It no longer takes a specific incident to propel a company into crisis mode. With today's media hungry for headlines and Americans' fondness for litigation, all a company needs is the possibility that something's amiss with one of its products and its reputation is thrown into question. And then your company becomes the media's latest target quicker than you can say Sally Jesse Raphael.
How to manage this sort of crisis was one topic covered at PRSA's International Conference held in Anaheim a few weeks ago.
T. Michael Jackson, global corporate relations director for Dow Corning, spoke on the subject by telling the tale his company endured when its silicon breast implant was feared to cause cancer.
"It was an issue of litigation outpacing science," Jackson says. Meaning, in the first half of this decade, only suspicion linked the implants to cancer. There was no scientific data supporting the notion. Still, speculation was ample reason for the broadcast world to take aim and it was also enough legal ground for a barrage of lawsuits. In 1991, 137 customers sued the company for its alleged negligence. In '92 the number jumped to 3,500. And in '95, it skyrocketed to 19,000, forcing the company to take cover under chapter 11.
"To take one of the cases to court would cost us $1 million, win or lose," says Jackson. "That's over $19 billion. Filing chapter 11 was a strategic step."
But, money aside, the fact remained that despite scientific evidence of wrongdoing, the company's reputation needed a major overhaul. Using the standard reactionary approach, getting the facts, developing a response and praying for the dilemma to end wouldn't work. The opposition wasn't some extremist group looking for attention. What confronted Dow Corning was a well-organized team with plans to hit the company as many times as it could. This forced Corning's PR team to adapt a proactive role when dealing with the onslaught.
Proactive in the Short Term
From the get-go, it is important to remember that handling a crisis is a process, not an event. Everything done to correct the dilemma should accessorize well with the company's long-term business plan. This means initiating actions that will help curb or stop future crises. And the vital first step in any business plan is how to deal with the media. All bad news, no matter how concrete or contrived, brief or long term, faces it. Being proactive means shifting the power of the reporter to your spokesperson. Debbie Wetherhead, president of Wetherhead Communications, who also spoke at PRSA's conference, suggested how to accomplish this shift.
The media loves sound bites and good quotes. Nothing pleases more than informational nuggets delivered from the source. To keep reporters (and their editors) from dicing your spokesperson's interview into digestible morsels, have your person list their points before speaking. Example, "I would like to make three points before I take questions." Then, as the points are spoken, state their number.
Numbering the points makes it harder for a reporter to interject other questions until your speaker is done. Also, editors can not leave point number two, cut number one and three, and expect a seamless presentation.
Proactive in the Long Haul
For those strapped to a long-term crisis, the key to surviving is community. When a problem has no real stopping point, PR teams must find third-party endorsers who can speak positively about the company and strengthen its eroding reputation. Endorsers could be the storeowner down the street who would hate to see your company go under or a business constituent who knows the crisis is trumped-up or even a company retiree. Either way, someone on the outside speaking positively about your company goes further than your CEO giving a million perfect interviews. Also, it's best if the third party understands the situation. As in Jackson's case, the crisis was fairly scientific. The people he put in front of the camera were knowledgeable about cancer.
While third parties chum up the media, company members must also do their part. Jackson suggested three points internal PR folks should keep in mind when developing a long-term strategy against a crisis.
- Keep the business separate from the crisis. The silicon implant was only one of 5,000 products produced by Dow Corning. Jackson divided the PR department into two groups, one handled the crisis while the other promoted the remaining 4,999 products.
- Segment your audience. Who is going to be most affected by the crisis and appeal to them. In Jackson's case it was women. Using the idea of community, he enlisted the aid of women who had the implant or were associated with the cancer society.
- Understand the issue. As with third-party endorsers, insiders must know the issue too. If it's a health crisis, the company spokesperson should know everything about it. That includes where treatment centers are located, the latest research findings, the side effects (if any) of the treatment and the customer service hotline for those with questions.
Jackson reiterated a number of times the importance of keeping your focus on the company's business plan while dealing with the dilemma. To deviate from your model could cause irreversible damages, far and above those made by the crisis.
(T. Michael Jackson, [email protected], 517/496-6443; Debbie Wetherhead, 770/579-9692.)