You've bet the ranch on building your company's brand. And you've invested critical resources, with budgets enlisting all of the conventional wisdom to identify and establish a brand platform that rings true.
Your products actually fulfill the brand promise and you are attracting an increasing base of loyal users. You've pored over your proprietary market research, evaluated the trends and created innovative marketing communications programs. Heck, you've even picked up an industry award or two along the way.
You might say the future looks golden and there's nothing standing in the way of success. Or is there?
Which brings us to the lingering questions: Are you prepared for crisis? Do you have a "living" crisis plan in place that's at-the-ready so you can effectively manage issues before they escalate as well as handle a real crisis should one occur? If not, your brand and all that it stands for are at risk.
Let History Be Our Teacher
You need only do a cursory search of the literature to quickly uncover the recent, even classic, examples of crisis management that worked. Or didn't. There isa cornucopia of examples that point to companies that were not adequately prepared, but there are also those that reveal how brands recovered - even rallied. Then there are businesses which simply never overcame the public perception damage caused by crises gone unchecked.
The crises are almost as familiar as the brand names themselves: the Exxon [XON] oil spill (still remembered as the single greatest product/brand disaster of our time) and the Pepsi [PPO] needle injection/product tampering incident (successfully and quickly contained as an isolated incident in which the brand was also the victim).
There are also examples such as the Jack-in-the-Box tainted hamburgers case, a full-blown crisis with potentially long-term negative impact which, through open dialogue and innovative programming, was successfully overcome to yield a strengthened brand imagee.
Every day, news stories surface about local, regional or national crises involving products, people, companies and brands. They range from labor and fair trade issues to product safety, and from workplace violence to executive mismanagement. There are also natural disasters to contend with and class-action suits and manufacturing malfunctions and industrial accidents, even sabotage.
And, oh yes, don't forget transportation or shipping accidents, kidnapping, terrorism and lunatic lone shooters who vent their pent-up anger by releasing a spray of bullets upon the innocent (the recent tragedy involving two slain Capitol Hill police officers provides all the proof we need).
Conclusion: We live in dangerous times. Your brand and your company are not immune.
Prediction, Preparedness, Practice
At the heart of every viable crisis plan are three comprehensive elements that, when combined and used properly, create a powerful and almost bullet-proof protection against most forms of crises.
The elements, which I call strategic prediction, complete preparedness and practice, practice, practice are interdependent and vitally important. Without them, you will not have an effective plan and you will not be fully armed to protect your brand or manage your company's reputation from the potentially devastating effects of crisis.
Strategic prediction involves the thorough research and in-depth assessment of all aspects of your company and how it does business to uncover its potential vulnerabilities which may set the stage for disaster. From this strategic evaluation, it is possible to predict the types of crises that might evolve. Risk scenarios are identified and then prioritized according to the likelihood of the incident actually occurring.
For each risk scenario (ranked high, medium or low risk), appropriate crisis responses and actions are also identified. A game plan on how and who will handle the various possible crises and their permutations is then developed along with a wide-range of supporting communications materials and channels.
This, the preparedness phase, lays out a step-by-step crisis response guide, relevant contact lists and drafts of key documents that might be required to effectively communicate about, and contain, the potential crisis at every stage of its life cycle.
During the preparedness phase, key executives are also media trained using key message documents to ensure that all communications during the pre-crisis, active crisis or post-crisis/recovery phases are accurate, focused and effective.
However, the crisis plan is not complete unless it is tested, practiced and practiced again. This stage involves actual, unannounced crisis drills scenarios.
Because an adult's ability to learn is enhanced exponentially by doing rather than just reading or hearing, crisis drills take on an even greater prominence. Further, every practice session reveals lessons about the plan; the recommended responses; the company's internal processes; and people factors.
It's crucial to accept that a plan - no matter how thoroughly conceived - will be of no use sitting in a dusty binder on a shelf. In fact, it will do great harm, because it will create a sense of false security.
To be truly viable, and to truly provide brand insurance, the crisis plan must be thought of as a living, breathing ongoing management process. It must be continually updated, practiced and ready to go.
Barbara H. Hines is executive VP of brand marketing at Porter Novelli in San Francisco. She can be reached at 415/288-7420. Hines is one of the speakers for PR NEWS' "The Advanced Crisis Management & Media Relations Two-Day Workshop" Sept. 14-15, 1998, at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, San Francisco. Call 888/707-5814.