How to survive a brand in crisis

If your brand is in crisis, complacency will kill you, according to Samantha Allen, New York-based managing director of Ogilvy Public Relations Global Consumer Marketing Practice.

Speaking at the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA)’s Women in PR Forum on March 1, Allen drew case studies from BP, Toyota and Charlie Sheen as examples of ‘Brands that kick the hornet’s nest…and thrived, survived or nearly died in 2010’.

Last year, brands, clients and the general global environment has been crisis rich with BP’s gulf oil spill, the Toyota Prius recall, the European economic crisis the Haiti earthquake, floods, snow and volcanoes.

Worldwide economic losses from natural catastrophes and man-made disasters added up to $222bn last year and the number of deaths due to catastrophe – man-made or natural – reached over 250,000 in 2010, the highest figure for the past 30 years.

Two thirds of the 25 most expensive disasters in the past 40 years have taken place in the past decade, but Allen believes as PR practitioners, we can learn from such terrible journeys that brands and countries have been on to ensure our clients don’t suffer the same traumas.

She enthuses: “We see newspapers, bloggers and a variety of commentators talk about the way many of these crisis struck brands handled their communications. All brands receive criticism when they handle a crisis – it’s the nature of our world.”

As part of crisis management, she says, there is no perfect path and every crisis needs to be handled differently.

Toyota suffered a constant a barrage of criticism in 2010 as its PR was not seen to respond quickly enough or openly enough.

But Allen warns: “If a brand responds too quickly it can risk jumping the gun and not having all the facts. On the other hand, if it responds too slowly, it’ll be attacked for not having all the facts fast enough.”

Furthermore, in today’s media environment, there’s also the role of parody to contend with.

Allen explains: “Parody plays an enormous role in taking the most extreme elements of a crisis and taking it to absurd lengths. It’s these images that are remembered so as communications advisors, we need to be ready to see extremes and approach that by asking how the media and commentators are going to see our brands before they actually do.”

And there is some good news. Companies that take responsibility in a crisis can outperform those that blame someone else when it comes to trust.

Allen explains: “In a crisis, a client’s worse enemy is self absorption. The best way to deal with a crisis is to continue to communicate how the customer will come first.”

Consumer perception can become stronger after a crisis as it can show consumers the real you and transparency is a great place to start when building trust.

Allen concludes: “When it comes to bad news, the more indirect it is, the more likely it is it could have a positive effect.

“We may not remember the context in which we heard something, we just know it is familiar and we feel close to that brand.”

Melinda Varley (Ogilvypr Australia)