What's Got the World Talking?

Crisis Comms in a 24/7 World

• WPR • Season 1 • Episode 8

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In this episode of What’s Got the World Talking? we’re exploring the topic nobody wants to think about but everybody should: crisis comms. 

Brands have always had to deal with reputational risk. But in recent years, not only has the nature of the threats evolved – from business-critical cyberattacks to disgruntled customers on social – but the pace at which a crisis can escalate has accelerated. 

In this episode, Jane is joined by senior social media strategy director Alex Dixon and PR director Joe Price-Moore to discuss how the nature of crisis comms is changing, the brands who have given us masterclasses in turning a bad situation into an opportunity, and what marketers should do to make sure they’re prepared if the worst happens.  

If you're fascinated by the topics that get the marketing world talking, make sure you don't miss an episode of What's Got the World Talking?

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SPEAKER_02

Often the way that brands handled the incident or crisis, whatever it might be, can end up becoming the story.

SPEAKER_00

It will happen to you. It's not a case of if. This is chirpy. It's a case of when.

SPEAKER_01

And I think crisis can break on social, but it's fed by social too. Don't get me wrong, they did suffer financially and reputationally, but I think they've really rebounded, and I think that was all down to how they put integrity at the heart of the story. Major Crave a kick, can't. I really wanted a kit. I want to kick home.

SPEAKER_00

For me, it's it's empathy, transparency, and responsiveness. They ticked every box correctly.

SPEAKER_02

It's the call you never want to get, the one that heralds an impending crisis for your brand. All of us who've been working in marketing comms or PR for a while will have a story of the crisis that still makes our blood run cold, even many years after it has faded from most people's memories. So imagine this. If you were to get that dreaded call tomorrow, how sure do you feel about what happens next? If you don't know what the plan would look like, you need to listen to this conversation about how to handle crisis comms in today's 24-7 media world. I'm talking to senior social media strategy director Alex Dixon and PR director Joe Price Moore about everything from the brands who've given us a masterclass in turning bad situation to opportunity to the lessons we can learn from those who've got it wrong and how to make sure your brand is prepared if the worst happens. So hi, welcome Jo.

SPEAKER_01

Alex, would you like to start by introducing yourselves, please? So I'm Alex, I'm a senior social media strategy director.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm Joe, I'm a PR director.

SPEAKER_02

Well, welcome. Um, and we're here to discuss really happy, happy topics today. All things uh crisis management. So every brand, well I say every brand, most brands face moments of pressure or crisis or instance at some point. But is it true or are we just imagining this that crises feel harder to manage now than they did a decade, two decades ago, even?

SPEAKER_01

I could jump in here because I feel like this really relates strongly to my field, which is um organic social. Um and I think what's happened over the last decade or so is that real sense of both immediacy. So it's no longer journalist has got in touch, you've got 24 hours to respond, have a think about it. It's there's a really um scathing ex post, Facebook post comment, what are you gonna do about it? And there's an expectation that you will respond quickly. And not only that, now everyone is a journalist, you've got your seconds away from being tagged in a Facebook post, you're seconds away from an MP being tagged, a journalist being tagged. And I think that's changed the game a bit, and it's meant that people are at risk of being more reactive than proactive.

SPEAKER_02

I agree with that, and I think we're seeing increasingly that journalists will keep an eye on X, for example, and they'll see a crisis potentially breaking out. And we'll the first that we'll learn about it is the journalist saying, Well, I've seen something on on social.

SPEAKER_01

It's fertile ground, it's it's the blessing and the curse of the amazing canvas that is social. You've got such scope for brilliant engagement and showcasing your brand, but with that comes the curse, which is you've got such scope for a downfall.

SPEAKER_02

So that's very much the social media side of things. What about the media relation side of things, Joe?

SPEAKER_00

I think it's been quite interesting to watch the whole landscape shift over the last uh decade or so. Um, as Alex said, the we started off at a point where a journalist would get in touch, they've heard a rumour, they've heard some speculation, um, a picture might have leaked to the press. And now what we're looking at is that evolution um into the the kind of real 24-hour news cycle. Um, I think it started back when CNN launched the first kind of rolling news coverage around the clock, and that's what we're seeing now that these these crises don't sleep. Um, we're seeing, you know, weekends, evenings, early mornings. Um, there is opportunity for crisis to crop up at any opportunity. Um and it's not just, as Alex said, it's not just the journalists coming with these stories now. It's people on social media, it's people on Substack accounts. Um, you know, we're seeing these write-ups, we're seeing the the kind of evolution of the press. I think more recently, um, things like uh publications like The Mill in Manchester have been really kind of front and center of people's minds in that kind of evolution of the news cycle. And I think it's almost becoming a bit inescapable. Um, you can hide from a crisis if you want, you can put your head in the sand, but you are not going to escape it.

SPEAKER_02

It's not going anywhere. No, and I think crisis can break on social, but it's fed by social too because journalists can then just lift the comments on X or Reddit, whatever it might be, and use those to sort of show, oh, this is how outraged our how outraged people are. So I think we can all agree that crisis management was always hard and has got even harder as the years have have gone on. So, with that in mind, do you think the definition of crisis has changed? Is it not just about old school headlines now?

SPEAKER_01

And I'll be honest, I think the word crisis can be overused, and I think that particularly potential C-suite people might be quick to use it and say we have a crisis on our hands, but actually it's really important to look at the bigger picture and understand, okay, is this a potential crisis? Is this I think the term is smoldering crisis, something that is looming that could come our way and become a greater problem if we don't act? Or is it actually several people have sent me this and therefore I'm really concerned, but it's a really small news outlet, or it's one account with very few followers. It may or may not be a crisis. It could just be a difficult situation that we need to understand how we navigate.

SPEAKER_00

I I I think that's completely fair. I think the whole, I think at its core, the the whole definition of a crisis remains largely the same. You know, it's that kind of feeling of a operational safety, financial uh risk to the business. Um, you know, it's it's it's a risk to your operational standing. Um, but I think as as Alex said, I think it's important that we differentiate the kind of really serious health and safety violations or cyber attack type crises to Mrs. Miggins at number 42 has posted on X that she didn't like something a brand has done. I think there is a real difference in those tiers. And so I think it's important to take a look at, you know, is it an incident that has the potential to grow, or is this something that really is going to be front page of the FT, is going to be talked about by politicians on social, you know, it has that real risk factor that could damage your operational financial standing within the market?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I think again, we'll keep talking about social media, but again, I think it's probably made categorization of crises harder. Yeah. Because what can seem like a low-level crisis can, for whatever reason, escalate into something far bigger than you could have predicted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I I think what we're seeing as well is I think there's still a tendency from some within the C-suite of businesses to try and shield themselves. You know, this won't happen to us. Um, it's still conversations that we're having now. You know, we sh we don't need to be prepared. This will never happen to us, you know, from SMEs right through to the large corporations. It's that mentality of this isn't something we have to worry about. Our employees would never go out and say something that would put us at risk. Um, our security systems are the are the best in the world. We're seeing that completely unravel. You know, month after month, we're seeing businesses like MS faced with cyber attacks. Um, it's it's not something you can hide from anymore. It's not something you can just bury your head in the sand and avoid. It will happen to you. It's not a case of if this is chirpy.

SPEAKER_02

It's a case of when. Yeah. No, I agree. You can't bury your head in the sand. So, when do you think a problem can be handled comparatively easily? Like what defines an incident as opposed to a full-scale crisis situation?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, for me, it's about containability, if if such a word exists. It's about can we make sure that this doesn't develop into something with quick action, integrity, immediate response, like Mrs. Miggins at number 42? If we engage with her quickly, take the conversation offline, show that we're humbled if that is appropriate, um, and just make sure that there's a resolution. That can be a way to make sure that a crisis doesn't develop into something further and more public. I think where brands can stand to go wrong is I talked about overestimating. I think there's an underestimation problem, like you said, that oh no, this is fine, like we don't need to go back, let it go. Um, I think there is a risk brands, uh senior people in particular can do that underestimating.

SPEAKER_02

Often the way that brands handle the incident or crisis, whatever it might be, can end up becoming the story. That becomes a headline news rather than the actual incident. The incident itself is forgotten, is how the brands handle it that it takes over.

SPEAKER_00

Definitely. I I I think the astronomer saga that we saw unfold last year um with the CEO and his chief people officer, I think, kind of demonstrated that point really clearly. Um, you know, the kind of embrace at the Coldplay concert that we saw play out. You had 48 hours of complete and utter silence from the brands. And I think that's where you've got a situation that you could have controlled, you could have owned the narrative, but what we saw play out on social and within the press was employees talking amongst one another. You had individuals from uh consultants and analysts looking at this dynamic of the CEO with their people officer and looking at that how the power structures work within the business. They avoided the conversation completely, and ultimately it led to both of them resigning just a week later. So I think that silence can become a real risk if they underestimate um the potential for something to become a bigger issue than it is.

SPEAKER_02

And I think that is a classic example of a modern day crisis, if I can call it that. It was nothing to do with the company, and actually it was it was just the social media memes and the viral the virality of what happened that made it into a crisis. I think actually people forgot as well that there were humans at the heart of all this, and I'm not in any way seeking to justify or explain their behaviour, but there were husbands, wives, children that were caught up in all this, and it it just shows how something that should have just been a passing moment can destroy lives and potentially businesses too. And who'd have predicted a night out at a Coldplay concert would have ended in such drama, and it can precipitate a crisis, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And how do you think astronomer handled the crisis in the end when they did finally?

SPEAKER_00

I think some of that goes back to the preparedness of businesses or the lack thereof. Um, no one is expecting mounds of detail in the early response, you know. A brief holding statement, a brief Yeah, then it there has to be something from the business that says we acknowledge this has happened, we are looking into it, we are exploring um what this means for our business, what this means for our people. But I think it was the silence, it was the the silence that was allowed to fester across social media, across the news. You know, it became a talking point. You know, it became um something that chat shows could really kind of drill into, and there was not a word from the business. You've you've lost all control after 48 hours, you are no longer in charge of this conversation.

SPEAKER_01

Silence can be the loudest voice in the room. I think the likes of Uber, Yahoo, they were caught up in scandals because of the fact that they remained silent and concealment was the crisis. Um, when originally that you know it was all about sort of integrity loss and data hacking and whatnot. And had they have just sort of come out like MS immediately and said, this is a problem, we're in touch with the relevant authorities on it. Here's what we intend to do next, here's how it affects you. That is a way, that is a step towards trust signals. We've got this, we're handling it, we're confident, but hiding stuff, never a good look.

SPEAKER_02

So we've talked a lot about Astronomer and how they handled a very unusual situation, perhaps not in the best way possible. Can you share some examples of when you think a business has faced a crisis head on and dealt with it really, really well?

SPEAKER_01

I think for me, the the most personal example is the MS one because they were very good, I think, at putting forward a spokesperson and they kept And this is the the cyber hack. This is the cyber hack, sorry, recently, yeah, um, relatively recently. And I think what they did was they made sure that, like I say, they were in touch with the right people and they didn't hold back in saying, look, there's been a major problem here. We totally understand the severity of it, this is your data. You know, our brand personality is built on that foundational trust and sort of how we respond with customers, our alignment with customers, we get it, we've messed up. And I think what I found quite unusual from them was the regularity of updates. We're still working on it, this is where we're at. And I saw, I remember seeing on um Facebook at the time so many comments um on MS posts about oh, you know, Julie in the sort of um leads store is doing a brilliant job because there's been problems with you know online returns, and people were praising the team, and MS were responding to that, and it was just this great combination of positive sentiment. Now, don't get me wrong, they did suffer financially and reputationally, but I think they've really rebounded, and I think that was all down to how they put integrity at the heart of the story.

SPEAKER_02

I think they handled it really well because I think it made us feel very sorry for an icon of a British brand absolutely just come under attack. We were there. It made us remember how much we love MS. We talk a lot about MS in this podcast. We do, by the way, of a brand new. We're just fishing for sponsorship or free clothes. I don't know. But I think it's a great example. They did handle it very, very well.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and it's the ultimate, oh my god, moment to have hackers like that is, you know, that is the sort of um hacking is the new sort of form of terrorism um in terms of brands and what they fear. And I think that when you're faced with yeah, the ultimate um risk, how you come out of that and how you respond. I think one of the benefits of what we talked about earlier around the immediacy and how social media plays such a big role is I reckon now the comms team probably has more of a seat at the table at times of crisis compared to maybe 10 years ago because the exposure, the visibility is so much greater that actually it's not just what's what's our press statement, head of comms, it's got what's your opinion? Like, how do we handle this, craft the messaging? Um, so I think that is a benefit of you know the sort of the escalation with social.

SPEAKER_00

You can't just will your CEO out at every opportunity now to respond to a situation, it's not good enough just to stand them in front of a camera and say, you know, this is what we're doing.

SPEAKER_02

I think what it screams to me is the impression you got from MS was they were prepared for this. That not that doesn't mean to say they were sitting there waiting for a cyber attack. I'm quite sure they did a lot to prevent and avoid cyber attacks happening, but just how quickly, effectively, thoroughly, robustly they responded to it, you thought they have been through this drill. Maybe not that exact drill, but they had been through a drill. They knew who was going to do what, who was going to focus on which areas of the business.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Because it was handled so professionally. I think it does show the value of preparedness.

SPEAKER_01

I think it speaks to their alignment. I think where I've seen it go wrong before is when you've got the MD arguing with the head of marketing about what the stand the stance is, and ultimately time is against you, it's a pressure-filled situation. Um, when you are in crisis territory, if you haven't got a stance agreed for situations that you can foresee if you're in a particular industry, for example, um, then that's a problem. And clearly they had a playbook somewhere that said, if a cyber attack happens, this is what we will do. And like we said earlier, you cannot prepare for every situation, but you can agree, um, you can get that alignment across the board and and not waste precious time on deciding where you're gonna go with it.

SPEAKER_00

Having that team in place is so important. Um, that crisis response team is your it's your go-to. It's the those are the people that you're gonna turn to when things really go wrong. Um, and that means making sure that they're contactable out of hours. You know, how many of us have uh out-of-hours mobiles and email addresses for those around us that we work with? You know, who's picking up that phone when uh a social media post starts to gain traction or a video makes its way um onto YouTube? Those processes need to be in place at the earliest possible point. If you fail to get those processes in place, then you're already putting yourself on the back foot.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I agree. So let's take it to the real basics. So a client says we've got a potential crisis brewing, it could be it could come to nothing, it could go big. Alex, what's your immediate advice for what happens on on their social media channels?

SPEAKER_01

Well, my first question is, client, what do you know? Give me the facts, because I think sometimes you can find that there is a bit of an assumed knowledge or gaps to be filled in that put us at a disadvantage when we're trying to deal with a situation. So my first question is give us everything you've got. Next, I'm going straight onto socials and I'm just scanning every channel out there. And what is interesting, and you know, this always comes up in every podcast we've done, but with the rise of LLMs, citing the likes of Reddit, LinkedIn, you're expanding your search now. Um, I think 10 years ago, would I have checked Reddit if there was a brewing crisis? Probably not. Now, absolutely. Um, so I think it's a case of that immediate scan to try and understand the scope of the situation, where it might have gone, if the client is saying this is a press release that's come out on a you know potential national. My my go-to is their their social channels. Um they it can be quite a roller coaster because national media are posting hourly, sometimes more. Um, so you really do have to be quite thorough with it. You're looking for hashtags, you're looking for brand mentions, you're looking for anything that could be compromising, but you're not then going to the client and saying, Oh, we've got this wall of information, you're assessing it. This is the situation, this is where the current sentiment sits, this is what we're going to do about it, this is what we recommend. Um, would you carry on posting on your social channels? It really depends. I think it's like I said earlier about containment. If you can contain it and you can just deal with it offline and sort it out, I think there's a case to be made for just carrying on. If it looks like this is going to disrupt operational, business as usual potential to stop, pause, and think. But I think again it's so dependent on the situation at hand, and you have to think really carefully because you not continuing as normal could then potentially precipitate a crisis anyway.

SPEAKER_00

So you've got to be sensitive to the situation.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's where you leave the room.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's where that that kind of planning really comes into its own, is because you can stress test it. You know, no one likes the devil's advocate around a table, but ultimately that's the best way to prepare for a crisis is to think, okay, what is gonna go wrong in you know that one in a million, what could be the worst thing that could possibly happen and prepare for it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. I do err on the side of caution, I must say I'm a very cautious person because I've I've had a I've seen a lot on social media, and I think generally look at risk versus reward. If this post is absolutely fundamental, it's business critical, maybe it needs to go out. If you can stand to let it go for another week, probably let it go.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and I think it's a sensitivity as well. You've got to look at each post and say, could that be misinterpreted? Could that come back to that come back to haunt us? I think this wasn't a crisis, well, it was to me, but the death of our dear departed queen. We had a lot of clients say, Well, what do we do? Do we carry on posting on socially? If that is that insensitive, would the queen actually want the business, the the country just to grind a halt? And if we don't post, how long do we not post for? And it was interesting seeing how different brands handled that. I'm not sure in the end if there was a right or wrong way. It probably came down to brand values.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. I think what could have been a problem there, Jane, is if brands had scheduled posts that they didn't think to check, which has happened before, that may then be insensitive. Um an example I can give you, and I don't necessarily need to name names, but I recall that when um we don't want a crisis of our own topic.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely, absolutely names.

SPEAKER_01

Nothing be cautious, like you just said. Living and breathing it. Um but yeah, there was um when there were sadly terrorist attacks um in London, a brand, a very well-known fashion brand, hadn't thought to check the content going out and was very much Friday feeling, payday too. I remember this. You remember this? Yeah, yeah. And it just read so bad. They didn't read the room, they didn't think ahead. I didn't even think, I think they'd forgotten it was in some scheduling tools. Something we always pride ourselves on is we are very much that sort of scanning and planning, looking ahead. And I do remember actually, at the time of um the terrorist attack in London, we'd planned a client campaign that featured London very much as the sort of centre point backdrop. And and because of these checks that we did, saw the content was scheduled, it was a video, and we said, right, take that out immediately. Had it gone live, I think it could have genuinely caused a crisis, in the sense of it being like, How can you be posting this? So, absolutely being really, really aware of what's happening and not just hoping for the best.

SPEAKER_02

And from a media relations perspective, I don't think brands can look at Crisis necessarily just in isolation. If you've got a good working relationship with the press and you've been flexible, fair, approachable, helpful, whatever word we might want to use, I'm not saying you'll get away with a crisis, that absolutely can't happen. But I think you can get insights and maybe greater time for them to respond. Would you agree with that? It's not just how you respond as a brand in that moment, it's how you respond with how you deal with the media overall.

SPEAKER_00

When you're looking at a crisis, you're kind of looking at a few parts here. You're looking at the crisis that's unfolding. So you've got that kind of first 60 minutes, you've got the first couple of hours where no doubt, you know, journalists are going to be fact-finding just as much as you are. You know, if a story is unfolding, they are going to move just as quickly as you are. At points, you know, they may even have more sophisticated tools than you to be able to track some of this stuff. Um, so they are going to come to you and they're going to ask the challenging questions. And this is where your holding statements really come into their own if you deem it necessary. I don't think that's, you know, I think sometimes there's a there's a risk with the media. A journalist has reached out. I must get them something, I must get them an answer. It's okay to take a breath. It's okay to take a step back, as long as you're not leaving it days on end before you respond.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you're respectful of the journalist. That's the first thing I would do is say, when do you need a response? Bye. And you get them the response by. That's exactly right. And just that first conversation, it you'll the journalists will get a feel for how how helpful, not helpful is the right word, but how helpful you're going to be during this period.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and I think there's a there's a balance to be struck. A journalist at that point, when a situation is unfolding, depending on the severity of it, is just looking to get you into the story. They are just looking for that initial holding statement. I think there's a there's a real risk um with with providing commentary to the press in particular, that you you give too much away. And I think that's where some brands really come undone. They feel like they have to give the war and peace answer. A journalist has come to them. Here's five questions. I've got to give them everything that they want. You don't. A journalist is digging. The journalists wouldn't be doing their job if they weren't digging for the for the answers. And so it's your job as a crisis team to be prepared with the information that you want to give them. You know, not every question is going to demand an immediate answer. If you've got a health and safety incident, for instance, on site and there's a fatality, or you've got a product issue that's caused uh an injury on site, of course the journalist is going to want the information. What went wrong? How was it allowed to go wrong? But you've got to remember there are so many steps before you provide the answers to the journalists that need to be considered.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, you can't rush to give information because it could ultimately prove to be wrong and affect a legal case further down the line.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. There will be legal cases, the health and safety executive will need to be involved. And I think a lot of the times we forget that we've said before, there's real people at the heart of these stories. Um, there's real people working behind the scenes, um, and they don't even need to be employees. If you've got an accident on site, it's the family, it's the friends of these individuals. And I think that's where you risk giving too much away. No one should get the detail from picking up a copy of The Sun or the Daily Mail.

SPEAKER_02

You do have to speak to the family first. I've I've heard it been said before where people have some of the CEO, whatever, has put in a statement, you know, we have reached out to the family and are doing X, Y, Z, and then the family say no one's no one's reached out to us at all.

SPEAKER_00

And that's where that kind of process really comes into its own. It's it's having those those checklists in place and that order of priority, um, you know, stakeholder management is is a crucial part of crisis communications. If you're not communicating effectively with the families, with investors, with witnesses that saw it and were affected.

SPEAKER_02

It's a it's a long list of people. And the media is just one. And as you say, a holding statement can be. A holding statement is more than enough. Recognise this, yeah. We are currently speaking to the stakeholders. I wouldn't use the word stakeholders, I'd say who they were, but and make sure you're doing those things. So uh we've we've talked about MS, but because other brands and businesses are available, even though we're not the BBC. What other uh crisis can you uh incidents can you point to as the gold standard? You can be historic if you if you want to be.

SPEAKER_00

I think historic is is definitely one that I'd I'd go back to here. Jumping back, 1982, you've got the Johnson and Johnson Tylenol incident. Really quick summary. You've got bottles of Tylenol on shelves within chemists, they've been laced with cyanide. The result, seven people end up dead in the the connection.

SPEAKER_02

I didn't realise the number was that high. I was aware of the scandal, I didn't realise that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you've got seven dead in the Chicago area. Um, you've got a real kind of explosive story unfolding here. You've got a major pharmaceuticals provider. Tylenol is a massive brand at this point. Um, and so the response really, really matters here. And I think Johnson Johnson did absolutely everything right. They, for me, set the standard of what you should do. They had empathy in their communications, they were transparent in what they did, they were responsive and knew exactly what to do. They pulled 31 million bottles off the shelves, they communicated with 450,000 healthcare providers. You know, they were on top of it, they were on top of their game. And at every step, they were brutally honest about what they did and didn't know. And it very quickly came to light that actually the cyanide was nothing to do with them, it was all the result of uh someone placing this on the shelves in the chemists.

SPEAKER_02

So it happened post-production by the chemists.

SPEAKER_00

It had been distributed, it was it was nothing to do with Johnson ⁇ Johnson, but because the Tylenol brand was so closely linked to Johnson ⁇ Johnson, they had no choice. And actually, after a period of investigation, they still don't know who who carried out the crime. But what it did result in was brilliant communications and tamper-fruit packaging. Um, they listened, they learned their lesson, and they responded in a way that we would expect a big brand facing a major situation to do. And so for me, it's it's empathy, transparency, and responsiveness. They ticked every box correctly.

SPEAKER_02

And again, I just come back to thinking they must have, I know this was a long time ago and before social media was a thing, but again, you just get the impression it was a company that had prepared for that crisis. They have protocols they could pull out to say, right, this is what we do, you do this, you do this, you do this, we focus on this. Because you can't make that up on the hoof. No, you can't. You know, when people are done, that you you that's it.

SPEAKER_00

You you can't you can't always plan and prepare for this. But I think you know, that's that's the gold standard, but that's not to say they always get it right. Um, and I think that's that's the issue sometimes facing some of these big brands. They they can deal with a situation in a brilliant and effective way, but then they almost become too complacent. So, Johnson ⁇ Johnson, back in 2011, I think it was, um, there was the whole talcum powder scandal where they really went on the defensive. Um, you know, they the claims were brought against them for asbestos lace product, and rather than deal with the issue head on, they went on the defensive, and every bit of communications they put out was defensive in nature. And so I think they'd gone from the gold standard to being complacent. You know, this has happened to us. We responded brilliantly once before, we can definitely do it again. I think that's where you really run the risk of falling into the trap of not quite it can't happen to us, but it's happened, we dealt with it, we can definitely do it again.

SPEAKER_02

So, Alex, can you think of uh an example of when a brand has handled or responded well to a crisis on social media?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think the most recent one that springs to mind is when Kit Kat had truckloads of its chocolate stolen. And I think any other brand could see that as this is a real problem, we're going to just get inundated with complaints, but they just turned it to their advantage. And what resulted was a whole stream of that term we like to use, you know, branter, brand banter, other brands jumping on it, coming up with solutions to where the stolen chocolate had gone. So they leaned into the playful, the humour, and they're just being human about it. And I think it just meant that everyone saw the funny side and sort of we're on Kit Kat's side, a bit like with MS. Made you crave a Kit Kat. I really wanted a Kit. I want a Kit Kat. I wanted to kick it.

SPEAKER_00

I think the main question, Alex, is where have you hidden it?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, there you go. Yeah, yeah. So was it a crisis or was it a stunt? Oh, well, I I stand by thinking it was a stunt, and the reason I say that is their response was so immediate in the whole put the barcode in of your Kit Kat and find if it's one of the stolen ones. It was all just so slickly handled. So they either have an amazing team that responded really quickly and thought, let's turn this around and make it something advantageous to us, or they they planned it all along. And I'm I sort of think it's got to be the latter.

SPEAKER_02

I'm gonna disagree with you. I think because they just denied it was a stunt so many times, that's an enormous risk for a brand to take if you then get busted for the fact you lied multiple times.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's too risky.

SPEAKER_02

It's too risky.

SPEAKER_01

I can't see a brand taking that risk. Yeah, I did see a lot of debate about is it a stunt or is it not? And funnily enough, that created even more talkability around it. So it was win-win either way, whether we think it was a stunt or not. They they really managed to sort of ride that wave and and get us all craving Kit Kats right now. So I'm fancy a Kit Kat at the moment.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well, you are you are you stunt or crisis?

SPEAKER_00

I think when it first happened, it was so close to Easter that I was I was very much leaning on the team stunt. But I think as the dust settled, I was trying to really think about what they've actually got to gain from this. Um I I you know, I aside from a bit more kind of chatter on social, I couldn't really put my finger on sorry, pardon the.

SPEAKER_02

We're gonna tell everyone that we've had this lorry load of chocolate stolen and it's a don't trope, you know, like oh who's it's a whodunit, it's a British whodunit on social.

SPEAKER_00

I just think they were very well prepared.

SPEAKER_01

No, but again, we're back to prepared now.

SPEAKER_00

I think Team Stunt needs to take a break.

SPEAKER_02

Close of the day. We we love it. So can we also think of any uh examples of when a brand has somehow miraculously managed to turn a crisis situation into a positive PR and social story?

SPEAKER_01

Gonna make you hungry again, sorry, but absolutely KFC. Um, they had the mother of all problems when they ran out of chicken, which is, you know, the clue is in the name, it's fundamental to their business and how they operate. But like Kit Kat, they really leaned into you know what, a bad thing has happened, we're really sorry, but we're gonna have some fun with it. And I think what's really important about this is it aligns with their brand personality. You know, they are not a brand without humour, without playfulness, and they didn't go super corporate, like this has happened, we are sorry, they didn't go somber about it, and and actually they went full throttle the other way. So they they they put out full page ads with letters saying FCK as if to say, oh dear, we've had a problem here, but we own it. We more than own it, and actually, what we're going to do is use this to show the sheer demand. We know you will really want our chicken, we know we've let you down, and actually, this is a real problem for us. We're gonna launch an app to help find that chicken and and get it back into our stores, and everyone at the end of it probably just thought, you know what, I really fancy it KFC, it's been a while, I'm gonna go and have one.

SPEAKER_00

And that and that's that's really where the language comes into its own. I think the fact they really, really lean so heavily on their tone of voice.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, they didn't turn into a corporate machine. Yeah, brilliant.

SPEAKER_00

It wasn't, you know, we're we're sorry, you know, this has happened, this was the reason it happened, they just lent into it, they just ran with it. And I think that's that's so important. You shouldn't become a different brand when a crisis hits. Now, obviously, there's a time and a place for the corporate language or the seriousness. Obviously, if there's a bigger situation, we've spoken about you know, incidents on site or things like that. Obviously, that demands a much more careful.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, you can't stay away from the but this is exactly one of those where, you know, quite literally, no one has died.

SPEAKER_00

You know, the only issue is this does not have chicken. Now, yeah, as you said, it's a big problem for a chicken shop, yeah, but not insurmountable. You know, I don't think anyone is going to lose any sleep over the fact that they couldn't get their chicken wings that day. Um, and I think the way they handled it was just it it was gold standard use of language.

SPEAKER_01

Lean in, take a risk. Take a risk and a risk worth taking. Absolutely. And yeah, this is a podcast about crisis comms, so you don't expect to hear take a risk. But I think if it works for your brand, if it sort of aligns with your values, your tone of voice, your audience expectations. Like if you think about the people that will eat KFC, I don't think there would be an overly serious.

SPEAKER_00

You've got to be true to you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, you've got to be true to yourself as a brand. And I don't think the audience is going to expect an overly serious, um, complex response that you know talks about logistics and and corporate responsibility. It's like, oh, we've got no chicken.

SPEAKER_00

They almost earned that response.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

The social channels, I think, of fast food restaurants in particular, McDonald's, um, you know, KFC, Burger King, they're so hot on that tone of voice that actually I don't think it came as a surprise to anyone when they came out with that kind of bold phrasing and and use of language. They'd they'd earned that. They've been doing it for such a long time that to do anything differently would have been a surprise to anyone looking at those posts or the four-page ads.

SPEAKER_02

I think what it says to me is you can't you can't view a crisis in isolation. One of the best ways to prepare for a crisis is to have built trust and respect, trust overwhelming, but trust in your brand, which you do that by ongoing strong media and social media relations and through communications with your customers, consumers, whoever that that might be, you'd build up that brand equity over a long time. So if the worst was to happen.

SPEAKER_01

For me, that's a really good way to prove the worth of organic social in particular, which you know, you can get questions around is it worth investing in these organic social media pages? Absolutely, because that is where your brand equity sits. That's where your personality, relationship building, it all lives and breathes on your social media channels. Imagine if Aldi just had a website, they wouldn't get away with half the stuff that they're doing. And I think it just sort of speaks to that to make sure that your presence is consistent and it's widespread, and that you're really making sure you make use of social media, PR, all those different sort of tranches of communication with your audience. They all build this picture so that when something does hit, if it does hit, you've already got that sort of audience relationship built up and you've got the credibility in the bank.

SPEAKER_02

We've talked a lot about preparing for a crisis. Just practically, real life examples. How does a brand, a business, prepare for a crisis? What does that look like? What does it consist of?

SPEAKER_00

For me, the the first the first step is to really take stock of where you are as a business. What procedures and policies do you already have in place? It's amazing to me how many businesses still don't have a social media policy in place, you know, who still don't have key spokespeople lined up just for routine interviews. Um, you know, these are these are real core basics that you need to form part of a plan. Um you need to understand who those those people are, that who your audience is. Um, those are the kind of early steps that we should all be looking at. It's who are your audiences? What are the types of crises that that might impact my business? If you're a product-led business, then the issues you're going to be facing are very different to those of, say, a charity or a service-led organization. Um, you can't just copy and paste. I think that for me is where with all the best intentions in the world, some businesses really start to unravel in their crisis planning because they see it as a copy and paste job. You know, I've used this over here, I can do it again over here. Every plan should be bespoke to the business so you know who you're talking to, what it is you're responding to, but also so you know what to do as the crisis unfolds. I think having a kind of a core checklist in place of things that you should be doing as a crisis unfolds, but then also taking stock of what measures do you have in place post-crisis? You know, do you have um a feedback loop in place to be able to learn the lessons of a crisis? So for me, it's it's really that that starting point has to be take stock, what do you have, what's missing, and start with the bits that are missing because that's all going to form the basis of your crisis plan. If you don't have a social media policy, why not? If you don't have spokespeople lined up, why not? You've got to get this stuff in place before you can start thinking about a big picture crisis plan.

SPEAKER_02

But for me, it's identifying where are the crises most likely to come from. It wouldn't take a genius to work out that for a retail online retail brand like MS, cyber attack is going to be cheap amongst them. But starting with that, where are these crises going to come from and how would we deal with it?

SPEAKER_00

It's a lot of time and resource, but it's resource well spent. Because if you're not prepared for that crisis when it happens, you are going to be spending a hell of a lot of money responding to the situation as it unfolds. Not only have you got people that you suddenly need to be drafting in to deal with this, you've got all of the processes and procedures that you're lacking now playing out in real time. So you've got business continuity at risk, you've got potentially product shipments at risk, you've got investigations ongoing, and you've got no plan. So it might be an upfront investment, and it absolutely will be, because the best the best plans are an upfront investment. And I think that's the way you have to see it. It's an investment in your business continuity. It's an investment in safety and operational procedures, in in financial protection. It's an investment. If you see it as just another tick box exercise in business planning, then you've really, really misunderstood the value that a crisis plan will have for your business when a crisis strikes. And I and I stand by that point. It's not if, it's when.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well, I'm perhaps superstitious, but I think perhaps the more you plan for a crisis, the less likely one is to happen. And the less you do, you're going to guarantee.

SPEAKER_00

You've got to manifest it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And they always land, don't they, at like 5 p.m. on a Friday. It's the rule, Jane.

SPEAKER_01

It is the rule in the universe. But it's like holiday insurance. You don't necessarily want to take it out or want to spend the money, but you sure as hell don't want to need it and not have it. And I think the time to understand how you would work through a crisis is not when that crisis lands. That is not the way to do it.

SPEAKER_02

I think that's a really good way of looking at it. It's like uh like an insurance policy.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. And I think the litmus test is okay, you sat at your desk and you get a call, we have a problem. What are you going to do next? And if you're sat there as a marketer thinking, I don't really know, therein lies the problem. And like Joe says, it's just an investment that as marketers we have to take because it is a big world out there in terms of the online space, in terms of the media space and brand reputation, you spend so much time and money and investment as it is to protect that reputation, to build it, to grow it. Why would you then not take that extra time to maintain it and protect it?

SPEAKER_00

Definitely. Years to build, seconds to destroy. And I think that's the that's the crux of this. And it's an investment in those seconds.

SPEAKER_02

And what mistakes do you see most frequently with businesses and brands preparing for a or dealing with a crisis?

SPEAKER_01

I think one thing that I see a lot of is brands obfuscating and trying to avoid the situation and not being really clear and upfront. And I think sometimes, especially in this day and age, that can come across so badly to customers because with the evolution of brands and personalities, and we've talked about it a lot in other podcasts, bringing that human personal touch and not being overly corporate, that really jars when a brand then goes into that world where they don't necessarily communicate in a really clear, human-led way. So I think a top tip would be just make sure you avoid that altogether and just have integrity and be humble. I think a lot of the time it's the defensiveness we were talking about earlier. Brands can really stand to lose that credibility and dilute their overall voice and messaging and their ability to recover if they don't just own the issue where it's appropriate to.

SPEAKER_02

So, Joe, you can wrap up the podcast. What are your top three tips businesses and brands take into account when dealing with an impending crisis or breaking crisis?

SPEAKER_00

For an impending crisis, I would say that the first step is, you know, I think it's already been said, be honest. Be honest with your audience because that's what they're looking for. In that moment, they're looking to you as the voice of authority on the situation. So honesty and transparency will go such a long way. Respond in a timely manner. If you leave it 48 hours like astronomer did, you are going to shoot yourself in the foot. Um, and I'm not saying every business is gonna, you know, lose their CEO because of it, but it's a risk. Um, and I think the more timely you can be, the better you'll respond. Um, and I think finally it's it's having empathy in the moment. And I think that's really where a lot of brands come undone. They strive to give so much detail about what's happened or what it could happen that they forget that actually, as a business, you're talking to people, whether it's B2B organizations or B2C, there are people behind those keyboards. There's people picking up those newspapers, watching those TV broadcasts, listening to the radio. Just have take take a moment, take stock, and have empathy in the moment for the situation.

SPEAKER_02

I agree. Well, I'm off now to prepare for the worst. Um, but thank you very much, both of you, for your time today. Thank you.