Everyone remembers when the whole city of Boston shut down because of the “bomb threat” that turned out to be a marketing campaign for Cartoon Network’s Adult swim.
Well, the senior director of corporate communication at Turner Network recently visited University of Floria as a part of a Public Relations Student Society of America chapter event to talk about their crisis communication during the event.
The video is an hour (& not the best camera work) but worth watching.
Shirley Powell jokingly said there was not a “single person on our team would dream of this” crisis & subsequently they did not have a specific plan in place to deal with a marketing plan gone bad.
She shares the lessons learned from the 3-day crisis & her 175+ press inquiries:
- Strong leaders are better than strong plans. You need someone who can make decisions & be focused. Because they had a small team, they could work quickly.
- Facts are king. You can’t begin to handle a crisis until you know what you are handling. You have know what you are talking about before you can talk to reporters. There was a lot of incomplete information & the team must work quickly to understand the facts.
- You can’t count on a crisis playing out in your own backyard. What happens when you don’t know the main points of contact in the city where the crisis unfolds? Are you listening to the local media in that city? Turner hired a plugged-in Boston-based firm to assist.
- Quickly identify key stakeholders. This is PR 101.
- Count on chaos. That is why they call it a crisis, afterall.
- Plan to commit sigfnificant resources to resolve the crisis. That means money, manpower, attention - everything. All hands on deck. They ended up paying the city $2M in restitution.
- Have a high threshold for pain. Things may get worse before they get better. You might read inaccurate & unflattering information - you have to have a thick skin then get in to fight with the facts.
- Think in terms of baby steps, not always big ones. Everything matters so remember the small details.
- Know & assemble the best team possible. What skills will you need? How will you reach these people in an emergency (what if CEO is traveling)? If the first selected folks aren’t available, who are the back-ups?
- Establish one base of operations for the team & have people come to you. As information was gathered, it was delivered to a central location. Everyone heard information together, everyone worked in one room. No one left that area. This reduces the time spent scurrying around to brief people on the latest.
- Prepare statement focused on main points & develop an extensive Q&A. She called the Q&A their bible. It was “blessed” by the attorney, CEO, etc. They spent so much time working on this & then used it for every media interaction. It was invaluable.
- Designate a single spokesperson. Make sure that person is available at all time. Funnel all requests through that spokesperson. That person was able to stay on message.
- Be honest. Don’t speculate. Don’t give out unnecessary details.
- Over-communicate with core team. Make sure everyone knows the latest details & the message.
- Be prepared for everything to change. Flexibility!
Most of these are basic things we teach in public relations courses - but it is always nice to hear it as a recent case study straight from a professional in the eye of the storm.
She said this event “woke up the industry” regarding the use of guerrilla marketing & the dangers of these new types of campaigns. Sure, the ratings for the cartoon spiked initially, but she said no one at the parent company thought it was “worth it” considering the possible damage to their brand & corporate image.