Bad Moves, Insipid Sound Bites & Plain-Ol’ P.R. Disasters

We talk regularly on this blog about public relations crises and missteps–not just for the gleeful rush of pointing the finger at bad moves and insipid sound bites–though that is fun; but to learn from these mistakes and inform our readers of ways to stay out of PR Hell.

The New York Times got in on the act with a very detailed story that looks at some of our favorite PR implosions of recent days: Toyota, Goldman Sachs and of course, the oily PR nightmare that is BP.

“…for members of the protective tribe known as the crisis management industry, the scandals capturing headlines in the corporate realm involve far higher stakes, threatening the lifeblood of global behemoths worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The calamities have served up a lifetime supply of case studies to be mined for lessons on best practices, as well as pitfalls to avoid when disaster arrives.

As conventional wisdom has it, the three companies at the center of these fiascos worsened their problems by failing to heed established protocol: When the story is bad, disclose it immediately — awful parts included — lest you be forced to backtrack and slide into the death spiral of lost credibility.

[...]

“The two things that are very hard to survive are hypocrisy and ridicule,” Mr. Dezenhall says. “It’s the height of arrogance to assume that in the middle of a crisis the public yearns for chestnuts of wisdom from people they want to kill. The goal is not to get people not to hate them. It’s to get people to hate them less.”

via P.R. Missteps Fueled Fiascos at BP, Toyota and Goldman – NYTimes.com.

Over the next few posts, we’ll share select points from the article and give our own take on these missteps. We welcome your comments.