When Disaster Strikes

By now everyone with access to a news media outlet or a social media platform is well aware of the devastating storm that recently wreaked havoc across the country, especially on the east coast. And if you’re not learning about the storm second hand, then you’re probably one of the more than a million people that personally felt the storm’s wrath (myself included).Today, there are an alarming number of people and businesses still without power.

Whenever a natural disaster such as this occurs and it negatively impacts people’s lives on a large scale, the target of the most public ire is usually the local utility company, followed by the local government. Most of the people’s angst and anger can be directly attributed to the loss of electricity that typically follows a storm of this magnitude. Without power, food spoils, temperatures rise or fall, entertainment is extinguished, business is lost, and everyday life-functions that we normally take for granted come to a screeching halt.

In the area where I live and work – the DMV (DC, Maryland, and Virginia) – the two dominate energy providers are PEPCO and the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE).Because I live within BGE’s coverage area and my home was without power for roughly 24 hours, I’ll just focus on their handling of storm’s aftermath…from a public relations standpoint.

Nobody likes a bad storm, especially when it involves the loss of electricity. But what people hate even more than the storm is the company responsible for returning life back to normal when that storm is over. With a total of 1.24 million customers in the DMV and a large portion of them without power, BGE faced a daunting challenge of restoring everyone’s electricity without sustaining a crushing blow to consumer confidence or its public image (think BP Gulf oil spill).

While the storm itself wasn’t BGE’s doing (or any other energy company for that matter), it was perceived as their fault that people had to go days without power. And with 100 degree temperature days being the norm, one can understand if people are a little pissed. No A/C on a very hot day is more than the inconvenience of not being able to watch the latest installment of HBO’s True Blood, it can mean the difference between life and death.

So how did BGE do in terms of their PR and crisis communications efforts? In my opinion, they did outstanding. I give them a grade of an “A minus.” I watched them closely to see how they would handle this delicate situation of communicating with a fragmented audience residing in a 3.0 world.

Measuring the return on a PR initiative can be, at times, subjective, but how you respond and communicate during a crisis situation is pretty straightforward – you either did a good job or a bad job. Fail at crisis communications as a company and it can cost you your business, or at minimum brand equity. People have a tendency to remember how badly an organization handles a crisis (think Hurricane Katrina and Waco).

Because of how I receive a large portion of information these days, I decided to see what BGE was up to via Twitter. In checking their Twitter feed, I saw not only good information about what was happening and what they were currently doing to alleviate the problem, but I also saw that they were engaging with, in some cases, irate customers via Twitter. As such, I decided to tweet them with my observations (FYI, they didn’t directly respond back to me).

Overall, I liked BGE’s messaging and use of Twitter, especially the additions of the images via their Flickr account. But while I thought it was beneficial to show the visuals of the damage that was done so that people could grasp the scope of the problem and understand why they had no electricity, I thought it would be even better to incorporate visuals of the BGE technicians working tireless to fix the problems. I’d like to think that my suggestion was heeded, because on July 1^st, the photos on Flickr switched from disaster porn to nothing but images of BGE workers solving the problems.

In addition to what was happening on Twitter, BGE implemented a full court social media press, also communicating and responding via Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Most of the relevant social media touch points were covered (sorry Google +). BGE also made excellent use of its website’s homepage. For what they were doing in the digital space, in light of the circumstances, I gave them high marks. It just goes to show that if you don’t have a social media crisis plan, you need to develop one immediately.

I also thought that BGE did a solid job on the traditional media relations component of their crisis communications. Whether it was with TV, radio or print media outlets BGE consistently got the message out as to what they were doing to solve the problem or provide solutions. They even drafted and placed that magical position missive known as the Op-Ed (it ran in both the Baltimore Sun and the Baltimore Business Journal). And even the company’s online media center stayed current with the latest news releases and company blog posts.

As a PR Pro, watching the BGE Comm Team at work was somewhat exciting, taking me back to my crisis communications days at the Maryland Transit Administration. While the circumstances surrounding why they had to test the readiness of their communications apparatus in the first place was due to an unfortunate nature, and by no means does this glowing review of their PR efforts mean that they’ve fixed all the power problems, it was refreshing to see a company execute a crisis communication effort in an effective manner.

Oh by the way, I gave BGE an A minus for the response rates or in some minor cases a lack of a response via social media, and for what appears to be non sanctioned spokes people going on camera and/or talking to the media.

So how does your company/organization’s crisis communication plan stack up?

Are You Ready For Some Proactive Crisis Comm?

I give credit where and when credit is due. And my alpha dog PR nod of the day goes to the public relations team over at the Worldwide Leader in Sports, ESPN.

When aging country singer Hank Williams Jr. went off the reservation and onto the Fox morning news show to compare the currently sitting president to Hitler and declared Obama as “the enemy,” ESPN didn’t wait to react. Given the current climate of today’s 24 hour news cycle, it wasn’t going to be long before ESPN was a part of the story, so the sports giant went into a little of its own prevent defense (to borrow a sports analogy).

And while Hank Williams Jr. is not an on-the-payroll employee of the Mouse or its sports arm, he is strongly associated with the brand via Monday Night Football. For more than 20 years Williams has belted out the musical intro to the iconic football programming franchise. Whenever you heard the singer shout out, “Are you ready for some football?” it set the stage for the game about to be aired.

Williams’ inflammatory words were not only asinine and poorly chosen, they also were ill-timed. See, he chose to espouse his “political” opinions on a Monday morning and by that act alone, Williams threatened to take away the shine from one of ESPN’s premier products. As word of the Fox morning news show clip began to circulate, ESPN began to act and before it could become a part of the discussion, when everybody should’ve been talking football, the PR boys from Bristol tried to cut the story off at the knees.

First ESPN took no chances of people attempting to associate Hank the Tank’s political potty talk with the brand and cut his trademark intro from the program. Then it attempted to further distance itself from Williams’ remarks by issuing a very direct statement condemning the comments and making it clear that the singer does not speak for them. And finally, as an act of transparency, ESPN had its reporters cover the complete controversy (which included their response).

It should be noted that the situation with Williams is indicative of the problem with today’s celebrities and pseudo celebrities alike, and the brands that solicit their services. You can’t control what people say or do when they are “off the clock” and the celebrity/pseudo celebrity seems to forget that they, by way of their business arrangements and endorsements, also represent the people who pay them. If you have a controversial opinion that you want to share, maybe should think bigger picture before sharing it. I know that I have lots of opinions to share, but I don’t share them all and I water down some of the ones that I do.

But back to ESPN’s strategic move, by taking the bull by the horns sort of speak and not running or hiding from the potential problem, ESPN nullified the negative impact that the story would’ve had on their organization and showed their stakeholders/audiences what the brand does or doesn’t stand for. This was an excellent text book example of proactive crisis communications and how deal with a problem.

Right now, I give this PR response a grade of “A” but reserve the right to downgrade depending on how ESPN handles Williams for the rest of the season. Is the Hank Williams Monday Night Football intro a wrap or is it just on the shelf for a spell?

What are your thoughts?

The Full Oscar Mayer

I seriously considered entitling this post “Weiner Roast.” But despite being fun to say, that title would be a little disingenuous because I won’t necessarily be talking directly about the now disgraced congressman from New York.

No, this post is about the other person who took enemy fire and sustained injury over this scandal. And I’m not talking about Mrs. Weiner or the co-ed from Seattle. I’m referring to Congressman Weiner’s press secretary, David Arnold.

At present, many of my public relations peers are dissecting this now sad tragedy of a story from a crisis communications perspective, not unlike what many did with the Tiger Woods situation. I agree, it is definitely a cautionary tale about what to do and what not to do in a crisis situation. Good PR counsel would’ve relieved much of the public disgrace now experienced by Weiner, or at a minimum lessened the blow when the media came after him.

While there is good material to dissect on that front, I’d rather turn attention on the guy who did or should’ve provided said good PR counsel, Weiner’s press secretary. I can’t say with certitude that David Arnold instructed Weiner as to what to do when the story began to take shape (for the purposes of this post, I assume he did). But I can say without hesitation or confirmation what he risked in the process.

A strange thing happens when you go on the record and speak on the behalf of an employer or client; not only are you vouching for them (or at least, the credibility of the message), but also you are staking your professional reputation to say, "I believe in this person/company and you should too." Now I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve invested a lot in my professional equity and I’m not willing to bankrupt it for any employer.

If an employer out right asks me to lie for them, that’s simply something I cannot and won’t do. I may go right up to the line of questionable practices and look at it briefly (as in the case of “spinning” the truth), but I won’t cross it. Our better PR angels should prevail.

In the case of David Arnold and Anthony Weiner, I’d like to imagine the conversation went something like this:

Weiner: David, I think “we” have a potential problem coming.

Press Sec: Congressman, what’s the problem?

Weiner: Twitter…the damn tweet…it had a picture attached. But I deleted it.

Press Sec: What tweet? What picture? Tell me what happened.

Weiner: A tweet went out to a Twitter follower, a young woman…but it had an inappropriate picture attached. I think I’ve been hacked!

Press Sec: Congressman, I’m going to need you to tell me everything about this…exactly as it occured. If I’m going to help you, I need to know all the details of what transpired. I need to know what “our” options are.

Weiner: My account was hacked David! There was a picture of a man’s bulging crotch tweeted to a young woman! My wife is going to kill me…why did this happen?

Press Sec: Twitter accounts get hacked all the time. We’ll just explain that to the media and let them know that we’re going to get to the bottom of this. We need to get out in front of this before the story gets out.

Weiner: Didn’t you hear me say that I deleted the tweet? What benefit is it for us to tell the media about the tweet or the picture? Doing it your way we’d have to deal with this publicly. Let’s just wait to see what happens.

Press Sec: Sir, I wouldn’t advise that. If we are transparent now, and tell the truth, it won’t be as big of a story and it won’t make you look as bad as if they found out on their own. You know, just because you delete it, it doesn’t mean it disappears.

Weiner: Really? This is just awful.

Press Sec: Congressman, we really need to get out there in front of this. You don’t want to come off looking like that “Tickle Party” guy Massa, or worse, a sexual deviant like Tiger Woods?

Weiner: You’re right. Massa looked horrible trying to explain what happened. And the media crucified him.

Press Sec: Congressman…Anthony…before I go out there and start talking to the media, I’m going to need you to tell me the absolute truth. All of it. If we’re going to do this, I have to know exactly what we’re dealing with.

Weiner: I told you the truth. I think my Twitter account was hacked. I did not send that tweet to that woman.

And with that make believe conversation, the events of “Weinergate” unfolded. The esteemed congressman from the state of New York got Brietbarted™ and then the press feasted on the chum. In an attempt to quell the media, Weiner then sent out his press secretary/communications director like a lamb to be slaughtered.

We all know how this incident ended; Congressman Weiner eventually gave his public mea culpa by way of press conference. But what happened in the days leading may be a different kind of victimization.

Having believed his boss’ story (or totally making it up himself, only time will tell), David Arnold went on the offensive boldly proclaiming the Congressman’s innocence, shifting the blame, touting private investigations and even calling the police to remove one reporter (Marcia Kramer) from the congressman’s office in the middle of reporting.

Arnold, feeling emboldened with the alleged truth, put a lot on the line professionally. He not only jeopardized his reputation/credibility with the media that covers his industry (for lack of a better word) but he will henceforth be associated with a political cover-up (much like G. Gordon Liddy, Scooter Libby and Tricky Dick Nixon).

But was it worth it? Only time will tell how much this incident will cost him.

As usual, I’d be happy to hear other thoughts on this topic.

When Somebody Throws A Stone…Just Add Cement

Being the bully of the fourth estate and the self proclaimed satirical watch dog whose sole mission seems to be keeping the media honest, it’s almost a given that they’re going to come gunning for you when the opportunity presents itself. At the very minimum, certain media outlets might pile on when a negative story surfaces.

So it was no surprise that when a negative story about alleged sexist behavior at “The Daily Show” broke, media outlets across the spectrum seem to take glee in reporting the story about Jon Stewart and his alleged “all boys club.” Yup, he got the “business” from some of the very media outlets he comically skewered on a daily basis.

Before I get into some of the details of the Daily Show’s negative publicity or how the show responded, I want to touch on this thing called Reputation and/or Brand Management. Outside of being a buzz word for PR pros looking to carve out a niche for themselves or a jargony phrase to impress prospective clients, Reputation Management is actually a very useful proactive and defensive public relations practice. According to most formal definitions, it is described as a specialty that focuses on managing brand, product, or personal perceptions through an active, near real-time program of conscious engagement.

While many PR pros like to confine Reputation Management to the online world, I also like to extend it to the offline one. If someone says something damaging about you or your organization on air or someone repeats a false rumor during a broadcast, sometimes it’s best to address it head-on before fiction becomes fact or perception becomes reality.

A good example of proactive Reputation Management would be Newark, NJ Mayor Cory Booker taking on multiple late night talk show hosts by challenging their assertion that his city was a crime ridden cesspool. Booker did it in such a personable and intelligent way that the jokes subsided and people slowly began to buy into his narrative that Newark might just be a good place to live. Not addressing the chatter would have allowed Newark to be defined by others.

This brings me back to the Daily Show. For reasons unknown a very popular pro-woman blog (some would call it a feminist site) decided to do an exposé on The Daily Show’s hiring practices and treatment when it came to women. According to the blog, “The Daily Show's environment was such that many women felt marginalized.”

The blog post would go on to accuse Stewart himself of being dismissive of women colleagues. However thoughtful it was intended to be, the one thing missing from this dissection of the Daily Show was comment from the Daily Show. So I ask the question, “If a tree falls on the internet, will anybody hear it?” Yes!

Due to the blog’s popularity and its motivated following, the story took off and began to spread. You can read some of the coverage here, here and here. Whether or not the coverage of the story was fair, I’ll leave that up to the readers and viewers [editor's note: I’m a die-hard fan of the Daily Show, who secretly desires to write for the show]. Should the story have been covered in the first place – yes, because it’s newsworthy. But as a PR professional I became more interested in the show’s response to this form of crisis situation and how it faired in managing the reputation of the brand. Here’s the tale of the tape:

6/23/10 – Negative blog post is published

6/24/10 – Stories about negative blog post begin to break

6/29/10 – Stewart references the blog post on his show

7/6/10 – The Daily Show comes out with guns blazing in response


In the hood, there’s a saying that the response is never fast enough to “shots fired!” While I commend the Daily Show for addressing the accusation, I have to give them low marks on response time. While two weeks may not seem like an eternity, it was more than enough time for this story to take root and blossom to the point that it warranted some sort of formal response. And respond is exactly what the Daily Show did!

To dispel the rumors of sexism and the environment being an all boys club, the show gathered all of its female staffers, who account for 40 percent of all employees and had them provide a rebuttal to the story. You can read the full official response on the show’s website here. The response, which included a group photo of all the female staffers together smiling, was well thought out, biting, funny and painted a picture in complete contradiction to what the negative blog post alleged.

I thought it was genius! I’ve always believed the best way to dispel an untruth is by tearing it down at its very foundation. And this response did exactly that. It goes into great detail to provide the names, positions and years of service for all of the current female staff. It also lists a multitude of personal and professional areas the show has supported these women through. And best of all, this message was delivered by the very women who were allegedly being marginalized.

In the end, I give the Daily Show very high marks in the overall handling of this situation, despite the noticeable lag time before their official response. If companies want to have a say in how others perceive them, they’re going to have to not only monitor what’s being said about them but also engage those who are doing the talking. Mayor Booker and the Daily Show provide some examples of how to do this. However, I must admit I’m more partial to the Daily Show’s response. What’s not to love about an official company response that ends, Go f@#k yourself!"