I get woken up every morning by an alarm on my Echo Dot going off.
I scroll through social media and read some emails before I read my morning
news, which is delivered directly to my inbox by a few different news
conglomerates. I watch TV while I’m getting ready and listen to a podcast on my
drive to work. My entire morning routine revolves around technology. It is
almost crazy how much I use it every morning just while I am getting ready for
work, and I am not the only one that is like this. We live in a world that is
very dependent upon technology, and that can be a great thing! I love being
able to keep up with my family and friends who don’t live near me! Without technology
and social media, I would never be able to talk to my best friend during her
deployment, but this reliance on technology, and our constant need to be
updated on events as they are happening, can be a hindrance to us all.
I studied public relations for my undergraduate degree. One class I
took was Public Relations History, and it is incredibly to see how much this
industry has changed. What was once a career where you could be prepared for
almost any crisis has now turned into a hectic lifestyle where no matter how
much you prepare, there is always some new event or story to make you think in
a way that you never had to before. Who would have ever thought that we would
be able to Ariana Grande was licking donuts in a shop as it happened. Or that a
commercial jet crashed before news could even get to the families of the victims.
The 24 hour news cycle paired with technology can be a challenge for almost any
industry, but prevalence of social media has done so much to make public
relations, as an industry, more difficult.
Now, PR firms can try and have a plan for crises, but they never really know what is going to happen. It
is vital for companies to have a plan in place, but what happens when the
public sees through that plan or some event happened that you never expected?
In the midst of the BP oil spill in 2010, the company thought that it was handling
things fine. BP waited before responding to the situation. They said that this wasn’t
their fault, they blamed the owners of the rig and the people working on it. They
tried to downplay the amount of oil spilling into the ocean. They made promises
they couldn’t keep. People didn’t like this, and a public smear campaign began.
A Twitter page was created using the handle @BPGlobalPR and some people saw
this as a legitimate outlet, straight from the company. It was actually a fake
page and posted tweets blaming BP and making fun of them like, “We are doing
everything we can to stop the information leaks in the gulf,” and “It’s hurricane
season now. Don’t worry! We’ve planned for that just as well as we’ve planned
for everything else!” It was nightmare for their PR team, especially when, in
an interview, the CEO of BP said, “… There’s no one who wants this over more
than I do. I’d like my life back.” According to an article
on PR Week, there is now a great need to train executives so they know exactly
what to say in a crisis. Especially with the 24 hour news cycle and social
media. Words can easily be twisted and reported without any time for fact
checking.
This crisis happened 10 years ago, and has been the center of many
crisis management case studies on what not
to do. One study
on the ethics of the PR response to the spill mentions that BP does the
opposite of what their plan for a spill would be: promising that everything
will be fixed. Even today, nine years after the disaster, the gulf has no
completely recovered. According to the study, the public would have been less
critical if BP executives took responsibility and seemed remorseful about the
situation. It would be interesting to see how the company would have handled it
today.
As difficult as it can be for national brands to have responses
ready for any crisis that could be thought of, I believe that it is even harder
to be a PR representative for a celebrity.
Celebrities have every move scrutinized. Kim Kardashian, for
example, has a large following on social media, and cannot go anywhere without
her photos popping up on the internet. Every day, people criticize her
parenting, her outfit, her body and her life choices. If she were to do
something scandalous, the public would know about it before her agent even has
a chance to draft a response on Twitter. In the summer of 2017, Kardashian
faced scrutiny when she was accused of using blackface to promote her makeup
brand. She stated that she showed the campaign photos to multiple people, but
no one ever said that they saw a problem with them. But the public sure did. There
were tweets, videos and article made about this scandal, including this
one from Marie Claire.
I, personally, know a little bit about being in the midst of a
scandal. When I was in college, my sorority got national media attention for
something one of the members said while on camera. Even though there were very
few people in the large organization involved, our sorority, both my chapter
and nationally were under careful watch. Not only that, but the entirety of
greek life on my campus. We were told not to wear out letter or speak to anyone
we didn’t recognize about the situation, as there were reporters posing as
students to try and get comments. Due to a change in leadership, and strong
support from our national leaders, our chapter was able to bounce back, but it
was a difficult year.I also worked as an intern in Washington, D.C. for a few different politicians. Let me tell you, that is an interesting thing to do if you are interested in PR. I got to witness crisis management first hand.
No company, organization or public figure is safe from scrutiny on
social media. PR agencies must work around the clock and be aware of any
mention of their client in the news in order to stay in front of unforeseen scandals.
Some people would say that the current technological atmosphere is
terrible for businesses, but let me end this post with one of the great things
that have come from it. Now more than ever were are able to see the everyday
workers in companies that we would never hear about without social media. We wouldn’t
hear the story about the front desk worker at a hotel who took the time out of
his day to make a young, autistic boy feel welcomed and loved. We wouldn’t see
the reaction of a young, who walked to work every day, receive a car from his
coworkers. So, while yes, we see so much bad and have the ability to fuel the
fire when companies are having problems, we also get to see the good people who
work hard for those same companies every day!
On a personal note, check out some photos from my time in D.C. If you have never visited, you should definitely find some time to go! The views (and food) are amazing!
Works Cited:
Bonner, M. (2018, March 29). Kim
Kardashian Is Being Accused of Using Blackface. Retrieved from
https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/news/a27722/kim-kardashian-blackface-accusations/
Case Study: BP Oil Spill. (n.d.).
Retrieved from
https://pagecentertraining.psu.edu/public-relations-ethics/ethics-in-crisis-management/lesson-1-prominent-ethical-issues-in-crisis-situations/case-study-tbd/
Leaf, B. (2013, August 06). How PR has
Evolved in 50 Years. Retrieved from
https://www.prweek.com/article/1207244/pr-evolved-50-years
Webb, T. (2010, June 01). BP's Clumsy
Response to Oil Spill Threatens to Make a Bad Situation Worse. Retrieved from
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/jun/01/bp-response-oil-spill-tony-hayward
When Social Media Becomes The Message:
The Gulf Oil Spill And @BPGlobalPR. (2010, June 27). Retrieved from
https://techcrunch.com/2010/06/26/bp-pr-bpglobalpr/
Failure is often the greatest teacher but is something most of us hope to not encounter often. Looking at failures such as BP’s response to the oil spill is a great way to learn what not to do, which is sometimes just as important as knowing what to do. We can’t always draft a perfect plan, but hopefully we can create crisis management plans and guidelines that avoid major pitfalls.
ReplyDeleteThe BP oil spill was a horrible disaster for the environment and wildlife. Oil spills are usually handled by quarantining the area, essentially blocking all sides so that the spill can’t spread any further. Once that’s done, the situation has been mostly contained and can be cleaned. In the PR realm, BP needed to contain the issue before cleaning it up. I believe containing this issue would have meant training officials on how to speak to the media, taking responsibility for the problem, and distancing themselves from unofficial pages. After containing the issue, they could then make promises to make every effort to fix as much damage as possible.
It was unlikely that BP would be able to follow the steps above and still have their reputation be fine, but it would at least not fall too much. Unfortunately, their CEO gave the impression that he didn’t sincerely care and was more worried about his life going back to normal than fixing the oil spill. Just like in the case of your sorority’s issue, sometimes it can be best to say nothing at all. While that wasn’t an option for the CEO all the time, his statement does sound like an emotional plea and an unnecessary part of an answer to a question. Sometimes, prepared statements sound better and make the organization sound more cohesive in its approach to resolving the problem. Anybody dealing with the media should have made the following points and not deviated:
• Accept responsibility for the problem as well as finding a solution
• Be sincere in apologizing
• State general guidelines for how to do better in the future
In these situations, less is often more. The media will often be combative with guest in an attempt to provoke a more interesting/salacious exchange. This exchange will then become a clip they play on repeat and use to attract views. While sticking to your talking points may seem evasive at the time, it gives them nothing to turn into a bad headline later.