Sporting Reputation

Organized sports are about presenting a level playing field for competition. When the public believes matches are fixed, it destroys that image and significantly hurts the reputation of the league and sport as a whole. In an article for the latest Crisis Management newsletter, Jonathan Hemus takes a look at how officials with the International Cricket Council brought their efforts up to par. A quote:

Before match-fixing erupted in Cricket, it's fair to say that the ICC's approach to reputation management fell short of best practice.  But with its subsequent deeds and words, it successfully managed the crisis on its doorstep.  In doing so, it fulfilled some of the key criteria of issues management.

Jonathan's article goes on to describe the crisis management steps which, although in this case used by a Cricket league, are effective for just about any organization.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

New Crisis Manager

The newest Crisis Manager newsletter is now up on the BCM website. This week, UK crisis communications and reputation management expert Jonathan Hemus gives readers a look at a successful case of crisis management in the world of Cricket. Following that, Jeff Chatterton examines one of the most difficult tasks any communicator faces - speaking with the enemy.

As always, the Crisis Manager newsletter is available free to your Inbox, just click here.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

BCM Site Launch

We are very excited to announce the official launch of the new Bernstein Crisis Management website! Every page has been redesigned from the ground up, and we invite you visit us and let us know what you think. Of course, the BCM site still offers a huge selection of professional crisis management articles, along with every issue of our acclaimed "Crisis Manager" newsletter, free of charge. To view the new page and get access to all this content and more, visit http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

McDonalds Does Crisis Management Right

In a year where major corporations are making blunders right and left, McDonalds went against the grain and pulled off a highly successful recall of tainted "Shrek" glasses sold as part of a promotional offer. Not only did McDonalds make things right, they went above and beyond, as this quote from a Time article explains:

"It was pretty brilliant," says Sophie Ann Terrisse, CEO of STC Associates, a brand-management firm, of the McDonald's response. "They came clean right away, and not only did they do what customers expected, they did more."

To wit: for every consumer who returns one of the 7.5 million Shrek glasses the company says it sold, McDonald's is offering a rare premium above the purchase price: a $3 refund for an item that cost $2.49 as a stand-alone purchase, and $1.99 with a purchase of food. "You've got to give them credit for turning the recall into a value proposition," says Terrisse.

Giving back more than customers actually paid is practically unheard of in the retail world, but by doing so McDonald's has made clear that, for them, crisis management and consumer protection comes first.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Ignoring Crisis Management

Spirit Airlines must believe in the old saying "There's no such thing as bad publicity."

How else to explain its woeful response to a pilots strike that has grounded the airline since Saturday?

"They aren't doing anything to get us on any other flight," said disgruntled passenger Joe Rose, of Sturgis, Mich., on Monday. "The only thing they did was threaten to have us kicked out of the terminal and arrested."

This quote, from an article in the Sun Sentinel, is a perfect example of what happens when an organization completely neglects crisis management. It's more than obvious that in any business that employs a unionized force there is danger of a strike. Having no contingency plan for passengers is nothing short of irresponsible, and Spirit Airline's reputation will suffer because of it.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Keeping the Wolves at Bay Reviewed

The most powerful men and women in the world today often find their hands shaking and words tumbling out in every direction except the correct one when faced with talking to the media.  There is something about that spotlight that makes us forget we are intelligent beings with something worth saying.  Jonathan Bernstein understands this and has come to the rescue. He has written  Keeping the Wolves at Bay: Media Training to help all those who come into contact with the media learn to respond with finesse. 

This quote from the blog of Joyce Anthony, which features regular book reviews and author interviews, explains exactly why anyone who may come into contact with the media will benefit from BCM President Jonathan Bernstein's newly revamped book "Keeping the Wolves at Bay: Media Training." For more information about both the book and the upcoming book tour, click here!

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

BP Buys AdWords

Well, at least BP hasn't done EVERYTHING wrong.

It is common practice for companies wishing to be found under certain terms on the Internet to buy AdWords, paid links which appear at the top of search results. In what may prove to be a savvy crisis management move, BP has purchased several keywords related to the Gulf oil spill and linked them to their own oil response sites. DailyTech.com has more details:

BP has a lot on their plate right now with a number of failed attempts to seal the well completely over the past several weeks and even more trouble with the publicity they've received in lieu of this oil crisis. Buying the search terms will allow links to BP's oil response sites to appear first before any other websites' when terms relating to the oil crisis are typed into Google or Yahoo's search engines. 

Regardless of motive, with any search containing the word "oil" turning up negative press for BP, guiding the public to places where the company can tell its own story is a solid idea.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Most Hated

Investment commentary site 24/7 Wall St has released its list of the "15 Most Hated Companies in America." Analyzed on a wide variety of data, including employee impressions, total shareholder return and reputation figures, the list gives a fairly accurate look at which companies are associated with overwhelmingly negative feelings. While headlined by the much-reviled AIG, the list does have several surprising results. How did these seemingly-innocuous companies make their way onto such a list? The folks at 24/7 Wall St explain:

Unfortunately for some of the companies on this list, they are widely despised because of the businesses that they are in. An airline or franchise operation which deals with millions of customers, particularly when its resources are stretched due to the economy, is likely to make a lot of enemies among customers and workers.

This result strongly emphasizes the need for ongoing reputation management efforts when things are going well, and doubling those efforts as soon as business or the economy takes a dip. Ignore this aspect of crisis management and your organization could find itself on the next list.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Hayward off Duty

While BP CEO Tony Hayward may not be resigning, he has finally succumbed to the pressure from critics and shareholders alike and given up his daily crisis management and operations control. CBS News reports:

Hayward is under mounting pressure to step aside, most recently from Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation" that the oil company boss "should go".

Shelby said Sunday the fact that Hayward attended a yacht race over the weekend reflects his "gall" and "arrogance," and illustrates why he should not be in charge of the company.

"I thought that was the height, height of stupidity, and I believe myself that he should go," Shelby told Bob Schieffer. "I don't know how he can represent a company in crisis like BP and ignore what's going on in the Gulf of Mexico."

Hayward is to hand over day-to-day operations involving the oil spill cleanup in the Gulf to Bob Dudley, a BP managing director who has helped manage the company's on-the-ground response since May.

While Hayward's behavior may have make it look as if he was already off duty, he was still very much in charge. With him out of the way, maybe BP can start to turn things around.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Inuit's Social Media Crisis

These days when customers lash out it is not through a written letter, phone call, or even email, they take their complaint directly to where the most eyes will see it as quickly as possible, and that means social media. We've seen this again with the recent crash of Inuit's internal servers which rendered popular online business software websites like QuickBooks Online and Quicken Online completely unusable for a full 24 hours. A post on the HubSpot Blog examined Inuit's situation':

While Intuit PR managers jump onto Twitter and make blog posts to reassure customers, other businesses see an opportunity to capitalize on the situation.  A Twitter search for #Intuit reveals a number of competitors, tweeting messages about the reliability of their own products.

While Intuit has apologized, many customers are not satisfied with the brief explanation that Intuit has given for the sites being down.

The public now expects straightforward conversation, explanation and apology from organizations experiencing difficulties. Not only this, but they want these conversations to take place in public view. For online crisis management to be successful, organizations must do all of this, and do it quickly. Falling short of expectations, even for what you may consider a valid reason, is almost guaranteed to result in reputation damage.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Congressman Flips Out

Flip video recorders are quickly becoming social media stars with their ability to capture, edit, and upload video directly to YouTube on the fly. While two college students set out to complete a project which involved speaking with Congressman Bob Etheridge using their own Flip cams were probably looking for a reaction, they got more than they bargained for.



The video quickly went viral, attracting millions of views on YouTube and being distributed Web-wide, causing a crisis management nightmare for the representative from North Carolina. With no response except a wooden apology issued on his official site, Etheridge is doing nothing to move past the incident and as a result it continues to grow in size and scope.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

BP's Future

In the midst of a major crisis the CEO is the face of an organization, and in the case of BP CEO Tony Hayward it's not a pretty one. Hayward has done a dismal job of crisis management from the very start and has dug a hole so deep the oil icon may never climb out of it, but would his resignation actually help BP at this point? In a recent Vanity Fair article Bernstein Crisis Management President Jonathan Bernstein was asked this very question, and this is what he had to say:

Not necessarily, argues Jonathan Bernstein of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc. “Nothing short of making it right to everyone affected will help B.P.,” Bernstein says. “I don’t think a resignation of any individual would make a difference to B.P.’s reputation. I truly believe that the company is going to become the Arthur Anderson of the drilling industry and get destroyed in the court of public opinion long before the court of law gets through with it.”

Public sentiment regarding BP is already at an incredible low. At this point even if they managed to clean the entire spill, which is all but impossible, the entire brand would still suffer from reputation damage for years to come.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

British Airways Floundered by Faux Pass

British Airways is extremely embarrassed over a photo that appeared in one of its articles in the latest London Heathrow Airport staff magazine, and for good reason. Yahoo! News explains:

The image accompanied an article spelling out the benefits of the mobile-boarding setup, which permits users of mobile digital devices to print out their boarding passes on the fly. The boarding pass reads "Bin Laden/Osama" and appears in the graphic panel of a user's iPhone.

What's more, the image features a frequent-flier number for passenger bin Laden — so much for all those airport terrorist watch lists — and has him flying first class on Oct. 26, 2010.

For the time being, British Airlines is sticking firmly with the statement that no one knows just how the photo made it into the magazine while undoubtedly conducting a hurried internal investigation. Considering the airline is currently dealing with major labor issues, it would be well served to prepare crisis management plans for other possible internal attacks before they occur.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

IBM Shares Malware

Call it a stealth attack: Attendees at this month's AusCERT information security conference in Australia received an apologetic e-mail last week from IBM warning them that gratis promotional USB thumb drives the company distributed came installed with an unintended freebie: malware.

Talk about a crisis management case..this quote from an InformationWeek article describes a situation which has the potential for significant reputation damage to IBM. The computer giant quickly notified attendees via email, but considering that the malware in question was a key logger, a program commonly used to capture sensitive passwords, it's unlikely that the owners of any computer where the drives may have been used will be pleased with the company. While the notification was a good start, IBM would have appeared more human and therefore reached more sympathetic ears if they had issued a public apology for the slip up.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Coping with Death

Death is inevitable, of course, but under certain circumstances an untimely passing can create trouble for your organization. In his article, When Death is the Crisis, published in the latest Crisis Manager newsletter, crisis management guru Jim Lukaszewski gives ten tips on how to cope with a death related to your organization. While many of the same rules apply to this as any crisis situation, dealing with death requires a particularly soft touch and compassionate tone.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Crisis Preparedness

There are five steps to effective crisis preparation. If you don't follow them before a crisis breaks, you risk serious reputation and financial damage, not to mention harm to employees or other stakeholders. In the latest Crisis Manager newsletter, BCM President Jonathan Bernstein gives a preview of one of his own professional white papers, called, "Crisis Preparedness Ins and Outs - Operational & Communications Response to Crisis." In this excerpt, Jonathan describes a procedure he developed to assess the possible crises an organization is likely to encounter:

A Vulnerability Audit is a multi-disciplinary risk assessment to determine current and potential areas of operational and communications weakness and strength, and to identify potential solutions, because weaknesses may result in emergencies or crises of varying magnitudes if not corrected. Ideally, every functional area of an organization is examined to identify anything that could lead to or exacerbate a crisis.

Along with several other valuable steps in the crisis preparation and prevention process, the newsletter article also contains a link where readers may request a full copy of the white paper directly from the organization it was authored for, MissionMode Solutions.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/

Ono Award Winner: Alaska Congressman Don Young

ONO AWARD WINNER:
Congressman Don Young



Republican Congressman Don Young (R-Alaska) has been given Bernstein Crisis Management's Ono Award for demonstrating the behavior illustrated by Ono the Ostrich, mascot of Bernstein Crisis Management's newsletter, Crisis Manager.

As reported on the Huffington Post blog and many other media sources, Congressman Young made this remarkable statement about BP's Gulf oil spill:


"This is not an environmental disaster, and I will say that again and again because it is a natural phenomenon."


Say what?  Wags must wonder if the congressman's head is somewhere other than in the sand.

New Crisis Manager

There's a new Crisis Manager up on the Bernstein Crisis Management website! In this issue, BCM President Jonathan Bernstein offers a glimpse into some of his best thinking on the subject of crisis preparedness with an excerpt from a white paper written for virtual command center provider MissionMode Solutions, a white paper you can also request from a link in the article. Following that, veteran crisis management pro Jim Lukaszewski offers his guidelines for what to do When Death is the Crisis.

The BCM Blogging Team
http://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/