PR  CRISIS  MANAGEMENT

A crisis is any situation that threatens the integrity or reputation of a company. Public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding, support and influencing opinion and behavior. There have been several examples of public relations crises that were handled. At the same time, there are even more instances where companies have failed to properly manage crisis situations. What can, and must be managed is the response. Each crisis situation is unique and, therefore, requires a tailored response.

Public relations is the systematized function that evaluates public attitudes and behaviors; harmonizes the goals, policies, and procedures of an individual or organization with the public interest; and executes a program of action to earn public understanding, acceptance, and supportive behavior.

In today’s competitive market, reputation can be a company’s biggest asset, the thing that makes you stand out from the crowd and gives you a competitive edge. Effective PR can help manage reputation by communicating and build good relationships with all organization stakeholders. Public relations is about reputation  the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. Public relations  is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behavior. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organization and its publics. Public relations take many forms in different organizations and come under many titles, including public information, marketing or customer relations.

A great example of a American company acting quickly is Breeze, who’s juices were contaminated.  Despite where  contamination took place (though it was found that some of their oranges contained the E. coli making consumers ill), they knew they needed to recall their juices. They also changed their methods of making the juice to avoid and lower the possibility of contamination. Breeze is a juice company that built its reputation  and its business  on providing natural  juice drinks to health-conscious people. After drinking Breeze drinks containing apple juice contaminated by the E. coli bacteria, 65 people, including many children, became severely ill. Then, when it looked like the worst was over, one of those infected by E. coli, a 16-month-old girl, died.

The company is still feeling the effects of the crisis, but its financial picture is improving. Its products are still on the shelves, customers are coming back, and stock prices are up, so the company’s future looks positive. The picture today might be very different if  Breeze had looked at the E. coli contamination problem from a purely risk management standpoint. Since risk managers seek to minimize the company’s risk it might have taken the very different strategy of denying liability for the contamination  or  of  waiting to act until the link to its products was proven. Instead, Breeze considered its philosophy and its customers in formulating its approach. In doing so, it protected its most valuable asset - good name. And that’s what effective public relations is all about. Any company runs the risk that a problem with its products or actions could affect its reputation. Having an action plan ready before crisis strikes will help you act quickly and correctly. Like your buildings or inventory, your company’s reputation is a valuable asset that deserves protection. Public relations, used properly, can help you protect this asset.

Every organization is vulnerable to crises. Used effectively, public relations can prevent a critical situation from resulting in irreparable damage to the business’s reputation and goodwill. Any action is better than nothing and it is surely better than the denial that some managers tend to do with the public and the press. A better action is to choose a well-trained spokesperson that can give the bad news in a ″sweet″ way in order to gain the respect of the people and at the same time not expose every detail that is harmful. During a crisis, effective spokespersons must, through their non-verbal cues, leave their audiences with the impression that they are: compassionate, competent and confident.