Taking the drama out of a crisis

The PR disaster surrounding Eurostar this week has left people amazed the company did not appear to have a crisis plan in place.
Thousands of passengers were stranded for hours and hours on broken down trains in the Channel Tunnel after the operator seemed to be caught out by the cold snap.
Travellers were left angry that so little information was filtered down to them by staff about what had happened and when they would get to their destination.
Of course, the whole world soon found out what a huge mess it all was as people began to send text messages and Tweets complaining about their ordeal.
It reminded me of flights I have taken, coincidentally (or not) both with Ryanair. We were stranded in Rome for eight hours and on another occasion I was waiting for nine hours at Shannon Airport in Ireland.
In these two instances the only information given by the airline was the occasional change in the flight time on the departures board.
Not a single member of staff came out to explain why our flights were delayed - if they had then maybe most passengers would have understood and calmed down.
As strangers chatted about their plight the overwhelming theme was along the lines of 'I'm not flying with this lot ever again'.
That must have also been the overrding feeling for Eurostar passengers last week. 'They obviously don't care about us so I won't bother travelling with them again' would have been in most people's minds.
Eurostar chief executive Richard Brown admitted as much in an interview with the Financial Times when he said the company faced a big battle to rebuild public confidence in it.
It all goes to show that crisis management is an increasingly important role for public relations professionals.
The ability to deal firmly with a potentially damaging incident or development and take the drama out of a crisis.
Martin Langford's chapter in Exploring Public Relations, Crisis Public Relations Management, cites the key ingredients as knowledge, preparation, calmness, control and communication.
Eurostar has since converted accountants and administrators from its corporate offices into temporary customer service reps at its St Pancras terminus.
But the horses had already bolted, as the saying goes. The damage has been done but at least the company knows that if the incident is replicated again they must be prepared and, above all, communicate from the start.

Christmas Number One decided by Facebook

So the power of social media has spectacularly destroyed the X-Factor’s vice-like traditional grip on the Christmas Number One spot.
Geordie teenager Joe McElderry, who won the top rating television music talent show earlier this month, would normally have been a certainty to have the Yuletide best seller on the back of his success.
But a Facebook campaign propelled American band Rage Against the Machine (RATM) to the top of the charts in an act of defiance against the influence Simon Cowell’s multi-million pound X-Factor empire has wielded over the music industry.
An astonishing 500,000 people bought the RATM single, Killing in the Name, to topple McElderry’s The Climb by 50,000 copies.
The Facebook page for the RATM campaign had almost one million members the last time I looked, many of them attracted there via discussions on online social networking sites like Twitter and interactive chatrooms.
What this demonstrates is the remarkable ability of the internet to bring people together to fight against something they disagree with.
And it has major implications for public relations professionals. It used to take time for action groups to organise themselves in opposition to new developments or environmental transgressors. Public meetings had to be arranged and householders visited to rally support and get people together.
Now it is easy to set up a website and send online messages to people regionally, nationally and even internationally to build backing for a campaign.
Supermarket chain Tesco have to battle a nationwide action group aiming to prevent it setting up yet more stores around the country to the detriment, the campaigners believe, of local businesses.
Unhappy passengers have banded together on websites to lampoon airlines and football supporters chatter away in cyberspace whenever they are unhappy about the way their club is being run.
PR people need to monitor these messages so they can counter what is being said in the never-ending quest to protect an organisation’s reputation.
But how do they tackle something like the monster created by RATM fans on Facebook?
Cowell was initially scathing of the campaign, leading to widespread condemnation of his perceived arrogance. Interestingly, he has since changed his stance and praised the initiative, even going so far as to personally congratulate the main organisers.
A clever PR move maybe but it remains to be seen whether the X-Factor winner will ever grab the Christmas Number One spot again to follow Shayne Ward, Leona Lewis, Leon Jackson and Alexandra Burke between 2005 and last year.
It makes you wonder what else can be influenced by the power of Facebook. Could the electorate band together to get a political party in power at the next General Election. Maybe dissenting voices on the social networking site could get together online to oust a Prime Minister.
A final thought. In 10 years’ time we might be talking about campaigns being started to break the hold of Facebook on popular opinion.

How best to regain a damaged reputation

I have been pondering the concept of reputation and how public relations professionals can best deal with situations where the image of their client has taken an almighty hammering.
Every day, it seems, the media is alive with the latest scandal involving a high profile personality. This was particularly the case in the world of sport in 2009.
We witnessed the remarkable fall from grace of golf legend Tiger Woods, whose acknowledged status as one of the greatest ever sportsmen has been soiled by his alleged infidelity with a succession of women.
His marriage is reportedly on the rocks and fellow golfers, as well as newspaper columnists, bloggers and comedians, have rushed to condemn and lampoon his behaviour.
We have heard very little from Woods himself, save for the occasional brief rambling comment on his official website. He is taking a break from the sport but has not fully explained the reasons why.
His silence led to widespread speculation through social media forums like Twitter where his reputation was attacked and ridiculed across cyberspace.
This has all blown up at the same time that another sporting hero – former tennis champion Andre Agassi – told the world he had taken the highly addictive drug crystal meth during his playing days. He writes graphically about the issue in his autobiography and explains why he did it.
Yet another sports icon, Great Britain sprinter Dwayne Chambers, has spent all year trying to repair the considerable damage done to his reputation after he was banned for taking performance-enhancing stimulants.
I got the chance to interview Chambers for a local newspaper last year as he visited a school to warn its students about the perils of taking drugs in sport.
It was part of a tour of the country where the athlete was seeking to garner public sympathy as he explained why he had resorted to cheating and how sorry he was.
The sprinter told me how warmly he had been received around the country and he was eventually welcomed back into the British team after qualifying for championships as a clean athlete.
Telling the truth and opening up to the public has certainly benefited Chambers, as it has clearly done for Agassi. The ex-tennis player’s book is selling impressively and he has enjoyed adulation wherever he has gone to promote it in book shops and on television and radio chat shows.
This is surely a lesson for Tiger Woods and his PR team. In an age when issues can be publically debated across the globe seconds after they are publicised it is not a smart move to lay low and hope the problem goes away. Telling the truth and showing genuine remorse is essential.
If you open up to the public they will take you to their hearts again. Exuding a sense of vulnerability is not a bad thing for a high profile individual because it shows they are human, like the rest of us.

Jury out on newspapers charging for online content

As an experienced former newspaper journalist I was intrigued to hear about a potentially momentous development in the industry this week.
Newspapers have started charging for online content in a desperate attempt to halt rapidly declining revenues.
Johnston Press is trialling the venture with six of its 300-plus titles with internet surfers paying £5 for a three-month subscription.
Newspaper sales are falling as readers seek their news on the net instead. Advertising proceeds are also dropping with the combined effects of the credit crunch and advertisers such as motor dealers and estate agents choosing to promote themselves on their own websites.
The long-term prognosis for newspapers is not encouraging with many industry insiders fearing they will all end up as online news services.
The advantages are obvious - there are none of the overheads of printing and items can be published 24 hours a day alongside videos and photographs.
But what about those people who prefer to hold a newspaper in their hands and flick through the pages on a train journey or during a lazy Sunday morning lie-in?
There are also older readers who are not internet-savvy and those in low income households who can't afford a computer.
The hope is that by charging for online content, newspaper publishers will be able to continue printing their titles instead of merely uploading content to the web.
The argument in favour is that local papers will cover council meetings, court hearings and sports matches which are not written about elsewhere so readers will pay to view them on the net. It is also relatively cheap at £20 a year.
On the other hand people have got used to getting their news free online and many will baulk at paying for it.
My own feeling is that unless every newspaper in the land begins charging visitors to their websites it won't take off.
I am also concerned that already overworked and underpaid journalists will have to toil even harder to keep up with the need to update their website 24/7.
The answer maybe is to invest in the online output by employing more journalists and training them in the art of video-making and photography.
Rupert Murdoch has been threatening to charge online readers of the Times and the Sun so it is clearly a significant issue in the industry right now.
It is difficult to gauge which way it will go. Charging for website viewing could be the lifeline newspapers have been searching for. But if people turn their backs on the online content it might also sound their death knell.

PR disaster for world's most popular sport

If I wander into my local town centre later on today and drop a piece of litter it will be spotted by at least one of half-a-dozen CCTV cameras.
It would lead to a small fine and possibly a couple of lines in our weekly newspaper.
On Wednesday night millions of television viewers around the globe saw France knock Ireland out of the football World Cup. Everyone of those armchair onlookers would have seen that the crucial French goal should have been disallowed because of a blatant handball.
Consequently, the Emerald Isle is in a state of national mourning and cyberspace is awash with twitterers and bloggers demonising the French team and key perpetrator Thierry Henry.
The only people who didn't see the handling offence were the only ones who could actually rule it out - the referee and his assistant.
This is because the game's ruling body - FIFA - will not sanction the use of TV replays to help officials get crucial decisions right.
As a result Henry is being pilloried as a cheat despite a previously impressive and unblemished career and the Swedish referee for the game is derided as incompetent.
The real villians in all this are FIFA and the French football federation, who are both ignoring Irish pleas to replay the game.
By doing nothing about it, they are missing a golden opportunity to brighten the image of football in the eyes of the world. Many see the modern day footballer as vastly overpaid and lacking in sportsmanship in their quest to win at all costs.
The latest controversy comes at a time when the integrity of other sports have been damaged by blatant cheating - rugby players faking injury and Formula One racing drivers crashing their cars to gain tactical advantages, while athletes and cyclists continue to take illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
Football has scored a monumental own goal and missed a PR trick by failing to agree to play this match again.
The least they should do is bring in video technology to help referees because it is clear that footballers, who are playing for such high stakes at the top level, cannot be trusted to do the right thing when a similarly controversial incident takes place in the future.
We live in a world where our every move is monitored by CCTV cameras and yet the football authorities decide not to use them in their multi-million pound sport.
Shame on them.

Jordan's celebrity masterclass

Watching a couple of episodes of ITV reality TV show I'm a celebrity...get me out of here! has been a real education for this particular public relations student.
Former glamour model Katie Price, aka Jordan, has been giving a masterclass for any aspiring celebrities since her arrival in the Australian jungle this week.
Of course she already enjoyed all the publicity she could handle with a TV show, also featuring her estranged husband Peter Andre, best-selling novels (all of which she admits she doesn't actually write) and a residency on the front pages of our tabloid newspapers.
Add to that the multi-page colour spreads in magazines and her range of equestrian clothing and accessories and it seems that Miss Price is one very busy lady.
So why has she pitched up on the other side of the world to a camp where the only food appears to be a menu of jungle bugs and where they sleep in the open air next to rats and snakes?
No prizes for guessing...it's all about publicity. Public opinion appeared to have turned against her as her messy divorce was played out on television and in the newspapers.
So what better way to win back that lost sympathy with the public than do a series of horrific bushtucker trials. It was clear from the moment she arrived in the camp -it's actually the second time she has been on the show - that viewers were going to vote for her to do every trial.
Now, Katie looks horrified every time presenters Ant and Dec break the news that she has been picked again but am I alone in thinking her reactions are less than genuine?
This is exactly what her press agent would have wanted. Prime time exposure on national television and, even better, people feeling sorry for her.
Fittingly, given the location of the programme, she has cried floods of crocodile tears as buckets of cockroaches have been emptied on her head every evening.
But there always appears to be a smile playing on those surgically-enhanced lips and a suspicion that she's actually enjoying it.
Every time a rat bites her ultimately means more cash from media interviews and publicity for her books and merchandise.
The show is dominated by Katie Price so how will ITV react if she is first to be voted off? It certainly won't bother her as it will give her yet another chance to cry buckets and finally regain the public's sympathy.
The secret of celebrity is to polarise opinions - get the public to hate you or love you. Just don't make them ignore you.

Is all publicity good publicity?

Recent events have heightened the debate over whether all publicity is good publicity.
This is a crucial theme for public relations students such as me. In many cases you might argue that being in the public spotlight can only be good for an individual or organisation.
An actor being interviewed on TV or radio, or being featured in national newspapers, can only benefit any film or drama he or she is currently appearing in.
Likewise authors publicising their latest work via the media or at bookshop signings can only surely result in extra sales.
Product placement in movies has long been a way of helping finance them and the economic benefits of Coca Cola drinks or Microsoft computers being used on the big screen in front of millions of cinema-goers worldwide are obvious.
But what do we make of the ongoing debate about Nick Griffin’s appearance on the BBC television political debating show, Question Time.
As the leader of the far right extremist group, the British National Party (BNP), many people believed he should not be given such a high profile stage on which to expound his views.
They fear that his appearance in front of an estimated TV audience of eight million people might persuade more people to join a party, which holds openly racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic beliefs.
The programme was almost entirely devoted to the BNP, which has secured two seats in the European parliament – one of whom is occupied by Griffin – and a number of local councillors around the country.
He may well have garnered some sympathy for the way he was pilloried by every other member of the panel and an audience which seemed vehemently against everything he stood for.
In fact, the BNP claimed afterwards that new members were eager to join the party and thousands of pounds in donations had been pledged to it.
But the crucial aspect of Griffin’s appearance was the way he came across to the public and how he explained his extremist ideas. Was it enough to motivate more voters to tick his party’s box at the next General Election?
Popular public relations theory would suggest that Griffin failed in his attempts to persuade wavering supporters of Labour, the Tories or the Liberal Democrats to back him instead.
The philosopher Aristotle said the credibility of the speaker was critical in whether he could persuade his audience to agree with his viewpoints.
PR scholars also learn about the findings of Perloff, who outlined four key elements by which listeners evaluate speakers – their expertise, trustworthiness, physical attractiveness and how similar they are to themselves.
Since Griffin appeared nervous, naive and historically and socially uninformed on Question Time, few potential supporters can surely have been impressed by him, if we are to go by the thinking of Aristotle.
Similarly, Perloff’s principles also indicate that Griffin shot himself in the foot, politically-speaking.
He did not appear an expert in anything he talked about and he cannot clearly be trusted since he appeared to deny making extremist and offensive statements which had been caught on film.
His sneering tone throughout the programme and his attempts to make light of the Holocaust and the Ku Klux Klan would clearly have portrayed him as unattractive in the eyes of most right-thinking people.
Since Britain is a multi-racial nation which embraces same-sex marriages and abhors everything the Nazis stood for, very few people will have thought that Griffin was like them.
Undoubtedly, there will be some new voters who will support the BNP as a result of Griffin’s television appearance.
But accepted theories of PR tell us that many BNP voters and potential supporters will desert the party because its leader does not possess the credibility to play a leading role in the political life of this country.
Publicity is clearly not always positive, I conclude. It may well raise the profile of a company, organisation or individual. But if that portrayal is negative then the act of publicity is counter-productive.