Crisis communications online: best practices

How To…Communicate During A Crisis
Shabbir J. Imber Safdar
10+ year digital agency veteran
www.truthypr.com
Twitter: @ShabbirSafdar
Conference hashtag: #slsecom2010

Author / Presenter Background
Founder of Virilion Inc, 12+ year old digital agency in Washington DC, Boston, NYC, & Austin specializing in online public affairs campaigns
Digital communications experience in the consumer software/hardware, environmental, civil liberties, energy, beer, e-commerce, finance, and entertainment industries.
Free ebook: “3 Fundraising Metrics For Your Nonprofit Website” (October 2009)
Free ebook: “Is Your Nonprofit Facebook Page Worth It? Analytics and Measurement Techniques” (April 2010)
Current focus is on measurement of communications and digital marketing efforts
Ebooks available at www.truthypr.com

4 Lessons Of Online Criticism
Be cool.
Be transparent.
Be funny.
Be honest.

Ben Popken’s (Consumerist.com) 3-step system for fixing corporate gaffes:
Admit you were wrong
Stop doing the wrong thing
Make a material gesture of apology
http://consumerist.com/2008/08/circuit-city-sorry-for-commanding-employees-to-destroy-mad-mags-sucker-city-parody.html

Apologies Work: Circuit City vs. Mad Magazine
In 2008 an overzealous Circuit City employee ordered all copies of Mad Magazine removed from the shelves of all stores due to a Circuit City parody.
As the story hit the AP wire, the Circuit City PR team responded with a letter to Mad and the blog that broke it, Consumerist.com, with an apology, a self-deprecating joke, and a gift card.
The response was lauded by PR people and consumer advocates alike, and earned Circuit City an updated AP story and kudos for coming clean on their mistake.
www.truthypr.com

Greenpeace vs. Nestle

Don’t screw up your apology.
From flickr user BlaiseGV on March 19th, 2010

Enforcing Trademark: Ford vs. the Black Mustang Club
In 2008, a Mustang enthusiast group attempts to sell it’s calendars of member vehicles through CafePress.
A CafePress employee flags the calendars as a trademark violation, based upon the logo on the car showing up in the photos
Ford gently negotiates a settlement with their brand evangelists ten days later.
Ford goes onto literally every blog and message forum across the entire Internet to defuse the crisis.
A factual inaccuracy, that a “Cease and Desist” letter was issued by Ford, was perpetuated fueled by the fact that one of Ford’s law firms has been aggressively protecting their mark by sending such legal notes.
www.truthypr.com

Suppressing online speech: Ralph Lauren vs. boingboing.net
In 2009 a heavily and poorly digitally altered model photo from a Ralph Lauren advertisement was published on the website PhotoshopDisasters
Culture critics and tastemakers boingboing blogged about it and their Internet Provider received a DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) takedown order, which failed the parody test.
Boingboing subsequently made it their mission to mock Ralph Lauren.
Controversy generated additional print, radio, and online criticism, which is slowly polluting the organic search results for “Ralph Lauren”.
Source: boingboing.net
www.truthypr.com

Enforcing Trademark: US Chamber of Commerce vs. The Yes Men
In October of 2009, notorious pranksters “The Yes Men” put on a fake press conference pretending to be the Chamber. A real Chamber employee burst in to stop it.
They also put up a fake press release online announcing a reversal of the Chamber’s position on global warming.
Afterwards the Electronic Frontier Foundation took their case and every legal event is a chance for the Yes Men to flog the Chamber.
Coverage included Fox Business, CNBC, Reuters, NYT.
The Yes Men’s pranks work best when their targets engage them, as it provides a classic conflict for the press to cover.
www.truthypr.com

Suppressing online speech: Barbra Streisand vs. Pictopia.com
In 2003 a photographer documenting coastal erosion shot thousands of photographs including one of Streisand’s Malibu home.
She lost in court, and drew 400,000+ visitors to the photo.
Coined the concept “The Streisand Effect”.
Source: Wikipedia
It takes talent to get your controversy into Wikipedia, from whence it will never leave.
www.truthypr.com

Reacting Prematurely: George W. Bush vs. GWBush.com
In 1999 while campaigning, Bush critics RTMark post website GWBush.com to parody candidate.
Real candidate Bush complains to the Federal Election Commission and then says on-air “There ought to be limits to freedom”
Traffic to gwbush.com immediately spikes and stays high through the election, providing a platform for critics to reach a much wider audience.
Source: www.rtmark.com
www.truthypr.com

Apologies Work: Motrin vs. Really Angry Moms
In November 2008 a small group of moms became outraged by a new Motrin ad at the beginning of a weekend.
Motrin wasn’t prepared to respond quickly, and it grew quickly in the vacuum.
The brand pulled the ad and published an apology, which caused the issue to burn out pretty quickly.
www.truthypr.com

Crisis communications online: best practices

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