before the crisis. However, crises are not the ideal way to improve an organization. But no organization is immune from a crisis so all must do their best to prepare for one. This entry provides a number of ideas that can be incorporated into an effective crisis management program. At the end of this entry is an annotated bibliography. The annotated bibliography provides short summaries of key writings in crisis management highlighting. Each entry identifies the main topics found in that entry and provides citations to help you locate those sources.

Annotated Bibliography

Argenti, P. (2002, December). Crisis communication: Lessons from 9/11. Harvard Business Review, 80(12), 103-109.

This article provides insights into working with employees during a crisis. The information is derived from interviews with managers about their responses to the 9/11 tragedies.

Arpan, L.M., & Roskos-Ewoldsen, D.R. (2005). Stealing thunder: An analysis of the effects of proactive disclosure of crisis information. Public Relations Review 31(3), 425-433.

This article discusses an experiment that studies the idea of stealing thunder. Stealing thunder is when an organization releases information about a crisis before the news media or others release the information. The results found that stealing thunder results in higher credibility ratings for a company than allowing others to report the crisis information first. This is additional evidence to support the notion of being quick in a crisis and telling the organization’s side of the story.

Augustine, N. R. (1995, November/December). Managing the crisis you tried to prevent. Harvard Business Review, 73(6), 147–158.

This article centers on the six stages of a crisis: avoiding the crisis, preparing to management the crisis, recognizing the crisis, containing the crisis, resolving the crisis, and profiting from the crisis. The article reinforces the need to have a crisis management plan and to test both the crisis management plan and team through exercises. It also reinforces the need to learn (profit) from the crisis.

Barton, L. (2001). Crisis in organizations II (2nd ed.). Cincinnati, OH: College Divisions South-Western.

This is a very practice-oriented book that provides a number of useful insights into crisis management. There is a strong emphasis on the role of communication and public relations/affairs in the crisis management process and the need to speak with one voice. The book provides excellent information on crisis management plans (a template is in Appendix D pp. 225-262); the composition of crisis management teams (pp. 14-17); the



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need for exercises (pp. 207-221); and the need to communicate with employees (pp. 86—101).

Benoit, W. L. (1995). Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration. Albany: State University of New York Press.

This book has a scholarly focus on image restoration not crisis manage. However, his discussion of image restoration strategies is very thorough (pp. 63-96). These strategies have been used as reputation repair strategies after a crisis.

Benoit, W. L. (1997). Image repair discourse and crisis communication. Public Relations Review, 23(2), 177–180.

The article is based on his book Accounts, excuses, and apologies: A theory of image restoration and provides a review of image restoration strategies. The image restoration strategies are reputation repair strategies that can be used after a crisis. It is a quicker and easiest to use resource than the book.

Business Roundtable’s Post-9/11 crisis communication toolkit. (2002). Retrieved April 24, 2006, from http://www.nfib.com/object/3783593.html .

This is a very user-friendly PDF files that takes a person through the crisis management process. There is helpful information on web-based communication (pp. 73-82) including “dark sites” and the use of Intranet and e-mail to keep employees informed. There is an explanation of templates, what are called holding statements or fill-in-the-blank media statements including a sample statement (pp. 28-29). It also provides information of the crisis management plan (pp. 21-32), structure of the crisis management team (pp. 33-40) and types of exercises (pp. 89-93) including mock press conferences.

Carney, A., & Jorden, A. (1993, August). Prepare for business-related crises. Public Relations Journal 49, 34–35.

This article emphasize the need for a message strategy during crisis communication. Developing and sharing a strategy helps an organization to speak with one voice during the crisis.

Cohen, J. R. (1999). Advising clients to apologize. S. California Law Review, 72, 1009-131.

This article examines expressions of concern and full apologies from a legal perspective. He notes that California, Massachusetts, and Florida have laws that prevent expressions of concern from being used as evidence against someone in a court case. The evidence from court cases suggests that expressions of concern are helpful because they help to reduce the amount of damages sought and the number of claims filed.

Coombs, W. T. (1995). Choosing the right words: The development of guidelines for the selection of the “appropriate” crisis response strategies. Management Communication Quarterly, 8, 447–476.

This article is the foundation for Situational Crisis Communication Theory. It uses a decision tree to guide the selection of crisis response strategies. The guidelines are based on matching the response to nature of the crisis situation. A number of studies have tested the guidelines in the decision tree and found them to be reliable.

Coombs, W. T. (2004a). Impact of past crises on current crisis communications: Insights from situational crisis communication theory. Journal of Business Communication, 41, 265–289.

This article documents that past crises intensify the reputational threat to a current crisis. Since the news media reminds people of past crises, it is common for organizations in crisis to face past crises as well. Crisis managers need to adjust their reputation repair strategies if there are past crises—crisis managers will need to use more accommodative strategies than they normally would. Accidents are a good example. Past accidents indicate a pattern of problems so people will view the organization as much more responsible for the crisis than if the accident were isolated. Greater responsibility means the crisis is more of a threat to the reputation and the organization must focus the response more on addressing victim concerns.

Coombs, W. T. (2004b). Structuring crisis discourse knowledge: The West Pharmaceutics case. Public Relations Review, 30, 467-474.



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This article is a case analysis of the West Pharmaceutical 2003 explosion at its Kinston, NC facility. The case documents the extensive use of the Internet to keep employees and other stakeholders informed. It also develops a list of crisis communication standards based on SCCT. The crisis communication standards offer suggestions for how crisis managers can match their crisis response to the nature of the crisis situation.

Coombs, W. T. (2006). Code red in the boardroom: Crisis management as organizational DNA. Westport, CN: Praeger.

This is a book written for a practitioner audience. The book focuses on how to respond to three common types of crises: attacks on an organization (pp. 13-26), accidents (pp. 27-44), and management misbehavior pp. (45-64). There are also detailed discussions of how crisis management plans must be a living document (pp. 77-90), different types of exercises for crisis management (pp. 84-87), and samples of specific elements of a crisis management plan in Appendix A (pp. 103-109).

Coombs, W. T. (2007a). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, Managing, and responding (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.

This book is designed to teach students and managers about the crisis management process. There is a detailed discussion of spokesperson training pp. (78-87) and a discussion of the traits and skills crisis team members need to posses to be effective during a crisis (pp. 66-77). The book emphasizes the value of follow-up information and updates (pp. 147-148) along with the learning from the crisis (pp. 152-162). There is also a discussion of the utility of mass notification systems during a crisis (pp. 97-98).

Coombs, W. T. (2007b). Protecting organization reputations during a crisis: The development and application of situational crisis communication theory. Corporate

Reputation Review, 10, 1-14. This article provides a summary of research conducted on and lessons learned from

Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT). The article includes a discussion how the research can go beyond reputation to include behavioral intentions such as purchase intention and negative word-of-mouth. The information in the article is based on experimental studies rather than case studies.

Coombs, W. T., & Holladay, S. J. (1996). Communication and attributions in a crisis: An experimental study of crisis communication. Journal of Public Relations Research, 8(4), 279–295.

This article uses an experimental design to document the negative effect of crises on an organization’s reputation. The research also establishes that the type of reputation repair strategies managers use does make a difference on perceptions of the organization. An important finding is proof that the more an organization is held responsible for the crisis, the more accommodative a reputation repair strategy must be in order to be effective/protect the organization’s reputation.

Coombs, W. T. and Holladay, S. J. (2001). An extended examination of the crisis situation: A fusion of the relational management and symbolic approaches. Journal of Public Relations Research, 13, 321-340.

This study reports on an experiment designed to test how prior reputation influenced the attributions of crisis responsibility. The study found that an unfavorable prior reputation had the biggest effect. People rated an organization as having much greater responsibility for a crisis when the prior reputation was negative than if the prior reputation was neutral or positive. Similar results were found for the effects of prior reputation on the post-crisis reputation.

Coombs, W. T., & Holladay, S. J. (2002). Helping crisis managers protect reputational assets: Initial tests of the situational crisis communication theory. Management Communication Quarterly, 16, 165–186.

This article begins to map how stakeholders respond to some very common crises. Using the level of responsibility for a crisis that people attribute to an organization, the research found that common crises can be categorized into one of three groups: victim cluster has minimal attributions of crisis responsibility (natural disasters, rumors, workplace violence, and tampering), accidental cluster has low attributions of crisis



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responsibility (technical-error product harm and accidents), and preventable cluster has strong attributions of crisis responsibility (human-error product harm and accidents, management misconduct, and organizational misdeeds). The article recommends different crisis response strategies depending upon the attributions of crisis responsibility.

Coombs, W. T. & Holladay, S. J. (2006). Halo or reputational capital: Reputation and crisis management. Journal of Communication Management, 10(2), 123-137.

This article examines if and when a favorable pre-crisis reputation can protect an organization with a halo effect. The halo effect says that strong positive feelings will allow people to overlook a negative event—it can shield an organization from reputational damage during a crisis. The study found that only in a very specific situation does a halo effect occur. In most crises, the reputation is damaged suggesting reputational capital is a better way to view a strong, positive pre-crisis reputation. An organization accumulates reputational capital by positively engaging publics. A crisis causes an organization to loss some reputational capital. The more pre-crisis reputational capital, the stronger the reputation will be after the crisis and the easier it should be to repair.

Corporate Leadership Council. (2003). Crisis management strategies. Retrieved September 12, 2006, from http://www.executiveboard.com/EXBD/Images/PDF/Crisis%20Management%20Strategies.pdf .

This online PDF file summarizes key crisis management insights from the Corporate Leadership Council. The topics include the value and elements of a crisis management plan (pp 1-3), structure of a crisis management team (pp. 4-6), communicating with employees (pp. 7-9), using web sites including “dark sites’ (p. 7), using pre-packaged information/templates (p. 7), and the value of employee assistance programs (p. 10). The file is an excellent overview to key elements of crisis management with an emphasis on using new technology.

Dean, D. H. (2004. Consumer reaction to negative publicity: Effects of corporate reputation, response, and responsibility for a crisis event. Journal of Business Communication, 41, 192-211.

This article reports an experimental study that included a comparison how people reacted to expressions of concern verses no expression of concern. Post-crisis reputations were stronger when an organization provided an expression of concern.

Dilenschneider, R. L. (2000). The corporate communications bible: Everything you need to know to become a public relations expert. Beverly Hills: New Millennium.

This book has a strong chapter of crisis communication (pp. 120-142). It emphasizes how a crisis is a threat to an organization’s reputation and the need to be strategic with the communications response.

Downing, J. R. (2003). American Airlines’ use of mediated employee channels after the 9/11 attacks. Public Relations Review, 30, 37-48.

This article reviews how American Airlines used its Intranet, web sites, and reservation system to keep employees informed after 9/11. The article also comments on the use of employee assistance programs after a traumatic event. Recommendations include using all available channels to inform employees during and after a crisis as well as recommending organizations “gray out” color from their web sites to reflect the somber nature of the situation.

Fearn-Banks, K. (2001). Crisis communications: A casebook approach (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This book is more a textbook for students using case studies. Chapter 2 (pp. 18-33) has a useful discussion of elements of the crisis communication plan, a subset of the crisis management plan. Chapter 4 has some tips on media relations (pp. 63-71).

Hearit, K. M. (1994, Summer). Apologies and public relations crises at Chrysler, Toshiba, and Volvo. Public Relations Review, 20(2), 113–125.

This article provides a strong rationale for the value of quick but accurate crisis response. The focus is on how a quick response helps an organization to control the crisis situation.

Hearit, K. M. (2006). Crisis management by apology: Corporate response to



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allegations of wrongdoing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. This book is a detailed, scholarly treatment of apologies that has direct application to crisis management. Chapter 1 helps to explain the different ways the term

apology is used and concentrates on how it should be treated as a public acceptance of responsibility (pp. 1-18). Chapter 3 details the legal and liability issues involved when an organization chooses to use an apology.

Kellerman, B. (2006, April). When should a leader apologize and when not? Harvard Business Review, 84(4), 73–81.

This article defines an apology as accepting responsibility for a crisis and expressing regret. The value of apologies is highlighted along with suggestions for when an apology is appropriate and inappropriate. An apology should be used when it will serve an important purpose, the crisis has serious consequences, and the cost of an apology will be lower than the cost of being silent.

Klein, J. & Dawar, N. (2004). Corporate social responsibility and consumers’ attributions of brand evaluations in product-harm crisis. International Journal of Marketing, 21, 203-217.

This article reports on an experimental study that compared how prior information about corporate social responsibility (a dimension of prior reputation) affected attributions of crisis responsibility. People attribute much greater responsibility to the negative corporate social responsibility condition than to the neutral or positive conditions. There was no difference between the attributions in the positive and neutral conditions.

Lackluster online PR no aid in crisis response. (2002). PR News. Retrieved April 20, 2006, from http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe This short article notes how journalists and other interested parties are using web sites during crises to collect information. The article highlights the value of having a “dark site” ready before a crisis. A sample of various criteria for a crisis web are discussed by reviewing Tyco’s web site as a case study,

Lerbinger, O. (1997). The crisis manager: Facing risk and responsibility. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

This book centers on seven types of crises: natural, technological, confrontation, malevolence, skewed management values, deception, and management misconduct. There is a strong focus on the role of media relations in crisis management (pp. 27-29 and pp. 31-34).

Mitroff, I. I., Harrington, K., & Gai, E. (1996, September). Thinking about the unthinkable. Across the Board, 33(8), 44–48.

This article reinforces the value of creating and training crisis management teams by having them conduct various types of exercises.

Sonnenfeld, S. (1994, July/August). Media policy--What media policy? Harvard Business Review, 72(4), 18-19.

This is a short article that discusses the need for spokesperson training prior to a crisis. Sturges, D. L. (1994). Communicating through crisis: A strategy for organizational survival, Management Communication Quarterly, 7, 297-316. This article emphasizes how communication needs shift during a crisis. The first need is

for instructing information, the information that tells people how to protect themselves physically from a crisis. The next need is adjusting information, the information that helps people to cope psychologically with the crisis. The initial crisis response demands a focus on instructing and adjusting information. The third and final type of communication is reputation repair. Reputation repair is only used once the instructing and adjusting information have been provided.

Taylor, M., & Kent, M. L. (2007). Taxonomy of mediated crisis responses. Public Relations Review, 33, 140-146.

This article summarizes the best practices for using the Internet during a crisis and advocates more organizations should be using the Internet, especially web sites, during a crisis. The six best practices are: (1) include all your tradition media relations materials on your web site; (2) try to make use of the interactive nature of the Internet for your crisis web content; (3) provide detailed and clear information on web sites during for a product



17

recall; (4) tell your side of the story on the crisis web site including quotations from managers; (5) when necessary, create different web pages for different stakeholders tailored to their interests in the crisis; and (6) work with government agencies including hyperlinks to relevant government agency web sites.

Tyler, L. (1997). Liability means never being able to say you’re sorry: Corporate guilt, legal constraints, and defensiveness in corporate communication. Management Communication Quarterly, 11(1), 51–73.

This article discusses the legal constraints that prevent apologies during a crisis. It is a hard look at the choices crisis managers must make between addressing victims in a particular way and financial constraints. The article is a reminder that crisis management occurs within the larger context of organizational operations and is subject to financial constraints.

Ulmer, R. R., Sellnow, T. L., & Seeger, M. W. (2006). Effective crisis communication: Moving from crisis to opportunity. Thousand Oaks: Sage. This book is mix of lessons and case studies. Many of the cases focus on large scale crises or what some would call disasters. Large scale crises/disasters are unique because they require multiple agency coordination and are often managed by government agencies. Chapter 12 (pp. 177-187) on renewal as a reputation repair strategy after a crisis in unique and informative. Renewal focuses on optimism and an emphasis on moving to some new and better state after the crisis. Not all organizations can engage in renewal after a crisis. Renewal requires that an organization have performed ethically before the crisis and have had strong stakeholder relationships before the crisis.

Web 2.0 for Crisis Communication

Provided by: W. Timothy Coombs Ph.D.

Associate Professor Crisis Communication, Communication Studies

Eastern Illinois University

Web 2.0 tools can be excellent technologies for crisis scanning and monitoring, but can

also be used to communicate during a crisis, as well. The “Web 2.0 in a Crisis Table”

below summaries the basic uses of various Web 2.0 channels/applications:

Two Key Lessons:

1. Do Not Be “Missing in Crisis” Online. If your organization is in crisis, there

should be information about it somewhere on your website—even if it is just in a

news release archive. Failure to have information reflects a lack of transparency

and leads stakeholders to wonder what else you are not telling them.

Stakeholders, including the news media, will be visiting your site to find

information after a crisis hits. Finding nothing, being “Missing in Crisis,” will

reflect poorly on your organization.

2. Be Where the Action Is. If your crisis appears on YouTube, consider responding

on YouTube. If your crisis appears on blogs, consider posting to the blogs and on

your own blog. You need to be where the action is—where the crisis is being

discussed—if you are to be a part of that discussion.

Web Channel Mass

Notification

Key

Statements

Updates Engagement

RSS X X X

Web Site

Section X X

Stand alone X X

Existing

Blog

X X X

Crisis

Blog

X X

YouTube X

Podcast X

Twitter X

SUNDAY BUSINESS SECTION

Dow Corning's Moral Evasions By Steven Fink

The Dow Corning Corporation revealed itself last week as a company adrift without a moral compass.

It finally released memos showing that for two decades it had known silicone can leak from its gel breast implants into some women's bodies. Accompanied by a shakeup of top management and the long-overdue pledge to cooperate fully with Federal product safety investigations, these mea culpas and the new candor are promising. But putting truth on the bench to be called on only if deception strikes out is a crisis management error of potentially lethal proportions.

By becoming forthright only after obfuscation, denial and rationalization failed, the company demonstrated that honesty had been relegated to a backup position. In admitting that it has not been completely honest for years, the company now faces the conundrum known as the

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"liar's enigma": If an admitted liar is asked if he is now telling the truth, do you believe him if he says "yes" -- or "no"?

The public's perception of corporate wrongdoing -- in both a legal and a moral sense -- has caught up with Dow Corning. But although the company has brought on a seasoned crisis manager, Keith McKennon, and isolated the crisis from other operations, these actions should have been initiated long ago. Events have moved beyond crisis into calamity and the company's handling of it has shifted from crisis management to damage control. This is always dangerous, and it could be even more so for Dow Corning because it has not recognized that crisis management is not management by crisis.

The company's statement last week that it may pay for implant removal for any woman who wants it done but can't afford it sends a terrifying signal to women: If Dow Corning is willing to foot the bill, how safe can the devices be? The company justified not releasing the memos earlier for fear of panicking women. But what does it think it is doing now? Its behavior looks like the most blatant display of insensitivity to women since the Clarence Thomas hearings.

And that's shameful. The company had 20 years to prepare for this. The memos were crisis prodromes -- warning signs -- that the company intentionally buried for two decades. It did so rather than fix the problem. Similarly ignored memos were the downfall of Three Mile Island, Union Carbide and Morton Thiokol. Those crises provided a lesson: Companies must identify and respond to early warning signs -- proactive crisis management and the best strategy -- instead of engaging in deception or denial.

When the memos were written years ago, the company should have created the customer registry that it is only now contemplating and a database for doctors. It also should have created a crisis management plan guided by a code of corporate ethics.

From the beginning, Dow Corning relied too much on heavy-handed lawyering. Lawyers in product liability crises often take the view that everything revolves around the law and its loopholes. What becomes obscured is the ultimate crisis management objective: to have a company left to manage after -- or if -- the crisis passes.

Early on, the company lost sight of the most basic crisis management tenet: In the pitched battle between perception and reality, perception usually wins. Creating the right perception at the beginning is vital. Crisis management is a well-traveled path with clear trail markings. Dow Corning should have been able to follow it.

_________________________

Steven Fink, president of the Lexicon Communications Corporation, Los Angeles, served on the Governor of Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island crisis management team.



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Wendy's tries to undo harm from chili claim Woman held, charged with $2.5 million attempt at extortion

By John Schmeltzer Tribune staff reporter

Wendy's International Inc. on Friday said it will focus on rebuilding its reputation after a San Jose, Calif., woman who claimed she found a fingertip in a bowl of chili she ordered was charged with attempted grand theft. The Columbus, Ohio-based hamburger chain said it was "thrilled" and "vindicated that an arrest had been made." Las Vegas police on Friday were holding 39-year-old Anna Ayala without bail pending a Tuesday extradition hearing on a charge of attempted grand larceny. Prosecutors are accusing her of trying to extort $2.5 million from Wendy's. She also faces charges of grand larceny in connection with an unrelated real estate case. The $100,000 reward Wendy's offered for information regarding the chili tampering on March 22 will not be distributed while police continue searching for the source of the 1 1/2-inch fingertip. Ayala is being held without bail in Las Vegas pending a Tuesday extradition hearing. She is charged with attempted grand larceny in connection with an effort to allegedly extort $2.5 million from Wendy's and grand larceny in connection with an unrelated real estate case. Losses suffered by the hamburger chain could be in the millions as it tries to determine how widespread fallout from the tampering case at one San Jose restaurant will be. "We're still trying to assess to full impact," said Bob Bertini, a spokesman for Wendy's, who said the losses have been severe in the San Francisco Bay area. Sales have fallen by more than 50 percent at some of the chain's Bay Area restaurants, he said. Bertini said Wendy's will reach out to customers in the 50 San Francisco-area stores beginning Saturday, offering free Junior Frosties and coupons. In addition, he said a deli-style sandwich will be tested in the San Francisco area to lure customers back to the restaurants, where some employees have been laid off and others have had their hours cut. "The unfortunate thing was that Wendy's and its franchisees have been a victim of this

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situation," said Bertini. "And our employees are suffering because of it."

Still, crisis management experts said that Wendy's was doing too little to protect its reputation during the incident. "There are things they should have done to keep people coming back to the restaurants," said Steven Fink, president of Lexicon Communications Corp. in Pasadena, Calif. Fink handled crisis management issues for the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska in 1989, the meltdown of the reactor at Three Mile Island in 1979 and the deaths and illness suffered by patrons of Jack in the Box restaurants a decade ago. He said Wendy's should be copying Pat & Oscar's, a Southern California restaurant chain that served 55,000 people free meals over three days after an E. coli bacteria incident sickened hundreds. The response was an effort to assure residents that the restaurants were safe. "And they failed to take any steps to assure their customers that it was safe to eat at Wendy's," said Fink. "In the pitched battle between perception and reality, perception always wins. The perception was it was not safe to eat at Wendy's. Giving away milkshakes and coupons does not tell people Wendy's is a safe place to eat," he said. Even on Friday, the chain relied upon the Santa Clara County district attorney's office to declare it safe to eat at Wendy's. "America should go back to eating at Wendy's," said an assistant district attorney. - - -

Some earlier food scam attempts Many people have tried to make a few bucks by planting dangerous items in food and drink, and some of them have landed in jail. Here are a few recent cases: - 1988: An unemployed construction worker in Jacksonville, Fla., claimed he found a mouse in a can of Coors beer. He later apologized, pleaded guilty to extortion and product tampering and got 18 months in prison. - 1993: Pepsi received a complaint that a consumer found a hypodermic needle in a can of Diet Pepsi. The claim generated copycat claims from about half of the continental U.S. in which people claimed finding a bullet, screws and even a crack-cocaine vial. Ultimately, dozens of people were arrested. Five days into the crisis, Pepsi shot film in its bottling plant that showed nothing could be inserted into a can in the manufacturing process. After

Page 2 of 3Wendy


showing the tape, Pepsi took out newspaper ads that read: "Pepsi is pleased to announce ... nothing. As America now knows, those stories about Diet Pepsi were a hoax." - 1997: Michael Zanakis, a New York physician, was convicted of attempting to extort $5 million from McDonald's Corp. He was convicted of taking a rat's tail from the laboratory where he worked, deep-frying it and inserting it into some Happy Meal french fries he purchased for his son. He was given a sentence of 30 months. - 2004: A mother and her son are accused of falsely claiming they found a mouse in the soup served to them at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Virginia Beach, Va., in an attempt to extort $500,000 from the restaurant. They are awaiting trial.

Published April 23, 2005

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Bureau

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Crisis Management versus

Crisis Communications

Unfortunately, some companies freely use the phrases Crisis Management and Crisis Communications interchangeably. There is a distinct and important difference between the two terms and not knowing the difference can be dangerous for an unsuspecting company in a crisis if it thinks it is hiring one type of firm and finds out too late that the firm that was hired cannot do the job required. Lexicon Communications -- even though the word "communications" is in our name -- provides both crisis management as well as crisis communications services.

Our definitions are simple: Crisis Management deals with the reality of the crisis. Crisis Communications deals with the perception of the reality. And we deal with it all.

"Crisis Management" is an umbrella term that includes many components. Crisis Communications is but one component -- albeit a very important one -- of Crisis Management. Full service Crisis Management firms -- such as Lexicon Communications -- provide all Crisis Communications services, including:

media relations; media strategies; media training; media interviews; employee relations; shareholder relations; community relations; and more.

But, being full service, we also provide such essential crisis management consulting services as:

crisis vulnerability audits; proactive pre-crisis planning and management training; crisis forecasting; crisis management plan testing and evaluation; consultation with senior management to help teams manage

crises; crucial decision-making strategies involved in the actual

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management of a crisis as it unfolds;intervention and interface with government regulators on a

client's behalf; advising companies and their law firms on legal strategies

designed to serve the client's best business interests; post mortems following a crisis to help assess what went right

or wrong; and more.

As a full service firm, Lexicon Communications is skilled in all aspects of Crisis Management, including all critical Crisis Communications tasks. (Click on this link to see a partial list of the Crisis Management Services offered by Lexicon Communications, or contact us directly for more detailed information).

So, whether you require just Crisis Communications, or if your needs are (or may become) more complex, you would probably be better served engaging a full service Crisis Management firm that can handle and coordinate everything -- the management and the communications -- before, during and after the crisis.


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Sunday Business Forum

Prepare for Crisis, It's Part of Business

Learning From Exxon By Steven Fink

Many critics have faulted Lawrence Rawl, chairman of the Exxon Corporation, for not taking the first jet to Alaska upon hearing about the massive oil spill. While his public response time was woefully inadequate given the severity of the crisis, those who say Mr. Rawl should have gone to faraway Valdez just because "it is the thing to do in these type of crises" are overly concerned with symbolism and naïve about the exigencies of crisis communications and management.

These critics say that Mr. Rawl should have followed the crisis management example of Warren Anderson, chairman of the Union Carbide Corporation, when he flew to Bhopal, India, in 1984 after an accident at a plant there poisoned thousands of people. But Mr.

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Anderson's mad dash across the globe was by no means sound crisis management. Instead, it was a foolish, knee-jerk reaction which removed him from his essential management and communications responsibilities for nearly a week and landed him in jail. Union Carbide was leaderless when it needed direction the most.

From my own experience working on the crisis management team at Three Mile Island, I have learned that there are certainly times when a chief executive needs to be at the scene of a crisis. But a chief executive must think twice about entering a hostile environment just to serve the interests of photojournalists. While it is vital for an executive to consider how a story plays in the media, in a war generals manage the battle, not the reconnaissance.

The only time James Burke, chairman of Johnson & Johnson, the health care products manufacturer, visited Chicago during the Tylenol poisonings in that city in 1982 was when he appeared on the "Donahue" TV show. Mr. Burke is widely -- and correctly -- lauded for his crisis management technique. But Mr. Burke did not earn his laurels by posing in front of empty store shelves at the scene of the disaster. Instead, he maintained his authority by remaining at the helm of his company, going to where the media were located and communicating his message in an effective, controlled and less volatile atmosphere than in Chicago. In the Alaskan disaster, the problem was not where Mr. Rawl spoke from, but rather that he was slow to speak at all. He was right to stay put but wrong to stay silent.

Exxon's management of the crisis in Alaska contained other flaws as well. Within hours of becoming aware of the nature of the crisis, Mr. Rawl should have established a 24-hour crisis-management command center in New York as a centralized repository for fact gathering and rumor sifting. He should have set up a governmental liaison office to brief appropriate agencies about the company's efforts and to ask for -- nay, demand -- governmental assistance.

Just as quickly, Mr. Rawl should have established a news center in New York as a clearing house for authorized statements, briefings and status reports from the company. Doing this would insure that the company speaks with one voice and avoids conflicting statements. The New York clearing house should have presented a minimum of two briefings a day to accommodate news cycles. At least one daily briefing should have been handled by Mr. Rawl personally. The other daily briefing should have been a telecommunications satellite press conference with the heads of Exxon U.S.A. and Exxon Shipping at Valdez.

More than anything else, the running aground of the tanker Exxon Valdez underscores the fact that crises in business are inevitable and companies must have crisis-management plans in place well before disaster strikes. Forward-thinking chief executives know that crisis management must be practiced as a strict corporate discipline.

While Exxon had a crisis-management plan that boasted that an oil spill could be contained within five hours, the critical flaw in the plan was that it was untested. As a result, when the



tanker's hull ruptured, nearly two crippling days elapsed before certain rudimentary elements of the plan were put into operation. Had Exxon previously conducted appropriate crisis-simulation exercises to test its plan -- and acquaint its various crews with the rigors and stresses of crisis situations -- the plan's weaknesses could have been discovered before the real crisis hit.

With proper monitoring and updating, Exxon's plan might have been able to deliver on its five-hour promise. The spill then could have been just an insignificant gurgle on Exxon's bottom line, and on Alaska's pristine waters.

Because Exxon's plans were untested, its action-reaction time was far too slow. As a result it failed to gain the upper hand in the critical opening moments of the crisis. The company was simply overwhelmed by the rapidity and the magnitude of the events. Now, more than a month later, Exxon still finds itself in the midst of the crisis.

For a pragmatic chief executive viewing the problems in Alaska, the lessons are clear: accept that a crisis is inevitable and prepare the company accordingly. Test and refine the company's crisis-management plans. And, when the inevitable happens, take swift responsibility for being the voice of the company.

A chief executive must also decide what messages are to be presented and determine how and where to present them most effectively, striking a delicate balance between symbolism and substance, perception and reality. He must act with all deliberate speed to let the public know that he is in charge and that the crisis-management process -- and the company -- is firmly under control. In all of these areas, Exxon's performance fell short.

Exxon should now begin the process of resurrecting its stained -- but salvageable -- image. One way it can do this is by combining symbolism with substance: establish a permanent fund (financed by a percentage of the profits from each gallon of gas sold at the pump) to help preserve and protect the environment. Proceeds from this fund could be used to preserve ecologically sensitive land areas, oceans and fish and wildlife regions of the United States. If Exxon does this, after the crisis ends, it can begin the cleanup of its image.

Steven Fink served on the Governor of Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island crisis management team. He is president of the Lexicon Communications Corporation and author of "Crisis

Management: Planning for the Inevitable."






Spotlight on Crisis PR Firms By JAMES NASH Los Angeles Business Journal Staff

When nearly 40 people fell ill from suspected E. coli exposure from eating at Pat & Oscar’s restaurants in 2003, the restaurant chain’s owners did more than apologize. They quickly severed ties with the supplier of the allegedly tainted lettuce. They set up a toll-free phone number for patrons who feared poisoning. And over the course of a weekend, they gave out more than $500,000 in free food to lure skittish customers back.

Worldwide Restaurant Concepts Inc., the Sherman Oaks-based owner of Pat & Oscar’s, didn’t come up with those ideas on its own. It turned to one of a growing number of crisis-management specialists in Southern California: Pasadena-based Lexicon Communications Corp.

While the E. coli scare caused same-store sales at Pat & Oscar’s to drop 13.6 percent last year, the strategies at least stemmed what could have been potentially fatal damage.

Lexicon occupies a growing niche within the public-relations industry: helping companies defuse potential crises.

“There’s always been steady growth in this field,” said Steven Fink, president of Lexicon, which was founded in 1983. “What’s driving the growth now is that CEOs are seeing other companies’ mistakes and realize they don’t want to repeat them.”

As a field, modern crisis management dates back to the early 1980s, when Johnson & Johnson had to handle the nightmarish Tylenol episode, in which capsules of the popular product had been laced with cyanide. Seven people were killed. Since then, crisis-management specialists have become an accepted part of the public relations field.

It’s impossible to gauge the number of crisis-management specialists since the field covers a range of practitioners – from those working for major PR firms to small shops that specialize in certain areas.

Excerpted from the Los Angeles Business Journal March 28, 2005

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Where Wendy’s Went Wrong: Critical Lessons in Crisis Management

By Steven Fink

When it was first reported in the media that someone claimed to have found part of a finger in a cup of chili served at a Wendy’s restaurant, it seemed the fast food chain was off to a flying start in its initial handling of the crisis. Within only a day or two, the local franchise operator in California handed off the event to the corporate office in Ohio, and the parent company was able to swiftly announce with assurance that wherever the finger came from, it did not come from any Wendy’s employees or food suppliers – the obvious places to look.

As someone who has managed crises for clients in all fields – including fast food restaurant and other food industry clients – for more than two decades, I observed Wendy’s crisis management efforts with professional interest. After Wendy’s skillfully navigated the first, usually treacherous 24 or so hours, I was prepared to see the company skillfully and successfully manage the crisis.

But then the company suffered a brain cramp, and it was all downhill from there. Wendy’s seemed to have run out of ideas of what to do next, which is astonishing when you consider how many other successfully handled crises there are to learn from – including some well-known hoax crises – in the food industry. Crisis Management by now is a well-documented road map, but Wendy’s executives never opened the map.

Worse, they completely lost sight of the actual crisis.

This is a common mistake for companies inexperienced in crisis management. The finger in the chili was not the keystone crisis: it was an event that caused a massive crisis of confidence in the public’s mind having to do with the safety and cleanliness and quality of Wendy’s food. In short: A crisis of perception. That is why sales plummeted by a reported 50 percent. At no time did the company take any proactive steps to assure customers that it was safe to eat at Wendy’s, nor did it offer up any outside food or health experts to speak to the news media on its behalf.

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When Pepsi was the target of a widely-publicized hoax claiming hypodermic syringes were found in cans of its soda, no less a personage than then-FDA Commissioner David Kessler appeared on all the morning talk shows and even “Nightline” to attest to the company’s long record of food safety and the fact that the syringe story was an obvious hoax. No one went to bat for Wendy’s.

In a crisis, perception always trumps reality. Wendy’s should have removed chili from its menu just to send an unmistakable message that it was taking all possible steps to assure customer safety. Chili isn’t even its core product – it’s hamburgers – so removing chili would not have crippled the company financially. Even if Wendy’s knew the claim to have been a hoax (see below), removing a “questionable” product is an important message to consumers and would have helped stem the exodus of customers. One message the company could have adopted would have been to tell the public that it firmly believes its chili is safe, etc., but until it can get to the bottom of the matter, chili will be off the menu.

When Chicago’s Jewell Food chain suffered the nation’s worst outbreak of salmonella poisoning from milk the company produced in its own dairy, the local health department eventually said it was OK to resume milk production and sales, even though the source of the outbreak hadn’t been located. The company announced it would not re-open the dairy until the source of the original outbreak was found and completely eradicated. The source was never located and the company kept the dairy shuttered. Wendy’s took no bold actions to let customers know it would do whatever was necessary to protect their safety.

Wendy’s relinquished control of the crisis to law enforcement. This was a big mistake because the cops were focused exclusively on the “crime” (i.e., where did the finger come from?) which, as previously noted, was not the keystone crisis. Cops are only interested in catching bad guys; it’s not their job to manage a business crisis. Catching the culprit is unquestionably important, but Wendy’s acted as though this was the single most important thing to do and nothing else could be done until this law enforcement mission was completed. While Wendy’s kept upping the reward for information about the finger, no one was addressing the real crisis: the perceived lack of consumer safety causing the real lack of customers.

When the FBI scoured the country looking for the terrorist who laced Tylenol capsules with cyanide, killing seven, Johnson & Johnson let the cops do their job while the company worked on a strategic plan to bring the product back in a new and more secure triple-seal safety package. Wendy’s should have let the cops do their investigative work and the company should have begun actively working to restore faith in their restaurants.

Just a few days after the finger incident came to light, I told an NPR radio interviewer that the Wendy’s event had all the earmarks of an obvious hoax, and I couldn’t understand why the company wasn’t more outspoken on this point. Consider: If Wendy’s was certain that all employees and suppliers were in possession of their proper digits, and the finger was not “cooked,” then the finger had to be placed in the chili after it was served, or after it left Wendy’s control. Who placed it in the chili is important, but it is not essential to managing the crisis.



So why didn’t Wendy’s cry “hoax”? The public would have been receptive to that message and it would have helped defuse the issue. It is possible that the company cowered in the face of an aggressive plaintiff’s attorney. This is unfortunate, and may have been caused by Wendy’s own attorneys advising them not to say anything publicly due to pending litigation. But since Wendy’s did not have an independent third party (such as an FDA Commissioner) rallying to their defense and speaking to the safety of the food and integrity of the restaurants, who else was going to speak for them? If Wendy’s doesn’t defend itself, why should leery customers trust them and frequent the restaurant?

Wendy’s had no plan to entice customers back into its restaurants, even after a month had gone by. Offering a free milkshake and a cents-off coupon won’t do it.

When the popular Pat & Oscars restaurant chain in Southern California suffered an E. coli outbreak due to contaminated lettuce from an outside supplier, business dropped by a staggering 70 percent, and did not bounce back even after it was widely reported that the restaurant chain was blameless and the outside supplier had been promptly fired and replaced. It was essential for customers to actually see that it was safe to return there, so Pat & Oscar’s threw open its doors and gave free meals to customers over a widely-publicized three-day period. People waited in long lines out the doors for more than two hours. The news media covered the event for 48 hours, doing live remote feeds from the various restaurant locations throughout the day and night broadcasts, always showing the restaurants jammed pack with smiling, contented customers enjoying their food, and a long line of diners waiting to get in. The company successfully recovered its lost sales, and acquired many more new customers.

In the face of dwindling sales, Wendy’s announced it was laying off some workers and cutting back the hours of others. Think of the negative message this sends to all of the other thousands of workers in the Wendy’s family. Those affected workers should be kept on the job at full salary and benefits, and Wendy’s corporate office should have seen to it and picked up the costs, if necessary. (Insurance will probably reimburse the company for such losses anyway). Idle workers should have been given “busy work” to do, such as making and delivering free meals to homeless shelters. Keeping workers on the job sends a strong, positive message to other Wendy’s family employees that the company will stand behind them in tough times, and that the company is positive about being about to bounce back. Think how good that would have been for company morale!

When Tylenol was off the shelves for six weeks, McNeil Labs (with parent company J&J’s backing) kept everyone working – “busy work” if necessary – but no one was laid off. The company told the workers, “We’re coming back!” They even had buttons made proclaiming it. It not only bolstered the morale of McNeil workers, but the morale of every worker in the worldwide J&J family.

One of the biggest mistakes Wendy’s seemingly made was that there was no one running the crisis who had any real world crisis management experience. They also apparently had no crisis management plan in place in advance. This also is a common error, often made by executives who either think they can handle anything that comes along on their own, or find themselves in deep denial until it is too late. A crisis is a dynamic, fluid, turbulent and fast-paced state of affairs that requires someone at the helm who has successfully sailed treacherous waters before. Wendy’s ignored this lesson and paid the



price for going it alone.

Finally, can Wendy’s recover? Yes, it can if the company wises up and starts to focus on the issues that really matter. When Jack in the Box suffered an E. coli outbreak and four youngsters died, people were writing the company’s epitaph. But by adopting certain crisis management practices and strategic initiatives the company today is one of the strongest fast food chains in the industry.

Wendy’s did plenty wrong, but it is still not to late to get it right and recover.

# # #

Steven Fink is President of Lexicon Communications (www.CrisisManagement.com), the nation’s oldest crisis management firm. Some of his food industry and franchise clients include Jack in the Box, Pat & Oscar’s, 7-ELEVEN and the Carl’s Jr. Trust. He is also the author of Crisis Management: Planning for the Inevitable.

June/July 2005




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