Switching on to crisis PR mode

By DITA DE BONI

In the mid-1980s in the United States, the phrase "crisis PR" gained almost as much publicity as other hip phrases of the age that included "Greed is Good," "Just do it" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

The case that established "crisis PR" was sparked when someone tampered with bottles of Johnson & Johnson's headache medication Tylenol - a household brand similar in stature to Panadol in New Zealand. Seven people died from taking cyanide-laced capsules from regular-looking bottles.

Johnson & Johnson had a choice: it could deny that tampering had taken place, it could ignore the problem or take action.

The company chose the third option, recalling every packet of Tylenol in America, and immediately gained a reputation for being committed to customer care that far outweighed its pre-crisis standing.

"Crisis PR," the management of fallout from a crisis, was a phrase coined soon after.

But despite this lesson for corporations, it seems many have still not grasped the essentials of managing a potentially disastrous situation, especially where public safety is at risk of being compromised.

A string of high-profile gaffes have followed in Tylenol's wake.

Sports gear company Nike took forever to come clean about human rights abuses in some of its contract factories. Water giant Perrier refused to admit that a potential contamination of its water had occurred. Exxon-Valdez endures as an evocative by-word for corporate irresponsibility.

Worse than lying by omission is bad PR.

In the early 90s, an internal memo from US-based bleach manufacturer Clorox was leaked to Greenpeace, causing a PR disaster for the company.

The memo suggested methods of damage control, including discrediting scientific findings of chlorine-linked cancers, branding Greenpeace as a band of violent "eco-terrorists," suing newspaper columnists who advocated the use of non-toxic bleaches and "immunising" Government officials.

Crises which have spiralled out of control - often with the help of bad PR - still occur: think mad-cow, Firestone tyres and sexual harassment in the armed forces.

Can Air New Zealand be added to the list over its handling of the Ansett Australia affair?

On April 7, safety inspectors uncovered engine-mount cracks in Ansett 767-200 planes, but Air NZ boss Gary Toomey spoke to the media on the issue only when he was Australia-bound to engage in a bit of damage control.

On Sunday, Mr Toomey headed for Melbourne to check Ansett's problems, and was ambushed by Australians who felt they were being kept in the dark by Ansett's Kiwi owners.

But Air NZ's usual PR tactic of sticking the most curmudgeonly employee on the press was thrown aside. A Herald photographer and reporter who happened to board the same flight to Melbourne as Air NZ spokesman David Beatson received unlimited access to both Mr Beatson and Mr Toomey.

The Air NZ pair then made themselves available to the Australian media.

Could one of New Zealand's most PR-adverse companies be wising up?

Hill & Knowlton managing director John Boyd said perhaps Mr Toomey could have gone to Australia sooner to meet the Australian aviation safety authority, and he was still not convinced that people fully understood the issues behind the grounding of the planes.

But "when [Toomey] appeared on TV, he appeared in control of the situation," Mr Boyd said.

"It did seem a while before they got it under control but that may have been the result of circumstances we are not aware of. It highlights the difficulty a company can face or inherit after a merger where perhaps there was not a long-term commitment from the previous owners of Ansett, or continuity of management."

Jill Dryden, managing director of PR firm Porter Novelli, said "once [Air NZ] was on top of information they responded very effectively."

"If it is a crisis involving public safety, it is essential to recognise the validity of people's fears or concerns and provide the appropriate messages of reassurance, regret, concern, remedial action and so on."

Klaus Sorensen, head of Weber Shandwick, said Air NZ had a big PR opportunity to put its "excellent" international reputation behind its subsidiary.

"Any good PR firm would advise that passenger safety-maintenance issues are non-negotiable from a passenger perspective, therefore they need to be completely open and show a commitment to quality solutions beyond mere words."

Mr Sorensen said if Air NZ opened the maintenance process to public scrutiny and made commitments to above-average maintenance programmes, "that would be a good start to reclaiming the ground lost so far."

"Ansett are going to need to win every major award for maintenance over the next few years, and preferably soon."

The PR professionals agreed that it was vital in a crisis for the chief executive to take responsibility and engender a degree of sympathy for the predicament the company found itself in.

Lecturers Brett Martin and Guy Mullarkey, of the University of Auckland's marketing department, said one spokesman and a consistent message was essential to manage a crisis.

"The whole organisation must be behind that one message and no one should deviate from it," Mr Mullarkey said.

Dr Martin said a company should focus on the successful solution and how it linked into the company's current messages of reliability or customer concern.