Crisis Management – Not Always A Bad Thing
As any seasoned PR professional will tell you, our job is not always as glamorous as some people think.
Crisis management, or crisis communications, is one of the most important and complex components of PR. An agency or PR executive’s entire career can be summed up by the success or failure of a swift crisis PR strategy.
After reading PR Daily’s story, “PR disasters averted: 7 cases of strong crisis management,” I thought I’d share some of the successful and creative ideas from this article.
This piece explores 7 cases where hasty PR action quelled what could have been an ultimate PR meltdown. Here you can read about each of them from JC Penney to Newt Gingrich, but what I particularly found impressive was the response by tampon company o.b. in a recent contentious situation.
Talk about facing the music. The J & J tampon brand was threatened with a “girlcott” by angry users after it discontinued its popular Ultra item. The customer backlash threatened to take over its reputation, until o.b. defused the situation with a unique response.
Its apology PR campaign included a hilarious video that used personalization technology to woo back customers. “Triple Sorry” was a sublime send-up of an uber-schmaltzy music video, complete with rainbows and rose petals and a vow to bring back the product. It was a pitch perfect response to a potential crisis.
The approach that Johnson & Johnson took to handle this potential nightmare was purely genius. Not only did it appeal to the customer, a younger female, but also by customizing this over-the-top video apology, customers were left feeling special, individual and important. The creative idea behind this digital strategy makes for an impressive case study that companies facing similar situations can look to in the future.
As illustrated in this article, each of these organizations truly understand their audience and in doing so provided an accurate response; an invaluable lesson in crisis management.
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