Tag Archives: crisis management

bp names disaster insider to deflect critics

bp’s above ground blunders rival undersea disaster

What are they thinking? Every single time BP head Tony Hayward opens his mouth it’s only to change feet! Now comes news that the geniuses behind what’s shaping up to be the most inept crisis management since the birth of the genre have hired one of the key architects of an industrial disaster that’s quickly approaching the incalculable damage stage.

During the Bush-Cheney administration – and given the way this is turning out “administration” may well have to be reconsidered – Anne Womack-Kolton hauled water as Cheney’s campaign press secretary before graduating to the Department of Energy where she led the office of Public Affairs. Continue reading →

feel the tweet, luke – feel the tweet

toyota's vaunted brand image was trashed by twitterAccording to Indian website TopNews, Toyota’s PR department discovered early on that within hours of the historic sales embargo and accompanying recall, following right on the heels of steering, floor mat and gas pedal recalls, social media site twitter was responsible for painting a picture of a crippled giant. Twitter members generated an exponentially catastrophic message rate that at one point measured over 30 new tweets a minute, unleashing a torrent of negative publicity impossible to counter or control.

The metric that emerges as a result? There is no PR antidote that can stop or slow the viral nature of a global, near instantaneous stampede for the exits. In a time of widespread acceptance of crisis management by top corporations, the options for damage control are for significantly reduced, and in Toyota’s case, zero.

In Toyota’s case, where the problems are cumulative, the results in some cases fatal, and a definitive cure nowhere in site, the problem for successfully surviving the fallout becomes even more difficult. Previous worst case crisis’, like the Tylenol poisoning scare in 1982 that generated the template for PR intervention, would probably have been controllable even in today’s unfiltered social media atmosphere by the twin decisions of immediate recall and the suspension of product sales until tamper-proof packaging – and a sure fix – could be instituted.