When actual disaster strikes, risk communications gives way to another PR specialty known as “crisis management.” Emerging in the aftermath of the 1979 nuclear near-meltdown at Three Mile Island, crisis management is now taught by highly paid consultants in industry seminars and conferences. Crisis managers help companies cope with bad publicity in the wake of everything from sexual harassment cases and embezzlement scandals to plant explosions, strikes, employee shootings, toxic leaks, product tamperings, and food poisonings. Examples include the Exxon Valdez oil spill, E. coli-contaminated hamburgers at the Jack in the Box restaurant chain, the crash of TWA Flight 800, and the Pan Am Lockerbie disaster.
Unlike risk communicators, whose job is usually to tell the public that hazards are slight and risk is remote, crisis managers warn their clients that danger is everywhere and disasters are bound to happen. “There are two kinds of companies: those that have had crises, and those that will,” proclaimed PR Week in May 1999. “It is a matter of timing and prescience but sooner or later most companies will probably need a crisis expert to help them.” The Pittsburgh managing director for the Ketchum PR firm estimated in 1999 that 35 to 40 percent of the income for his unit came from crisis counseling. In the near future, PR Week predicted, “crisis consulting could mean hundreds of millions of dollars to the PR industry.”24
“All corporations are living closer to the edge, increasing the potential of crises. Things are being done faster with fewer people, which is adding more risk,” explained Robert Wilkerson of the Corporate Response Group, a PR firm whose crisis résumé includes a major fraud case and labor dispute in Europe, a food embargo, a plane crash, oil spills, product recalls, and two hostile corporate takeovers.25
As the range of these examples indicates, crisis management is not limited to health and safety issues. Spin doctors repair the reputations of politicians, celebrities, and corporations alike—anyone, in fact, who is rich enough to afford the service. Rubenstein Associates, owned by attorney Howard Rubenstein, is considered one of the top crisis managers in the business. The firm’s clients have included George Steinbrenner, Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump, “Queen of Mean” Leona Helmsley, and sportscaster Marv Albert. Rubenstein came to the aid of billionaire Adnan Khashoggi when he was accused of helping Imelda Marcos defraud the Philippines, saw both Murdoch and Trump through high-profile divorces, and soothed Kathie Lee Gifford’s embarrassment during husband Frank’s extramarital fling and also when it was discovered that child labor was being used in sweatshops to manufacture clothing that bore her name.
“For me, it’s fascinating to be able to deal with a Kathy Lee Gifford problem or a Leona Helmsley case. It’s the kind of thing that pushes your intellectual skills,” says Rubenstein vice president Gary Lewi. Speaking at a PR seminar titled “How to Polish a Tarnished Reputation,” Lewi stressed the moral as well as mental rigor of his craft. “There was nothing unethical in our dealings with Kathie Lee Gifford,” he said. As for Leona Helmsley, “I think that while she may be a tough SOB, it’s not the kind of thing you go to jail for. . . . At the end of the day, you only have your ethics. No client is going to be in a situation where they dictate to you your morality and your ethics. If I find myself lying to the press or stonewalling to the press, and the press is no longer taking my phone calls because they regard me as a lying heathen, I might as well open up a deli.” Asked for an example of a client that Rubenstein has turned away, he answered, “There was a fellow who was trafficking kiddie porn on the Internet. The company canned him and wanted to rebuild its image, and we declined. It was clearly something that had gone on for a while, where the corporate culture had allowed it. We didn’t want to go anywhere near it.”26
Sometimes, however, the PR industry seems to take perverse pleasure in exploring the “intellectual” challenge of rehabilitating clients who are appallingly beyond the pale. In the July 1997 issue of Public Relations Tactics, a monthly tabloid published by the Public Relations Society of America, writer Steve Crescenzo examined the case of Swiss authorities who were being sued by Jewish Holocaust survivors seeking to reclaim the assets of their murdered family members. “Would you accept as a client someone who knowingly purchased gold that had been pulled from the teeth of people murdered by the Nazis?” Crescenzo asked, and then went on to praise the work of PR firms that indeed accepted just those sorts of clients.27 Following the rape conviction of Mike Tyson and the controversial acquittal of O. J. Simpson on murder charges, Public Relations Tactics devoted its cover story and several accompanying articles to another challenging PR problem: “What do you prescribe for a public relations client who’s a world-class athlete, charged with a vicious crime, and forced to endure a protracted incarceration?” It surveyed a variety of PR professionals, whose free advice for Tyson and Simpson included the following: • “Tyson’s handlers need to ‘reinvent’ him, similar to the way Richard Nixon was reinvented.”
• Tyson “ought to think seriously about cultivating a handful of journalists he can trust and then build on those few relationships.”
• Simpson “has a lot of rebuilding to do,” observed one PR director. But Run Fuhs, a PR manager for the Whirlpool Corporation, opined that “through some sort of public atonement process he could probably serve as a celebrity spokesman in a limited situation.”
• For now, Simpson’s best strategy is to “retreat for a time, say little, speak humbly, and become a nice guy,” suggested another PR pro. “He’ll have to feed himself back slowly. Public service would be a good start.”28
The PR formula for Simpson or Tyson, in other words, would be basically similar to the advice that Peter Sandman offers the Australian mining industry and other companies faced with bad publicity. Speak softly. Show humility. Create a process of “public atonement” for your sins. Crisis Communications, a PR textbook, offers the following observation in a case-study analysis of the Exxon Valdez oil spill: “If the media had captured, on video and film, the CEO on the site at Prince William Sound holding an oil-covered bird in his hand and looking as if he were crying, the entire story would be told differently today.”29 There may be no point crying over spilt oil, but there is certainly a point to looking like you’re crying.
Dress Rehearsals for Disaster
When PR firms are not fending off a real crisis, they help their clients practice for the ones that haven’t happened yet. In April 1999, the Hill & Knowlton PR firm unveiled The Virtual Crisis, an interactive CD-ROM that simulates a crisis exercise. Don’t look for it in stores, though. “The Virtual Crisis is not available as a stand-alone CD-ROM,” reported PR Week. “Two H&K facilitators, specially trained to conduct the simulation, must be present to lead as many as 20 corporate team leaders through the exercise. Following the simulation (usually six hours in length), the H&K staff provides a comprehensive oral critique of the participants’ decisions and responses. Pricing for the entire exercise is $10,000. . . . It is designed for top-level executives . . . who, in the case of a real crisis, would be called upon to act and to communicate the appropriate response.” Developed by H&K managing director Richard Hyde, who was part of the PR firm’s crisis management team at Three Mile Island, the exercise lets “participants attempt to ward off the media” while simultaneously coping with “a whole set of other distractions.”30
Some crisis management experts specialize in “war games” that go beyond computer simulations and create actual on-the-ground situations to give corporate executives a more realistic role-playing experience. In one such drill, held after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the PR firm of Kamer-Singer & Associates used popcorn and orange peels in place of actual oil to simulate a 10,000-barrel spill during a two-day “megadrill” that involved some 600 Chevron employees. As employees pretend-battled to contain the fake oil spill, Chevron’s executives practiced handling a barrage of questions and complaints from Kamer-Singer’s staff and the company’s own internal PR people, who played the role of various outsiders: environmental activists, grandsta
nding politicians, aggrieved area residents, skeptical reporters, and so forth.
Crisis drills are more than mere exercises in PR symbolism. Kamer-Singer’s Larry Kamer notes that in a real crisis, people face stress, high emotions and other pressures that can exacerbate the original problem. Practicing for a crisis beforehand enables managers to test the vulnerabilities in a contingency plan, and may help save lives and property when a real crisis occurs. “Responding to a crisis or emergency without practice is highly risky,” Kamer says. “More importantly, it’s irresponsible. . . . A real crisis is no time to test plans or capabilities. You don’t want to be in the middle of the corporate equivalent of germ warfare before you find out whether the plan works or not.”31
Nevertheless, the symbolism and stagecraft associated with Kamer-Singer’s disaster rehearsals make interesting reading. In 1997, PR industry writer Paul Holmes participated in one such exercise and wrote about it as the cover story for an issue of his publication, Reputation Management. During the drill, he stated, the PR team worked from “four separate ‘scripts’ that are essentially lists of telephone calls to be made by the media, residents, politicians, and ultimately people with claims against the company.” Just as a conventional theatrical production tells us something about the worldview of its creators and audience, the scripts that Kamer-Singer prepared for Chevron provide an interesting peek at the PR/corporate worldview.
To begin with, Kamer-Singer’s script carefully minimizes the possibility of actual corporate culpability. The oil spill that begins its fictional version of a crisis occurs when a privately piloted airplane inexplicably crashes into one of the company’s oil tanks. As the drama unfolds, members of the general public appear in a succession of brief roles in which they are stereotyped as quaint troublemakers at best, dangerous fools at worst. “The community calls (by far the most entertaining, since they allow for almost infinite improvisation) range from a guy with a million-dollar view who was planning to sell his home this weekend to an irate commuter whose ferry was canceled to an elderly gentleman who broke his ankle falling out of bed after hearing the crash,” Holmes writes. Reporters first accuse the company of cutting corners for deciding that its cleanup crew will not work through the night, and then accuse it of bowing to political pressure when it changes its mind. A governor, a congressman, and a senator each call, threatening investigations. The mayor also calls, demanding on short notice to tour the disaster with an entourage of reporters, then fails to show up at the agreed-upon time. The company’s labor union uses the oil spill as a pretext to threaten a strike. An environmental activist group sets up a website, blasting the company for allowing the spill to occur. An area resident complains that one of the company’s cleanup vehicles ran over her cat. Another resident calls, threatening to “buy myself an [expletive deleted] gun and I’m going to pay you guys a little visit.” A producer calls from the “Bush Wambaugh show, one of this country’s leading conservative commentators. . . . Mr. Wambaugh is very concerned that this country is being taken over by pencil-pushing bureaucrats, feminazis, and tree huggers, and he wants to know why a giant corporation like Chevron is sucking up to namby-pamby liberals instead of protecting the interests of its shareholders.”32
Come again? The producer for “Mr. Wambaugh” goes on to explain: “Your company is engaged in rescuing oil-covered birds from the water and from the shore, correct? . . . Then they’re cleaned up. And your company pays for the cleaning materials and the cost of the centers themselves, and pays people to supervise the cleanup? . . . Isn’t it true that even after being cleaned up, more than 90 percent of these birds will die anyway?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have that information. I’ll have to look into it,” the company’s PR man diplomatically replies. Holmes notes that Wambaugh’s observation “is, in fact, true. Almost all the birds ‘rescued’ after being covered in oil die anyway. The main advantage of cleaning them off is that it makes local volunteers feel as though they are doing something useful. It’s also an effective way to convey the company’s environmental sensitivity, even if it is largely a symbolic gesture.”33
6
Preventing Precaution
When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.
—Wingspread Statement on the Precautionary Principle
One crisis that PR firms rarely anticipate is the possibility that their own internal documents may be leaked to the public. This happened to the Ketchum PR firm in 1991 when one of its own employees, apparently offended by some of the techniques proposed in a “Draft Crisis Management Plan for the Clorox Company,” faxed a copy of the plan to the Seattle office of Greenpeace USA.
The Ketchum plan, designed to counter situations in which environmentalists might launch a major campaign against Clorox household bleach, attempted to “provide a ‘crystal ball’ pinpointing some of the issues which could arise over the next year. For each scenario we have suggested different levels of attention and response.” Examples included:• “Crisis Scenario #1: Chlorine Free by 93. Greenpeace has announced a worldwide effort to rid the world of chlorine.” In this Ketchum scenario, Greenpeace releases a study linking chlorine exposure to cancer; demonstrators hold a rally outside the Clorox corporate headquarters; and reporters “interview three unsuspecting Clorox employees, on their way to lunch, who agree that the safety of chlorine may be in question.” In this sort of situation, Ketchum advised, the company’s objective should be to “make sure this is a one-day media event with no follow-up stories.” To achieve this, Clorox would announce that it “will seek an independent, third-party review of the Greenpeace study and promise to report back to the media. (While this last strategy may seem to be counter to the objective, the independent study will gain little media attention if it supports the company position; its primary value will be to cause reporters to question Greenpeace’s integrity and scientific capabilities.)” Simultaneously, a PR crisis management team would begin “alerting key influentials, scientists, government environmental and health officials, and others previously identified as potential allies. . . . Names of independent scientists who will talk about chlorine are given to the media. (These names are assumed to be already on file as per Master Crisis Plan.)”
• “Crisis Scenario #2: Back to Natural. The movement back to more ‘natural’ household cleaning products is gaining momentum.” In this scenario, a prominent newspaper columnist targets the environmental hazards of liquid chlorine bleach, and consumers begin turning to safer, natural cleaning products such as vinegar and borax. Anti-Clorox picketing campaigns occur in 10 major U.S. cities. Once again, the third party technique figures prominently in Ketchum’s response plan: “An independent scientist is dispatched to meet with the columnist and discuss the issue. Teams of scientists, independent or from Clorox or both, are dispatched to the 10 cities to conduct media tours. . . . [Crisis management team] arranges for sympathetic media, local, state and national governmental leaders, and consumer experts to make statements in defense of the product. These statements are then widely distributed in the affected communities. . . . Industry association (Chlorine Institute?) advertising campaign: ‘Stop Environmental Terrorism,’ calling on Greenpeace and the columnist to be more responsible and less irrational in their approach. . . . Consider video and audio news release to affected markets. . . . Conduct research to determine if and how a slander lawsuit against the columnist and/or Greenpeace could be effective.”
• “Crisis Scenario #3: National Toxicology Program (NTP) Study.” In this scenario, an NTP study concludes that chlorine is an animal carcinogen, attracting “widespread national media coverage.” In response, Ketchum proposes, “third-party scientific experts are brought to Washington to testify and advise both Congress and the EPA. . . . Third-party spokespeople are scheduled for major television and newspaper interviews. Industry generates gras
sroots letters to legislators calling on them to show restraint.”
Each of these scenarios and strategies entailed the recruitment, prior to any specific crisis, of “ambassadors in the scientific community to gain third-party credibility for Clorox environmental messages. . . . In addition to the relatively small group of scientists and academicians the Clorox Company will tap as spokespersons, the Crisis Team also must educate a broad network of scientific, medical and academic organizations that may be called upon by the media to comment on any health or environmental concerns. These groups include the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, . . . the American Academy of Family Physicians, as well as key chapters of the American Public Health Association. Third-party scientists working with the Clorox Company will provide the peer credibility needed to dialogue with these groups.”1
Public disclosure of the Ketchum plan prompted the usual corporate disavowals. “Clorox management was not involved in its preparation, and is not acting on its recommendations,” said Clorox spokesperson Sandy Sullivan. Ketchum president David Drobis insisted that there was nothing unusual or inappropriate about the plan. “It shouldn’t be surprising that any company has such a plan,” he said. “In fact, it would be more surprising to find out that a major company didn’t.”2
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