Crisis Management

It’s unclear how accurate the NY Times’ account of how Facebook responded to two PR crises is; Facebook says it contains many inaccuracies. The Times says it stands behind its 5,600-word story that took more than one month to craft. As a case study for students and practitioners of PR, however, it’s loaded with important lessons.

Vaporizer manufacturer JUUL Labs has gotten out in front of looming regulations on the e-cigarette industry by transforming its brand into stewards of legitimate and responsible vape use. Yesterday, the brand announced it would cease sales of its four flavored vape pods in all of the 90,000+ retail stores that currently carry its products, and delete all social media accounts but Twitter.

A sigh of relief emanated from College Park, Maryland, early on Halloween, when University of Maryland president Wallace Loh announced his firing of head football coach DJ Durkin. It was one of the few correct notes sounded during a crisis that centered on the death of a student and athlete Jordan McNair.

Google and NBC are both under fire this week for employees’ inappropriate behavior and subsequent backlash in the news cycle and on social media. Here’s a contrasting look at each company’s response, with commentary from PR professionals on how well each brand tackled its crisis communications.

The alleged murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has grown in intensity as a news story during the course of the past 17 days. Incidents involving the deaths of many more people fail to gain such traction. Several elements surrounding the Khashoggi incident may explain why.

Yesterday (Oct. 17) we wrote about the worsening reputation of USA Gymnastics (USAG). That post is updated with more bad news involving USAG. A former USAG president was arrested Oct. 18 for obstructing Texas’ investigation into Dr. Larry Nassar’s alleged crimes at the Karolyi Ranch. Our Oct. 17 post is updated with information about the arrest.

Having just a few extra minutes to monitor a situation can mean the difference between good and bad crisis management. The so-called assessment moment is at the crux of a free report from PR News and DataMinr, a real-time information discovery company.

CEOs and board members spend much time worrying about and discussing risks to growth, though a new study from Deloitte indicates they lack strategic plans to counter the risks they’ve identified, such as disruptive technologies and cyber events, which lead the list. The study also shows brand reputation and culture are receiving too little attention.

Regulators already are calling for an investigation into why a Google+ data breach that was discovered in March was made public only this week. Google claims the breach was minor and did not warrant sending an alert to users, though the data of 500,000 might have been compromised. A Google blog post, though, seems to want to hide the data breach, too, creating bad optics for the company.

Lawsuits are a part of doing business, which is what makes litigation PR such a crucial part of the overall communications industry and part of every brand’s communications strategy.

But now it’s happening to your brand. You know a suit is being released publicly later today. It’s potentially damaging.

So, what should you do?