Presentation from a crisis communications course run by Ann Wright of Rough House Media and Nicky Rudd of Padua Communications on behalf of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. On the highly interactive course, we took delegates through a developing crisis, in which they had to manage the response at each stage. We would like to stress this crisis is completely imaginary and bears no relation to reality.

1. Welcome to a CIM talk
“Managing
Reputation in a
crisis”
With Nicky Rudd and
Ann Wright
Date
9.30am – 1pm

2. A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but
the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where
the crack was.” Joseph Hall
What is a crisis?
• How can it escalate?
• What are the implications of not dealing with it?
• How fast should it be dealt with?

3. Task 1: RHS Wisley
• Estimated 20,000 people walk through the door on an
average day
• Facilities: 3 x cafes, 1 x shop and a plant centre
• Each assign yourself a role:
• CEO
• Head of comms
• Head of customer service
• Head of production
• Head of health and safety
• Additional roles: volunteer, social media manager,
student intern press officer,
receptionist/switchboard
What kind of things might go wrong? Discuss

4. • Assess all potential emergencies
• Prioritise these in terms of likelihood and impact on your
business
• Develop an action plan to deal with the most likely and the
most damaging crises
• Decide who has responsibility for what role
• Develop key messages for use in specific/generic
emergencies
• Establish your key audiences
What is a Crisis Audit (part 1)?

5. • Prepare senior management and key spokespeople to
handle aggressive media interviews
• Share your crisis strategy with all staff in a crisis comms
manual
• Ensure you have readily accessible contact details
• Ensure you have access to extra phone-lines
• Have a social media policy
What is a Crisis Audit (part 2)

6. Task 2: Wisley goes sick
RHS Wisley is holding a high profile Halloween Extravaganza Event, with
children’s spooky trails & sleepovers, a Witches’ Brew BBQ and fireworks.
• 20,000 tickets have been sold
• The night before, there is an outbreak of
Norovirus.
• 10 of the 12 restaurant staff, including
the head chef, plus 3 key members of
the event planning team, all call in sick
You have 5 minutes to discuss your strategy

7. Task 2: What is your crisis strategy?
• What would you do?
• Who do you need to inform?
• What is your holding pattern?
• Would you put people forward for interviews?
• Who would you put forward?
• What do they need to say?
• Consider the pros and cons of different communication channels

8. Key considerations:
Think about your different audiences
• Who needs to know what?
• How will you monitor events?
• How will you keep them updated and how often?
• Which communications channels will you use?
• Think about timings

9. The wife of a member of staff is saying on
Facebook that cleanliness in the Wisley kitchens
is an issue
• How do you respond?
Task 3: Managing a crisis on social media

10. Going viral
• Speed of information
• You can’t control the message as you would
in a traditional comms situation
• Who is monitoring?
• How are you monitoring
• How do you remain neutral and in the
conversation without entering into a slanging
match?

11. Task 4: It hits the nationals
The Daily Mail follows up with this story and goes to print the next day.
Following an outbreak of Norovirus among staff at RHS
Wisley, pictures of dozens of cockroaches in the kitchens of
the restaurant have emerged.
Staff told the Daily Mail there have been four previous
outbreaks of Norovirus in the past two years, but the
management have hushed them up.
A spokesperson for the RHS told us: “We are very
concerned the our staff are sick, but are confident we will
be able to go ahead with our Halloween Extravanganza.”

12. Task 4: What do you do?
When dealing with the media consider:
1. How does a journalist think?
2. What do they want during a crisis?
3. How should you react?
4. What are your key messages – are they clear?
5. Have someone senior & trained
available to speak to the media
6. How to deal with interviews
7. CAC – Care, Action, Context

13. Task 5: Interviews
Radio 5 Live want an interview about the incident
1. What will you say?
2. Who will say it?

14. • Recap
• What are the key things you have learnt this morning?
Takeaways & learnings

15. Top 6 dos and don’ts
1. Don’t wait for a disaster to happen – have a crisis
strategy in place
2. Know overarching key messages in advance
3. React quickly, factually, pro-actively & frequently
4. Chose spokespeople in advance & get them trained
5. Never relax!
6. Preparation, preparation, preparation

16. Questions and Feedback
We would be grateful if you could complete our feedback
forms so we can keep improving too!

17. Contacts:
Ann Wright
Rough House Media
Tel. 020 8332 6200
ann.wright@roughhouse.co.uk
@roughhouse01
Nicky Rudd
Padua Communications
Tel. 01483 339311
nicky@paduacommunications.com
@nickyrudd01