A week ago Starbucks was hit with a crisis that would have been easy to mishandle. Instead, the coffee chain, and especially its CEO, pretty much nailed it, in what is likely to become a crisis-communications case study worthy of emulation.
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This week, HBO debuted Paterno, starring Al Pacino as Joe Paterno, the eponymous football-coaching legend at Penn State who in 2011 found himself navigating a dire scandal. His assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, was arrested for sexually abusing children. In the movie, crisis communications gets a rare Hollywood depiction — especially the effort to convince a respected leader that he isin crisis.
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On March 28, Alabama became the last U.S. state to sign into law a measure requiring notification of data breaches. The statute is similar to the 49 others, yet with its own wrinkles. Data breaches — corporate and otherwise — continue to be a major form of crisis, and it’s important for communicators to understand these notification laws.
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For many crises — accidents, data breaches, even litigation — a best practice is to launch a website or web page dedicated to that particular matter. Especially for fast-moving situations, it’s a smart idea to have a basic “dark site” prepared and ready to go before the crisis hits. The web presence — and by extension, the company — becomes the go-to source for information on the crisis. Here are some tips.
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The past two weeks have seen the resolutions (of sorts) of two high-profile crises that raised the issue of how brash (obstinate?) one should be in one’s communications. We speak of Theranos, whose founder has now given up control of the company, and Martin Shkreli, who will spend seven years in the slammer.
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We’ve seen several companies over the past year or so that have been unfortunate enough — or clueless enough — to be hit with multiple crises. Think Wells Fargo. Think Uber. United Airlines, another of the ilk, has been whacked yet again. This time the airline made a faux pas that upset employees, and so it has had to get its internal communications to take off. While the original mistake was bad, it appears the company listened and responded quickly.
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