Crisis management in PR

1. Types of crises

Crisis is an extraordinary event or some events which have negative influence on production, company’s reputation, finance stability; health or welfare of staff, community, public.

Crises in business may be of different types:

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Any of these crises can damage company in commerce, finance, property, image, reputation. The first reaction to crisis is panic, then perplexity. Information at the beginning is not full, or absent. Rumors spread very fast. The main task of PR is to make a huge volume of work and produce a lot of information for a short period of time.

Crises are very often expected: only 14% of crises in business are unexpected, the rest 86 % are quite expected. Bad management is the reason of 78% of crises. (Example: before crisis in Dow- Corning concern silicon gel breast implants came under fire from both the medical community and thousands of women who claimed that they were harmed by the product. When a crisis hit, the company treated the media as an enemy). But sometimes crises are unexpected:

Johnson & Johnson’s case of Tylenol when capsules laced with cyanide(начиненные цианистым калием) killed seven people in Chicago.

2. Crisis management

Company and PR- department must develop a plan of actions for crisis and means of communication with mass media. Although the crisis communication plan may not be utilized, it is better to act before a crisis may occur.

Two considerations can be emphasized in the crisis management plan:

* Demonstrate your commitment to good corporate citizenship by taking prompt and decisive actions to control problems in your operation

* Communicate swiftly and constantly to all appropriate audience in clear, straightforward, nontechnical language

Main steps for crisis communication planning:

1) Identify the type of crisis that may occur. Successful management includes thinking worst- case scenarios and preparing for them.

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Time is a major factor, especially if crisis occurs at night.

The most knowledgeable and appropriate people must accompany the spokesperson when providing information. A speaker should not obscure facts.

Never say “ No comment ”

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Provide a constant flow of information, even the situation in unchanged or negative.

Make media list. Be accessible for mass media by providing phone numbers.

Keep a log of media calls, return calls as soon as possible.

Train.

Crises situations may be even used for company’s popularity.

Case study: You are the owner of pyrotechnical factory, situated on the bank of a river. Local 200 men are engaged in production. Market is saturated with pyrotechnical products. You store 200 barrels of this chemical.

What type of crisis can you meet?

How can you prepare for crisis?

Glossary

To come under fire- вызвать град нападок

Perplexity- растерянность

Obscure- скрывать

Stonewall- отмалчиваться

Updated- обновленная

Log- журнал записей

Task for office hours –Develop a crisis management for given case study

Task for IWS- Types of crisis and their main characteristics

References

Mandatory

Aги У. Все о PR, Питер, 2008, глава «PR в бизнесе»

Recommended

Ф. Хенслоу, Практическое руководство по Паблик Рилейшнз, СПб, 2009

Political PR

1. Peculiarities of political PR

There are 2 kinds of political PR:

1) political technologies

2) PR methods

Politician spends 70-75 % of his time and resources on PR and only 25% on his own activities. In CIS the most wide spread are political PR firms (In Russia 60 % of all PR firms). PR itself emerged in CIS as a part of political election campaigns.

Political PR agencies work with politicians, political parties, government, non-governmental organizations. It is the most complicated and responsible activity as it deals with authority and public. Authority understands PR as a) formation of beneficial public opinion and b) creation of authority’s image. Authority is often criticized by public and in this situation both authority and public need mediator. PR agencies may act a part of such mediator. They may connect authority and public through elites.

Party of power-

Financial elites

Political allies

Political rivals

Elites recognize their social responsibility and are able to use their own resources to support power- and power will get social support.

PR strategy in the work with elites: to involve elites into political activities, to make them interested in politics.

Main goal of PR in the work with elites: to make active members of elites responsible for society, passive- to be tolerant to those who make policy.

2. PR methods as tools of power.

· Public opinion study

· Political programs promotion.- Politicians and political parties operate with programmes. Their aim is to imply their programmes, ideas and strategies.

Methods of program promotion:

1) meetings, speeches with public and target groups. Task- to fit their interests, criticize the common opponents (e.g. in the meeting with trade unions not to speak about 50-hour work week, but on social insurance).

Speeches and image of a politician at meetings is very important. In ancient times public speaking was the only means of communication, in modern times public appreciate this skill, too.(F.D. Roosevelt with his “ fireside chats”)

2) dissemination of information about programmes and events, meetings and speeches.

In addition to traditional mass media PR may add leaflets, posters, agitation, propaganda.

Newspapers and leaflets are the main instruments of political PR even nowadays. Printed production should have very simple texts, understandable even for people without higher education.

3. Governmental PR

Special principles of PR service in government:

1) all activities must be based only on research- scientific, sociologic, to make objective analysis of the governmental policy;

2) information from government should be regular (in Germany all ministers are obliged to call press- conference every week)

3) information should be sincere and reliable

4) government policy should be open

5) all governmental structures must act in coordination.

The main goal of PR in government is to form required public opinion working with different target groups

4. Press-service in PR

Press-service in organization is the centre of communication with mass-media. It may be independent department or a part of PR-department. Effective press-service requires highly qualified specialists. Its main function is the providing of links between citizens and PR departments in organs of power.

Main principles of press-service functions:

- informing of public about government decisions, activity and perspectives;

- providing transparency in government activity;

- promotion of legislature realization;

- analysis and expertise of socio-political process;

- mass-media monitoring;

- promotion of civil society formation

4. Glossary

Authority- власть

Beneficial- благоприятный

Ally- союзник

Leaflet- листовка

Agitation- агитация

Tasks for IWS- PR for political leaders

Tasks for office hours- PR for governments

Reference

Mandatory

Aги У.. Kaмерон Г. Самое главное в PR, 2004, crp.362, 373-382

www. president.kz

Recommended

ParsiganE. Proposal Savy. A Guide for Journalists.N.Y.1996, p. 24-26

www.prsa.ora/ tactics.html

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