A clear, concise and consistent PR message can alleviate the stinging sensation of being unprepared for the Y2K bug, according to a group of panelists at last Monday's PR NEWS and APCO Associates' "Strategic Communications for the Year 2000 Crisis" seminar in Washington, D.C.
Your company and clients need not only to care about the millennium bug for technical reasons, but need to look at the issue through the demanding eyes of investors, consumers and employees - any of whom could turn litigious overnight.
"The more confused your communications message is, the more fuel to use in court rooms to make it look like you're covering something up," says Joe Caribillo, chief legal officer, ULLICO Inc.
Caribillo posed a scenario to the audience in which a publicly traded telecommunications company is affected by the Y2K bug. The company's phone systems fail, the investors are alerted and the stock price falls.
"PR is the first line of defense," he says. "Even before the lawyers."
Caribillo noted that the Y2K problem unlike an ice storm or natural disaster: we know it's coming, so be ready. Prepare yourself for a jury who will want to know why your company didn't start preparing early for the impending Y2K glitch and why you didn't use your internal technical expertise, Caribillo warned.
"Set the tone internally and system wide so there are no inconsistencies to the media," he says.
Elise Schepeler, manager of communications for Y2K initiatives at IBM North America, says your most important effort needs to be media relations, since the media has often portrayed the Y2K issue in an "unbalanced and reckless" way.
This theory also holds true for Leslie Lamkin, manager of editorial services for the Nuclear Energy Institute, who has to ensure consistent communications across the nuclear industry and can't afford any disparities in her media relations effort.
She follows a Y2K communications checklist, which includes a Web site with a "Year 2000 readiness" icon. This area of the Web site is complete with a Y2K readiness manual and press releases relevant the NEI's Y2K strategies.
Aside from Internet communications, Lamkin's monthly newsletter goes to 6,000 policy makers and news media to convey this solid message of Y2K readiness. Schepeler uses phone, e-mail and fax to communicate this message with customers daily.
"There's virtually zero chance [that the plants] will release [waste material], she says. "The worst-case scenario is that the plant will shut down."
For an international company such as IBM, communication efforts need to reach all global employees. Schepeler told the audience about a consumer who called her Y2K hotline, but reached a woman in Dublin, Ireland. Within two steps, the caller got to Schelepler, the Y2K point person.
Having a grasp of consumer needs is vital to the PR concerns of Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association.
He says CEMA features a database of consumer products to tell consumers how products will operate when Jan. 1, 2000, arrives. Shapiro predicts that the hype over Y2K won't end on in January. Issues of product safety and liability will continue well into the next millenium.
Although most of the panelists, such as Lamkin and Shapiro, were confident about their organization's Y2K readiness, others like Scott DeFife of American Public Power Association were skeptical about some aspects.
"There are 2,000 smaller utilities run by cities, which is different that larger corporations," DeFife says. "We don't know about these mom-and-pop shops."
The biggest challenge to "these little guys," explains DeFife, is getting the larger companies to cooperate with smaller ones.
"We are convincing smaller members who don't have a large PR effort to get the message out to members," he says. To combat this PR pitfall, DeFife created a Y2K team that frequently sends out mailings to customers providing them with the scoop on Y2K.
Of the audience members polled Monday, about 65 percent said their company will be Y2K compliant by Jan. 1, 2000, but only half said they are 75-95 percent compliant today.
The operative words for Y2K success are doing and showing, not just telling, and that will make the difference in what type of press your company receives. Congresswoman Connie Morella (R-MD) used the Red Cross's Y2K brochure as an example of this hands-on approach to spreading the word about your company's Year 2000 campaigns.
The brochure is sent to key audiences and explains what steps the Red Cross is taking to prepare for the millennium, but uses details, not technical jargon. She explained that federal agencies are finally abiding by this PR rule of thumb, and coming forward to speak clearly and loudly about Y2K problems.
"The climate needs to change to cooperation and move away from silence," she says. "We need a wide dissemination of Y2K information... businesses can prevent lawsuits if they share ideas about Y2K." (Carabillo, 202/682-4909; Schepeler, 248/552-4023; DeFife, 202/467-2900; Lamkin, 202/739-8030; Shapiro, 203/907-7610)
Fast Facts About Y2K
- 22 Y2K lawsuits have been filed;
- There have been 200 out-of-court Y2K settlements;
- IBM receives 1 million e-mails per week about Y2K issues;
- The first government hearing on Y2K was three years ago; since then, there have been 18 hearings;
- By March 31, 1999, all government agencies must have a Y2K plan;
- Ameritech Corp. is spending $250 million to combat its Y2K problems;
- 65 percent of the companies worldwide will suffer a Y2K failure, according to The Gartner Group;
- The cost of government-wide repairs to fix the Y2K problem is almost $5.4 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget;
- The Federal Trade Commission Y2K hotline got 50,000 calls during its first month;
- Ameritech's Web site (http://www.ameritech.com) has received 11,000 customer queries about its product readiness.
Source: PR NEWS and APCO