crisis pr

When it comes to the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccines, communicators everywhere face a very critical situation to get the narrative right. Last month, when the FDA and CDC announced that there would be a temporary pause on the administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and people were rightly confused. After a few reports of “rare and severe” blood clots appeared in people who received the specific vaccine and the announcement came after nearly 7 million doses were administered. Once the reports were released the company Johnson & Johnson also released a statement about the newfound developments, using phrases... Read More >

All companies should be prepared for the inevitably of a PR crisis. It can happen to anyone, and it can be about anything - from a negative review to a failed event, or even a data breach. When a company is facing a PR crisis, it should create a response quickly and carefully, to limit the amount of damage the company’s reputation is going to receive. The prevalence of social media platforms also means that a crisis situation can instantly spread to all corners of the globe - and it also means that a crisis situation can be caused by... Read More >

Due to the ongoing pandemic, crisis communication became a part of the job description for external and internal communications professionals, which has led to plenty of different difficulties for employees whose job roles are constantly shifting. Fortunately, there are several ways that organizations can strengthen their crisis communication responses for the coming year, that include different forms of communication, virtual tools, and of course, plenty of empathy. P2P Communication In the past few months, there has been a noticeable shift from the traditional B2C and B2B communication, towards P2P (person to person) communication, because of the pandemic. As a result... Read More >

A company should always be well prepared before a crisis to be able to navigate and mitigate the situation successfully. This preparation is done with a crisis communications plan that assesses all possible risks for the company, audits for any vulnerabilities, and then creates responses for multiple crisis situations with preventative measures. Risks A crisis communications plan should detail all of the company’s potential negative situations that can snowball into a crisis, the response options for those citations, and then organize the responses according to the levels of severity of each crisis. The plan should also have guidelines about what... Read More >

After months of a global pandemic, uncertainty and protests have changed the meaning of crisis communication. Some experts in the field are going even as far as to say that everyone is a crisis communicator these days. With the insights of Zignal Labs, here is what all this means for the communications industry and what steps to take in this uncertainty of 2021. How has crisis communications and crisis response changed in 2020? This past year has altered the way we look at crisis communications and responses. More brands and companies are dealing with multiple overlapping issues on a global... Read More >

After a year of uncertainty and chaos, things have changed for crisis communications and crisis PR, which means public relations experts have to learn more new things to keep up with the new demands. The beginning of a brand new decade saw a world filled with protests, economic uncertainty, and a global pandemic to go song with everything, which has meant plenty of changes in terms of crisis PR. Some crisis PR professionals have even started suggesting that practically everyone has entered this industry. Although certain things have definitely changed in terms of crisis PR, specifically some strategies and tactics,... Read More >

Noted televangelist Joel Osteen is quoted as saying those words and then adding, “You can say something hurtful in ten seconds, but ten years later, the wounds are still there.” Richards Group was the largest independently-owned agency in the U.S., with annual revenue of more than $1 billion. Little did its founder appear to consider his words before weighing in on a conference call with his staff in early October. They were considering a recommendation by two team members to feature Black artists for a multicultural ad campaign for Motel 6. His reaction that “It’s too Black” and that it... Read More >

We conducted an interview Q&A with Kimberly Smith, Marketing Manager at Clarify Capital. There have been some PR blunders in 2020. Can you give us a real-world example of one? The Norwegian cruise line campaign #FeelFreeToFeelMore is a prime example of PR done poorly. The campaign, which premiered in March, skipped over the pandemic entirely, creating a disconnect between brand and consumer. Given that the advertising went live during a period of extreme uncertainty and fear, the branded message comes off as negligent and tone-deaf. Can you comment a little further on why their campaign was a disaster? When timely events occur, there’s typically an expectation... Read More >

What are some of the major 2020 crisis PR disasters? We asked some experts and got the following. According to Chris Norris, Managing editor at SleepStandards.com, “In this fast-paced digital world, with social media readily available to almost everyone it’s scary to make any mistakes, especially in public. Just thinking about it would be exhausting as the backlash would be massive that it cannot easily be forgotten. As a mental health professional, I know for a fact that it would be hard for someone to go through this ordeal. Although it is unavoidable, it can be corrected, and eventually, will pass.  Burger King’s Veganuary... Read More >

Between online misinformation, misleading advertisements, and social media trolls, today’s crisis management planners have to be prepared for any type of emerging disaster. Whether that’s on a familiar front or a new and unexpected one, the best way of managing a crisis is with a solid plan. These days, brands and crisis management planners have to keep learning new strategies that can both deal with and prevent a potential crisis quickly. Unfortunately, even big brands, that have previously gone through a PR crisis, haven’t planned on how to go about it effectively, until they were right in the middle of... Read More >