Save Your Brand from Crises-Related Damage
Posted: September 03, 2013
[caption id="attachment_11522" align="alignright" width="400"]
© James Steidl - Fotolia.com[/caption]Crisis - the unstable or crucial time when a decisive change is impending; especially one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome. Burying your head in the sand doesn't make a crisis go away. Here's how to make it through a crisis with the least amount of brand damage.
[caption id="attachment_11522" align="alignright" width="400"]© James Steidl - Fotolia.com[/caption]Crisis - the unstable or crucial time when a decisive change is impending; especially one with the distinct possibility of a highly undesirable outcome. Burying your head in the sand doesn't make a crisis go away. Here's how to make it through a crisis with the least amount of brand damage.
When a crisis hits, your main goal is to minimize the damage to your organization. But rest assured, even if you don’t feel you’re at fault, your brand is sure to suffer.
However, your crisis response can either mend relationships and cut down on long-term damage, or burn bridges. That’s why having a crisis management plan is so important.
Of course, plan or not, when the day comes and you’re staring the unfortunate event in the face, you’ll have to choose how to respond, and human nature is going to tell you to run and hide. Not literally—although you may wish you could. Have you ever heard a reporter say, “The company could not be reached for a response”?
Better yet, an organization’s spokesperson is being interviewed and hit with some hard questions and he chooses the “no comment” route. Yeah, that’s virtually the same thing as running and hiding. For whatever reason, organizations do it all the time.
Guess how everyone watching or reading that is going to react: “Ugh.” That’s right, they’re going to roll their eyes and assume the worst. The result? Your brand is toast.
It’s kind of like someone who thinks they have a severe illness—say, cancer. They’re scared to confront the issue or to know for sure what’s happening in their body, so they avoid the doctor’s office and fail to receive an official diagnosis. Secretly, they hope the problem fades. However, as we all know, cancer isn’t going to just die off by itself. It requires aggressive, specialized treatment. Otherwise, the cells multiply and spread through the body uncontrollably, consuming everything in their path.
Such is the case with a crisis. You want to believe that your brand name and customer loyalty are strong enough to carry you through the storm. In reality, your customer base deserves to hear from you. If they don’t, you can count on them assuming the worst. Not only that, media outlets will drag your name through the mud.
Work with the media, or become its enemy . . .
Read the entire article Can Ignoring a Crisis Make it Disappear?, at PR Daily.
Mickie Kennedy is the CEO and founder of eReleases and blogs at PR Fuel.