Expert Briefing: Issues and crisis management and the evolving media landscape

Philippe Jeanjean & Jenny Holliday 26 September 2013Outcomes Matter | Copyright Publicasity 2013

Our Experience

Actual work handled by Publicasity crisis team

• Corporate manslaughter trial

• £53m Securitas Robbery and subsequent trial Publicasity was represented on Police Gold Group

• Horsemeat contamination (2013) in UK

• Halal meat contamination

• Melamine contamination

• Simon Sing Libel trial

• Closure of UK HQ – major pharma company

• Various death in services cases

• Murder, kidnapping and other serious crimes

• Product recalls

Our Crisis Capabilities

Post Analysis• Capture key media on and off line

• Impact measurement

• Critique and hone response

• Learn from the event

• Report and benchmark for future

Implementation& Support• Highly experienced Publicasity team available 24/7

• Frontline Publicasity press office

• Strategy and messaging established

• Monitoring, reporting and story development

Preparation• Write a Crisis plan

• Identify business threats with client

• Involve all front line staff in protocols

• Rigorously train key spokespeople

• Scenario workshops to test plan and entire team

• Independently review and refine crisis plans

• Hone Q&A

Proactive Crisis Planning

The ChallengeAlltech is a global feed business with interests in animal nutrition which extend into the human food chain. Due to its size, international spread and diverse functions spanning manufacturing and laboratory testing and analysis coupled with sponsorship of major equestrian sporting events, Alltech’s stakeholders are many and varied.

The OutcomePublicasity worked with a cross-functional Board level team, now known as the ROC (Reputation Overview Committee) Group to put a plan and training programme in place which has since been rigorously tested on live crisis situations.

The InsightAlltech had the foresight to recognise that as the business moved into new areas, stakeholders that had historically been distant would become more influential to the success of the business.

The ApproachAlltech called on Publicasity’s expertise in crisis management to come up with a framework that could be rolled out globally and across every function of the business.

The functions required of issues management to avoid crises are:

• Identifying issues and trends• Evaluating their impact and setting priorities• Establishing a position for your organisation• Designing an organisational action and response to help achieve the position • Implementing the plans

Reactive Crisis Management• For 10 years handled all issue and crisis work

• integration of P&O Trans

• European affecting 32,000 employees in 5 European countries in a £140m deal that involved closing a Head Office and the loss of 00’s of jobs

• Death in Service issues and all HR matters

• Handled all media relations following road traffic accidents and health and safety issues

• Communication involved liaising with our client and local police to ensure accurate reporting, align communication and draft statements for the media

• Strategic consultancy on horsemeat crisis & Halal contamination

• Core link with client’s customers’ comms teams to align messaging

• Reactive and proactive media relations with national newspapers, broadcast news and trade media

• Many issues handled including planning matters in and around the Cranfield complex

• Succession management issues

• Reputational issues surrounding overseas partner universities in other continents

• Acted as main media spokesperson on behalf of client following £53m robbery from Tonbridge depot

• Part of “Gold Group” involved in setting Strategy with the Police during the

investigation

• Handling media communications on behalf of client around the subsequent trial at the

Old Bailey

• Issue or crisis?

• How does a crisis unfold?

• Case study examples

• Preparing for and managing a crisis

Prepare

Respond

Learn

• Any questions?

Content

Issue or Crisis

A crisis is:

• an issue that has got out of control by not being identified and managed properly

• a sudden event that happens without warning and is beyond control

Issues management:

• is not the same as crisis management

• is a planning process to anticipate emerging issues and deal with them before they reach crisis stage

• is proactive, social listening is key

Crisis management:

• refers to responding to a crisis and containing it once it has developed and been identified

• although it can be prepared for, is reactive

A few definitions

How does a crisis unfold

Impact of social media

Anyone can influence The long tailSpeed of Spread Lack of controlReal-time response

Who is involved

Industry Influencers

*Wildcard

Customers

Bloggers

Activists

Curators

Journalists

Employees

?

How does it spread

The Long Tail

Case studies

Unflattering Beyonce

Dominos Pizza

How did Dominos respond?

How did Domino’s do?

• Recognised seriousness

• Took control

• Responded via both traditional and social media

• Focussed on approach to core audience through CEO

• Apologised and communicated changes

• Launched Twitter as a response channel and to open dialogue to

regain trust

Outcomes matter

• The alert came from a consumer affairs blog site

• No employee policy for social media

• Delayed reaction

• No digital crisis management plan

• Lack of online surveillance

• Lack of social media presence

• Low knowledge of online influencers

Learnings

• Know your audience, you may know it’s a hoax but do they?

• Time is of the essence

• The internet is no longer about broadcasting what you want heard, you have to monitor all conversations not just those you’re engaged in

Twothingswedidn’tanticipate.Thefirstthingwedidn’tanticipatewasthepassalongvalue,orthepassalongnatureofthisparticularvideo,becausetherewasalotof“Man,yououghttoseethisgoingon”.Andthesheerexplosionofinterestfromthetraditionalmedia.

TimMcIntyre,VicePresident,Communications,Domino’sPizza

What was the impact?

Preparing for and managing a crisis

Ten point preparation

Tone of voice Develop internal policies

Cascade to businessDevelop social media crisis plan

Points of view document

Develop a taskforce

Stakeholder mapping

Media training

Messaging workshop

Crisis training

Confident TrustworthyApproachable

Professional

Social listening

Social listening

Example - Social Media Crisis Plan

1. Take a health check Where are you being talked about? What is being said?

4. Know who and where your enemies are and how they react

2. Use social listening for early diagnosis of an issue Monitor the brand Filter for issues Filter for influential influencers/commentators

5. Build a friendly network of influencers who can spread the crisis response

6. Containment Don’t try and engage everyone Decide if a response is appropriate Don’t censor comments Use video to get your message across

3. Test team responses Have they read the SM policy? Who is the go to person? Where can they get information from? How is information evaluated?

Ten point response

Communicate Escalate?

Go on front foot Engage in dialogue

Triage

Pinpoint spokesperson

Proactive or reactive

Follow messaging and toneof voice

Act quickly

Apologise and communicate change

Good things can come from a crisis

• Testing your crisis management procedure

• Refining early warning process – social listening

• Identifying new spokespeople

• Raising company/brand awareness

• Being seen as a responsible business

• Catalyst for change - learn from mistakes and implement changes – product, process, behaviour improvement

• Heightened awareness of stakeholder reaction

Any questions?

Thank you

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Contact:jholliday@publicasity.co.uk