Interpretation of crisis public relations handling process and successful cases!

Crisis public relations not only undertakes the tasks of crisis early warning monitoring, intervention prevention, control processing, recovery and adjustment for commercial entities, but is also an inevitable process of cyclical optimization of the crisis management system. It is also an important part of the public relations strategy of enterprises facing the public, media, government, and various social organizations.

The author believes that crisis public relations not only affects all levels and dimensions of public relations affairs, but also possesses the characteristics of public relations communication and dissemination. It also plays a role in mutual scrutiny and evaluation between enterprises and different public relations objects. That is, the results of the public relations objects' scrutiny of the enterprise's crisis public relations will directly affect their final evaluation of the enterprise.

1. Key points in the crisis public relations process

The birth and development of a crisis will form unpredictable development trends and impact scope due to the influence of the objective environment, but it generally has a unified development logic law, namely the crisis life cycle model. Since we want to extract the essence of crisis public relations, we must first find out the key links and factors that can affect the final result in the operation process based on its life cycle characteristics.

Early warning and intervention

By identifying and analyzing crisis warning signals from internal and external channels, public relations personnel can respond quickly and take corresponding warning measures in the brewing stage, intervene in potential crises or eliminate hidden dangers, and prevent crises from breaking out of the bud. Even if the measures taken fail to effectively eliminate the development of the crisis, they can still play an intervention and containment role, obtain favorable information for subsequent crisis management, and carry out public relations operations to gain the initiative during the crisis outbreak period.

Elements: Analysis and identification of early warning signals, intervention or elimination of crises in the bud.

lHandling and aftercare

The crisis has broken through the initial brewing stage and entered the outbreak and spread stage. The primary task of public relations personnel at this time is to control the crisis through known or available relevant information, reduce the scope of spread and impact according to crisis management plans and mechanisms to prevent the possibility of deterioration, and then quickly formulate effective and targeted solutions to deal with the various sub-issues in the crisis event. If the core problem can be traced back to the source and quickly resolved, it will play a very important role in completely eliminating the crisis.

When the crisis is contained and evolving towards a better trend, in order for the company to resume normal operations and respond to the assistance of supporters, public relations personnel must also participate in coordinating the recovery of the affected parts within the company, and present the corporate image to the media, the public and other social public relations objects with a positive attitude and appearance. At the same time, more in-depth work is also being carried out, namely sorting out remaining or potential hidden problems, because most crisis events are handled in priority order to ensure that the crisis can be eliminated and quelled quickly and effectively, but there are still hidden dangers that have not yet appeared and need further processing, such as the "instigator" who cannot be traced through conclusive evidence, "black public relations" organizations that have not been brought to justice, remaining public opinion on the Internet that cannot be retracted, and some members of the public whose emotions are still not calmed down, etc.

Elements: efficient crisis handling capabilities, rapid resumption of operations, and proper handling of potential risks after the crisis.

summary

From the content extracted from the crisis public relations operation process, it can be found that all elements play an important role around "public relations personnel" and "management mechanism", so the integration of people and mechanisms is the core factor in the results of crisis public relations handling. However, in practice, the crisis management team includes various roles such as decision makers, managers, implementers, and speakers. The management mechanism will continue to be optimized and adjusted to adapt to the dynamic changes in the corporate public relations environment, and needs to be strictly designed and adjusted in accordance with the crisis management system. Therefore, only by continuing to refine according to the core factors can you get the essence.

2. Crisis PR that turns decay into magic

There is a common phenomenon in classic crisis public relations success cases around the world: after the crisis is properly handled, the company or brand can be transformed into an "industry benchmark" through the communication potential of the event. Such cases often occur when a company is in crisis. Through reasonable crisis public relations strategies and a strict execution attitude, the company is able to calm the situation and shape a positive image. This is the wonder that crisis public relations, which can turn decay into magic, brings to the world.

lClassic case abroad - Starbucks' "anti-racial discrimination"

The racial issues in the United States have always been the most eye-catching news events among its social issues, especially the conflicts between the black and white races, which will become the news focus of the whole society as soon as they occur.

In 2018, a Starbucks store manager in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, made a historic move for the brand that shocked the world. The incident was caused by two African-American men who were refused to use the restroom after waiting for their friends for a long time. The dispute then developed into a dispute that attracted the store manager. After discovering that the two men had not made any purchases, the manager called the police to arrest them, and the charge was actually "illegal trespassing." The incident was subsequently exposed on social media and attracted the attention and condemnation of the whole society, and even developed into protests and boycotts.

The CEO of Starbucks personally went to Philadelphia where the incident occurred and apologized to the two black people. However, the incident has developed to the point where the mayor of Philadelphia is troubled and he said that the headline in Philadelphia is actually this incident and it is not enough for Starbucks to simply apologize. At this time, Starbucks not only has to face public opinion and protests, but also supervision from the government. The next day, Starbucks officially announced that it would close 8,000 stores across the United States and conduct "anti-racial discrimination training" for 175,000 employees, causing direct losses of more than 100 million yuan.

Although the store closure and training resulted in huge losses, it was rewarded with global public relations coverage that was equal to the event. This crisis public relations was rewarded with likes and reposts on social media platforms around the world, and many loyal customers came out to express their support for Starbucks' responsible and sincere solution.

Elements: quick response, correct public relations attitude, and leveraging the momentum to gain broad support.

lClassic domestic case: Huawei became a top global company after two crises

As early as 2003, Huawei experienced a public relations crisis that shocked the world. At that time, international data communications giant Cisco sued Huawei in Texas, USA, for infringing its intellectual property rights, listing 21 major charges that almost covered all areas of intellectual property litigation at the time. Huawei immediately convened an emergency meeting of senior executives after receiving the news, with Ren Zhengfei appointing senior executives and seeking experts to assist in responding to the lawsuit. Morrison & Foerster, with its rich professional experience in handling international intellectual property rights, played an important role. Subsequently, Huawei's public relations team and legal advisory team took a two-pronged approach, not only forcing Cisco to retreat step by step on the legal level, but also announcing in the news media that Cisco's misinformation about Huawei's products, marketing, and technical compatibility was untrue. They also forced Cisco to abandon the high-cost ongoing litigation by establishing a new company through a joint venture with 3com. The entire incident was followed up by world-renowned news organizations, led by the American news media. When Cisco withdrew the lawsuit and the two parties shook hands and made peace, Huawei not only gained advantages in legal and commercial aspects, but also demonstrated the significance of Huawei's brand to the world, and imprinted the labels of Cisco that can stand shoulder to shoulder with Cisco, has independent intellectual property rights, and can win lawsuits and profit from intellectual property lawsuits in the memory of the global public.

In 2019, Huawei encountered another public relations crisis. I believe everyone is familiar with the whole story and will not go into details here, but the highlights reveal how crisis public relations can turn decay into magic.

Ren Zhengfei has always been very low-key in front of the media, but during the public relations crisis in 2019, he was forced by the public relations department to accept intensive interviews in multiple countries. When asked by CCTV reporters why the usually low-key Ren Zhengfei accepted such intensive interviews within 72 hours, his series of answers were even more amazing. It turned out that he was the real public relations master of Huawei.

"I was forced by the public relations department", "I know that my shortcomings are no less than my strengths, and I'm not trying to be low-key." The personal stance shown in these statements is reflected in the company's situation, as well as the spirit of self-weakness. These are the materials that media from all over the world want to disseminate regarding Huawei's public relations crisis. Ren Zhengfei's explanation of Huawei's products and technologies leverages the media's power of communication and public attention to maximize the value of crisis public relations strategies such as mobilizing national enthusiasm, China's brand self-improvement, and the United States' fear of competition from Chinese companies.

Elements: Strong public relations awareness, leveraging power to turn passivity into initiative, and broad supporters as the driving force.

The magic of turning crisis into opportunity

All companies that are at the top of the business world today have experienced "countless" crisis events of varying sizes. In particular, although there are only a handful of major public relations crises that can determine the life or death of a company, for companies that have experienced many battles, the more dangerous and urgent the situation is, the greater the value of the news dissemination it brings. Correspondingly, the benefits of gaining public support and successfully transforming the crisis will be proportional, and may even result in more and longer-term benefits.

Let’s look at it from the perspective of the public interests, social conditions, interests of social organizations, media news dissemination, etc. involved in the crisis. The public expects their interests to be protected and improved; the government hopes to see social stability and harmony; other organizations want to improve their own efficiency; and the media expects more and more revolutionary information that can attract more public attention.

Whether an enterprise can control the win-win situation of all parties with itself as the origin when conducting crisis public relations is the key. Just as an enterprise needs to constantly expand external cooperation to survive and develop, how to handle external relations to gain support, maintain unobstructed public relations communication channels, properly handle incidents to avoid hidden dangers, and maintain a correct public relations attitude when facing a crisis are also key factors that determine the success or failure of crisis public relations.

Elements: facing up to the crisis, achieving win-win results for all parties, and gaining social support.

summary

Not only can we see from the successful crisis public relations cases at home and abroad listed above, but also that before almost all successful crisis events are transformed into added value for corporate image, all companies are using strategies suitable for themselves and the social environment to gain broad support from the society. Especially in the two cases of Huawei, the support of the public, media, and other social organizations was involved. Not only did Huawei take advantage of the opportunity to move from a domestic brand to the global attention, but it also made people realize that Huawei's brand and products always maintain excellent integrity and quality. Even if the five governments led by the United States are dissatisfied, this is a fact that cannot be tampered with.

To quote Mencius, "He who wins the hearts of the people wins the world." For enterprises, "the hearts of the people" refers to the psychology of the general public, and the general public refers to all members of society, including the public, government, media and other social organizations. Therefore, the essence of crisis public relations should be "winning the hearts of the people."

Conclusion

The author believes that finding the essence of public relations is just like finding the essence of marketing. There are thousands of marketing theories and concepts, but in the final analysis, it is all about "grasping human nature", while public relations is about "winning people's hearts" through people's emotions and psychology. Human nature is the transition from the deep consciousness level to the surface thinking level, while the human heart is the process of deepening into the consciousness level after deep thinking.

From theory to practice, crisis public relations aims at how to gain more supporters. It is not difficult to find that most of the public relations work is about studying and practicing people-based relationships, and people-centered relationships will be affected by emotions and psychology. Therefore, the essence of crisis public relations is to gain wider hearts and minds through a series of practices .

Author:Leon360k

Source: PR Home