A PR firm that isn't hopping on the crisis management bandwagon today is truly behind the times, for obvious reasons. As we reported in the May 6 issue of PR NEWS, many client-
side organizations have given in to the instinct to bury their heads in the sand and have yet to change the way they plan for unthinkable - or even mundane - corporate crises. But
as any good agency exec knows, the companies playing ostrich will be the first to call for the agency's services when crisis does strike.
So naturally, in the last several months, most agencies have scrambled to meet expected demand by beefing up their crisis management offerings. How? The changes run the gamut.
Some are launching new practice areas; others are adding key employees. Some are taking their show on the road and offering seminars, while still others have simply renamed and
repackaged the same offerings they've always made available.
Many crisis management experts say the new offerings don't amount to much and are really just the PR world's attempt to grab a piece of the anxiety pie. PR firms disagree. They
say what they're doing is strengthening and streamlining services that corporate America needs more than ever.
Calling in the SWAT Team
PR powerhouse Burson-Marsteller cut its teeth on crisis management with the Tylenol crisis of the 1980s. But last summer - pre-Sept. 11 and Enron - the firm decided it was time
to launch a dedicated unit for crisis work. It's called SWAT (Specialty Work Action Team), consists of the firm's most senior crisis counselors and boasts 25 people in six major
cities. SWAT's purpose is to support companies going through all manner of crises, from Chapter 11 reorganization to layoffs to disasters, says Dan Tarman, managing director of
Burson-Marsteller's corporate/financial practice in the west, and leader of SWAT.
"It was a good way to codify the stuff we'd been doing for many years and take that offering to the marketplace," says Tarman, who added that SWAT members "parachute in" and
are "on the ground" within 12 to 24 hours after a client suffers a crisis.
Instead of launching a new arm, other firms have beefed up their crisis management services through hiring - either creating vast crisis management teams with the manpower to
handle major crises, or adding a few, high-end strategic people.
Richard Levick, president of Washington, D.C.-based Levick Strategic Communications LLC, decided the best move was to bring on a former television reporter. He chose 30-year
television veteran Scott Sobel. Now, Levick's clients - mostly law firms - can rest assured that they have access to an expert with an intimate understanding of the media, which
has played a central role in so many recent corporate debacles.
"The media has changed a lot in the last 10 years," Levick says. "That 'gotcha' factor is far more the order of the day than it was a decade ago. Companies are now running
scared."
Levick, which has handled crisis PR for the Catholic Church and the Florida election recount last year, also has three former print reporters on its staff of 17.
Other firms looking to expand their crisis communications are snatching away industry veterans. Tom Joyce, a public relations exec with years of crisis management under his
belt from American Express, was hired away in January by Carmichael Lynch Spong, a Minneapolis-based firm intent on bulking up on crisis management and corporate counsel work.
Joyce says some firms, especially those that have been hard-hit by the economy and haven't had the cash to hire, have strengthened their crisis management offerings through
outsourcing.
Dix & Eaton, a 50-year old Cleveland-based firm, for example, recently launched a strategic alliance with the crisis management firm Chuck Webster & Associates to
provide crisis drills and training for clients. Kevin Donohue, Dix & Eaton's managing director for crisis communications, thinks it was the most logical way to respond to the
need in the market.
"Yes, you can grow capabilities internally, but you don't want to restrict yourself by growing by baby steps," he says. "If other people do things really, really well, why not
do things together?"
The management at New York-based PepperCom agrees. After Sept. 11, the full-service firm launched "CyberCrisisNetwork," an alliance with three other companies that focuses on
helping clients prepare for and recover from attacks on their computer systems. For this effort, PepperCom has partnered with the law firm Proskauer Rose LLP; the consulting firm
PricewaterhouseCoopers; and Stroz Associates, a cyber-crime consulting firm.
Since Sept. 11, PepperCom has also launched "CrisisRX," a crisis management offering that puts companies through a five-step preparedness program and follows up with needed
changes. Ed Moed, PepperCom's co-founder and managing partner, calls the CrisisRX a "proprietary diagnostic offering" that involves interfacing with the heads of human resources,
legal and IT at client companies and orchestrating a dry run through a crisis scenario.
Taking the Crisis Show on the Road
Other companies that have been doing crisis management all along are starting to move into new areas like offering seminars. Hill and Knowlton has handled high-profile
disasters for companies from airlines to power plants. This year, though, the agency began matching its own disaster expertise with complementary experience from organizations
like the Center for Risk Communication, Crisis Management International Inc. and Kroll Inc. to conduct two-day seminars. The seminars will take place in six cities during June and
July.
"We've been approached by a number of people who say, 'Come sit down with us and tell us how to do this'. This is an outgrowth of that," says Ron Hartwig, director of Hill and
Knowlton's U.S. corporate communications practice.
And the seminars are selling. Thirty people signed up for the first seminar, in New York, at $1,295 per person, $695 for a second person.
No matter what tact PR companies are taking, most are hard at work getting the word out that crisis communications isn't just the realm of crisis management firms anymore. Your
friendly full-service PR firm can do just as good a job, they say.
"Today, disasters that seemed like they could only be fiction have become fact," says Joyce. "Companies have to get prepared, and they're more comfortable doing that with a
firm they already know."
Crisis Fact or Fiction?
Some agency leaders are skeptical about the spate of "new" offerings other firms are suddenly rushing to market. In fact, Michael Kempner, president and CEO of the East
Rutherford, N.J.-based full-service PR firm MWW Group, calls them "ludicrous."
"Mostly, they're just putting out their press releases du jour, trying to create an image that they're beefing up their practices. Some are just repackaging what they already
had; others have no background in [crisis management] at all," says Kempner, whose firm has offered crisis management services for more than a decade.
Kempner advises clients to look for a firm that has had deep crisis communications practices in place for years to provide crisis counsel.
"If the firm hasn't been involved in crises for many years, they will not understand the multiple stakeholders and the totality of what needs to be done. [Crisis management] is
just not something that you can just suddenly decide you're going to do."
(Contacts: Levick, Levick Strategic Communications, 202/973-1302, [email protected]; Donahue, Dix & Eaton, 216/241-4632; [email protected]; Joyce, Carmichael Lynch Spong, 612/375-8514, [email protected]; Tarman,
Burson-Marsteller, 415/ 591-4018, [email protected]; Hartwig, Hill and Knowlton, 323/966-5718, [email protected]; Moed, PepperCom, 212/931-6116, [email protected]; Kempner,
MWW Group, 201/507-9500, [email protected])