Crisis Management

PR pros can no longer assume their company or organization is immune to trauma. As a crisis communicator, when something horrible happen are you prepared for an immediate response? Do you have a recovery plan for your brand? A crisis plan that you test, and update annually?

A major complication arose when, on the eve of an important press announcement, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist reported incorrectly that Navy Pier would “sell naming rights” to redevelopment project which had been sponsored by a legacy gift.

No company seeks out a supply-chain problem, but Chipotle managed to turn this into a case study of transparency in action.

We need to get to back to the basics of reputation management because teaching principles of protecting an image should be sacred in PR.

To prove your value to big egos means having elephant skin. Owning a legitimate relationship with the boss is one thing, but picking him up by the lapels to convince him that his actions could have seriously unintended consequences is another.

Forget new year’s resolutions about losing weight, completing your first novel, hiking the Pacific Crest Trail while learning how to play guitar. Those sorts of resolutions just set you up for disappointment. It’s time to… Continued

As they wade into the 2015 pool communicators will be on the hook to show positive returns for a growing number of disciplines, ranging from online analytics to content marketing to mobile apps.

The PR fails are easy to remember, the positive PR stories, not so much. But we jogged our memories to come up with a handful of examples of effective communications and solid messaging in 2014.

It may have seemed like a good idea, at least on paper. Aggregate pictures and posts as a way to remind users of some of their milestones this past year. But the effort backfired miserably.

Rolling Stone inserted its disputed rape story back into national headlines by announcing that it has asked Columbia Journalism School to perform an independent inquiry into the editorial process behind the article. The journalism school will produce a report on the article, and Rolling Stone will publish that report unedited on its website.