Crisis Management

Royal Caribbean’s response following the Grandeur of the Seas fire—which included leveraging social media— kept media coverage balanced during the incident. For a week following the fire, there were more than 950 mainstream media pieces, 58.6 million impressions from Twitter and more than 3,375 Facebook posts—with 93% of the media coverage of the fire being either neutral or positive.

A consortium of several major food and chemical companies have spent more than $22 million to combat legislative action aimed at forcing companies to label genetically modified food (GMOs).

“Anything bothering you?” That was the question posed by my physician during a recent annual check-up. As he peered at my chart which was looking pretty boring in a good way, I wondered whether I… Continued

On the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, we can all agree that natural disasters of all sorts have slammed us before, and will slam us again in the future. That’s a fact of life, and one that communicators must be prepared to respond to, as a part of their overall crisis management planning.

The contrast between the two railway accidents offers an important juxtaposition in how to handle a crisis, and how not to.

Does it ever advance your communications mission to get into a public dispute that attacks journalists?

More than 300 communications professionals packed the Manhattan Ballroom in New York’s Grand Hyatt on Oct. 15, 2013 to celebrate the winners and honorable mentions of PR News’ Platinum PR Awards.

Winner: LIVESTRONG Foundation – From the Crisis Trenches: Blazing a New Trail in Communications In 2012 and early 2013, the world watched as Lance Armstrong’s fabled cycling career crashed. Caught in the crossfire was the… Continued

Immediately following the tsunami that hit Japan in January of 2011, with more than 10,000 deaths and two nuclear plants disabled, Japanese authorities were initially reluctant to act for fear of damaging expensive nuclear equipment and possibly causing wider harm than what had already occurred. Yet this is how almost all corporate crisis responses begin.

All corporate executives have one thing in common; at some point, they or their company will screw up.