Crisis Management in Public Relations

Crisis management is something every organisation should think about. But what constitutes a PR crisis? I always say it’s when you or your business receives negative or damaging publicity. Or you’re being bombarded with a whole host of unwanted social media mentions.

Of course, not every issue is a PR crisis. A bad review is easily manageable. But a bad review that goes viral on X (formerly Twitter), gets millions of hits on YouTube and is mentioned on the 10 O’clock news? Yep, I’d consider that a PR crisis and it’s something that needs managing – and fast.

A PR crisis is seen as being disruptive and damaging. Damaging for your brand’s reputation and how your business is viewed by stakeholders, customers, prospects and the industry as a whole. And it’s damaging for your bottom line too.

Crisis management in PR

So when your organisation finds itself in the middle of a crisis and your reputation is on the line, PR crisis management is needed: a set of actions that are carefully followed in order to minimise the damage, carried out by your in-house PR team, or an experienced PR consultant like me, who can work quickly and effectively to put things right.

What type of crises need immediate PR crisis management?

• Product recalls for defective and unsafe goods, or issues with availability
• Corporate irregularities, including deception, theft, fraud, and corruption
• Workplace harassment including intimidating, offensive, abusive, and discriminating behaviour
• Lawsuits and legal actions
• Workplace incidents, including accidents or negligence
• Sudden resignations by key board members, causing share values to tumble.

And, of course, social media blunders. There’s everything from the over-enthusiastic intern (it’s always an ‘intern’) who hijacks the hashtags of other brands or world events to publicise their own products (remember Habitat’s Twitter fail?). To poorly-timed, pre-scheduled auto-tweets. Who can forget Tesco supermarket tweeting: “It’s sleepy time so we’re off to hit the hay. See you at 8am for more #TescoTweets” sent in middle of the horsemeat scandal.

Then there are companies that see their well-intentioned hashtag used to bash the company. McDonald’s got caught out when they used the #McDStories hashtag to encourage customers to share their Maccy D stories. And they did. “Hospitalized for food poisoning in 1989. Never ate there again and became a vegetarian. Should have sued #McDStories.” Ouch.

How PR professionals help in a crisis

As I always say to my clients: Preparation is key to successfully navigating a crisis. Before the proverbial brown stuff hits the fan, there should be a PR crisis management plan in place so that everyone knows what actions are going to be taken and who’s going to take them.

This is when it pays to work with PR professionals who can formulate a crisis PR plan for you. You may choose to go externally and work with an experienced public relations consultant, like me, or a PR agency. Or maybe you have your own in-house PR people. But whoever you work with, it’s important they put a crisis management PR plan in place as soon as possible, as this will give you a better chance of minimising the impact of negative publicity when a PR crisis occurs.

The PR Crisis Management plan

When I put together a crisis management PR plan with my clients, these are all the things I consider:

1. Having the right team in place

Who should be notified? Does the CEO need to know first? And how severe does the crisis have to be? Mistimed tweets can be handled by the head of marketing. But CEOs need to be told about oil spills and aircraft accidents immediately.

Decide in advance who will lead the crisis team. Ideally this is your CEO. But it could be the head of your legal team or HR team. And appoint a spokesperson in advance. Reacting to a situation with one voice is critical rather than releasing bits of information in dribs and drabs from different departments. Your spokesperson needs to be media trained beforehand and confident in front of the press, as well as being suitably empathetic and detail orientated.

And have a clear plan around communication. Will the marketing team carry on managing social media, online content and blog writing? Or, will the crisis PR team take over, as well as issuing ongoing news releases?

2. Taking responsibility

A PR crisis has occurred. Don’t try to cover it up and hope it goes away. It won’t. Don’t fuel the fire either by saying ‘no comment’ or issuing half-hearted denials. Instead, manage the situation quickly and professionally by issuing a press release, taking immediate responsibility and acknowledging people’s concerns. Your response has to be multi-channel: so it should be shared across the board, including the press, social media platforms, TV and radio, and on your own website.

Once an apology has been issued, follow-up with a plan of action. Share what steps will be taken to ensure this doesn’t happen again, whether that’s organisational-wide training (see Starbucks), or a change of policy (see Pret a Manger).

3. Getting ahead of the game

Speed is of the essence. Don’t wait until Monday when something is kicking off on a Saturday. Don’t sit back and wait for the story to get bigger and bigger before stepping in. If there’s even a whiff of a scandal or a bubbling PR crisis, step in and issue a statement explaining what’s happened and what your organisation is doing to put it right. Saying ‘you’ll look into it’ won’t wash and ultimately, it will damage your brand.

4. Being social media savvy

Your organisation might not be very active on Instagram, TikTok or X , but your customers may be. There may be a firestorm building on a platform you don’t use. But even if you’re not on a particular platform for marketing purposes, your social media team should have a plan in place for dealing with customer complaints and comments on those platforms. If there are spikes of negativity or increased mentions, make sure there’s a plan in place to pro-actively respond. Encourage CEOs to issue prepared apologies on social. But discourage them from going rogue and answering customer complaints directly.

5. Keeping everyone in the loop

Keep all relevant stakeholders up-to-date with the crisis as it unfolds, what’s being done to manage it and by who. If possible, have daily meetings or conference calls so everyone’s on top of the situation. During the KFC PR crisis, the company held a daily call for a 100-strong team and updated them on the latest developments, as well as regular meetings at 7am, 11am, 2pm and 7pm. Meghan Farren, KFC’s CMO, spoke to the franchisees daily so they had the right information to hand and could inform staff and customers.

6. Being prepared

Having a PR crisis management plan in place is like having insurance: you hope you never have to use it but you should have it anyway. Flailing around because you’re not prepared for a crisis makes a situation go from bad to worse and looks like you’re hiding something. Know who should be notified, who the spokesperson is and how you will communicate a response.

PR Crisis Management Case Studies: The Good and Bad

I’ve worked as a PR pro for over 20 years. And if there’s one thing I’ve learnt about the general public, is that they’ll forgive a mistake if a crisis is handled honestly, quickly and with humility. Take a look at these crisis management case studies.

PR Crisis Case Studies – The Good

KFC shortage

Who doesn’t love the finger lickin’ taste of KFC and a big bucket of chicken after a night out? But back in 2018, the unthinkable happened: the company ran out of chicken and stores across the UK and Ireland were temporarily closed. The reason for the shortages: problems with the new delivery partner DHL, which led to warehouse delays.

With a PR crisis looming, the company quickly set up a web page that listed those stores that were still open for chicken. And it took out a series of newspaper ads, that included a bucket of chicken with the KFC logo rearranged to read FCK. The ads and the quick apology were well received and even won an award.

Free Cuthbert

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But back in 2021, M&S were less than pleased when rival supermarket chain Aldi introduced a Cuthbert cake, which looked very similar to M&S’s famous Colin the Caterpillar cake. M&S took Aldi to court over the impersonation and if Aldi had lost, the German low-cost brand could have had a PR crisis on their hands.

To avert any bad publicity, Aldi put a brilliant social media campaign in place to garner public support for the case including the post:

The cheeky campaign and the #FreeCuthbert hashtag took off and garnered a heap of coverage and online support. The supermarket chain went one further and created a #CaterpillarsForCancer campaign which called on supermarkets to donate money to cancer foundations. Not only did the campaign help avoid a full-on PR crisis, it won a bunch of awards too and was lauded as ‘a great example of crisis management.’ And as for the Colin v Cuthbert fight off, the two retail giants reached an undisclosed settlement.

Starbucks training

Coffee giant Starbucks were on the end of some unwanted bad publicity back in 2018, when the store manager at a Starbucks in Philadelphia called the police to arrest two African-American customers who were waiting for a friend and had yet to purchase a drink. The incident sparked widespread condemnation and Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz was quick to issue an apology.

He said: ‘we’re better than this’, closed all 8,000 locations for a day, and made 175,000 employees attend a racial bias training day.

Pepsi pulled

It may seem strange to include Pepsi in the good section. After all, the TV ad which kicked off their PR crisis has been dubbed the worst ad ever. But it’s their response to the crisis that should be applauded. This ad starring model and Kardashian tribe alumni Kendall Jenner kicked off a new Pepsi ad campaign back in 2017. The short film featured Jenner leaving her modelling gig, casting off her blonde wig and walking through a Black Lives Matter-style protest to offer a Police Officer a can of Pepsi. It was created in-house rather than through an ad agency and was utterly tone deaf.

The brand initially issued a statement defending the campaign saying, ‘This is a global ad that reflects people from different walks of life coming together in a spirit of harmony, and we think that’s an important message to convey.’

But after a barrage of complaints, the TV ad was pulled less than 24 hours later, and the company issued another statement saying: “Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace, and understanding. Clearly, we missed the mark, and we apologise.”

The ad should never have aired in the first place. But at least Pepsi were quick to pull it and offer an apology.

PR Crisis Case Studies – The Bad

BBC presenters

We all love a good historical drama and the Beeb do them so well. But when it comes to dramas that involve their own presenters, the BBC have been found wanting in the last year or so. Take the Huw Edwards affair which is complex and disturbing. Following anonymous reports concerning the personal conduct of a BBC employee, the BBC stuck its head in the sand as to who it might be. This left social media users to speculate about the person’s identity before Edwards’ wife eventually revealing it was him. Edwards went on immediate gardening leave and even received a pay rise from the BBC before going to court in August 2024 and pleading guilty to three counts of making indecent images, leading to a flurry of questions about how much the BBC knew and when. A poor look for the national broadcaster.

Lululemon not so inclusive

Athleisure brand Lululemon faced (another) PR crisis when ex-CEO and founder Chip Wilson said in an interview in late 2023 that making Lululemon’s products more accessible would hurt the brand. He stated: “You’ve got to be clear that you don’t want certain customers coming in”. Wilson has previous too, having declared in 2013 that some women’s bodies just don’t work in Lululemon’s yoga pants. This sparked furious accusations of fatphobia from the brand’s customers. The former CEO issued an apology back in 2013, although he was accused of not apologising for the comments but rather apologising for the repercussion of the comments. Wilson stepped down from the board in 2015.

Since then Lululemon has allegedly committed itself to promoting diversity and inclusion with advertising and marketing materials featuring a range of body types. In November 2020, the brand launched a new department called “Inclusion Diversity, Equity and Action,” or IDEA, which was tasked with increasing the diversity of its workforce and improving training. However, this year there have been reports from whistle-blowers that the department was there to protect the image of the company rather than supporting the wellbeing of its diverse workforce. If Lululemon wants to be seen as an inclusive brand, there’s still some way to go.

TSB IT Meltdown

TSB suffered an IT nightmare when they attempted to upgrade their computer system in April 2018. First, they announced there would be no access to online banking from Friday 20 April to Sunday to 22 April. But this quickly turned into Tuesday, Wednesday and then nearly a week of frustration. TSB’s CEO Paul Pester apologised via Twitter. But customers looking for more information were put on hold for hours or told to go to a TSB branch, which due to branch closures, was 15 miles away for some customers.

Then Pester committed the biggest PR crisis crime: he blamed parent company and IT provider Sabadell, saying it was their fault. Even a month later, TSB customers were still having issues. The IT meltdown cost TSB £330M and the poor PR crisis management cost Pester his job. The Treasury Select Committee described the bank’s response to this PR crisis as “complacent and misleading”.

Pret Tragedy

Natasha Ednan-Laperouse had an allergic reaction and tragically died on a flight from Heathrow in 2016 after eating a poorly-labelled sandwich bought from a Pret A Manger at the airport.

Pret made the decision not to communicate the story until it hit the headlines during the inquest. It also came to light there had been nine similar allergic reactions recorded in the year prior to her death. Pret’s initial reaction was to blame a smaller supplier for the labelling. Not good.

Following the backlash, Pret rolled out new labelling on all their packaging from May 2019. Clive Schlee, chief executive at Pret, said: “We said we would learn from the past and make meaningful changes. This plan brings together some of the most important changes we have been making to help customers with allergies.”

In addition, Natasha’s Law came into force in the summer of 2021 requiring all food businesses to clearly label the full ingredients of pre-packaged food.

Boeing Blunder

And lastly on our bad PR list is Boeing’s tone deaf response: the tragic 737 MAX PR crisis in March 2018.

Following two crashes featuring Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft in 2018 and 2019, which cost hundreds of lives, Boeing steadfastly refused to ground other aircraft and dismissed consumers’ concerns. It turned out there was an autopilot system that engaged during take-off which was susceptible to error and pilots hadn’t been warned.

Eventually, aviation authorities grounded all 737 MAX 8 aircraft pending investigations, which to date has cost the business $900M in financial terms. But the reputational damage and loss of confidence in the brand has cost them more.

My advice? Be prepared and always have a PR crisis management plan in place for your organisation.