Public Relations and Crisis

Management at Airports
PR: The Role during Crisis – Four Steps
Public Relations Process
The Role during Crisis
Why Crisis Management
 organizations that are not able to deal with crisis management correctly are not prepared
in advance when the crisis takes place, so they are not able to handle the situation
properly.
 try evading the situation, toughing it out or make believe the crisis will pass, makes it
worse,
 it can impact their revenue generation and falling stock prices. most vital asset is at risk
like their reputation, their image that they might have spent years on building.
 It is useless to hide the truth from the public as ultimately someone will blow the whistle.

 three smart approaches to deal with crisis situations:

 1. Avoid a crisis in the first place (a pinch of prevention is worth a mound of cure)
 2. Quickly address and resolve crisis issues before they increase
 3. Seek possible ways to turn your crisis into an opportunity.
 ROLE OF PR DURING CRISIS
 Public relations consultants play an essential role during crises, preserving and refining their
organization's relationships by communicating effectively with its public (target audiences).
 Public relations practitioners are not usually accountable for determining the underlying problem(s)
that generated a crisis situation. They cannot individually govern their organization's actions.
 Responsible to get the organization through the situation with as little damage to its credibility,
reputation, and important relationships as possible.
 Even though crises necessitate quick responses, public relations specialists need to maintain a long-
term outlook to enhance long-lasting relationships with key publics.
 To help stabilize the environment by developing public relations strategy and messages which results
in rapid, authentic, useful and concerned communication with all significant internal and external
audiences.
The role of PR includes but is not limited to:
 Audit: PRO need to forecast the possible threat to an organization. A crisis audit establishes inside an
organization, if the an issue is discovered make suggestions to resolve it.
 Scenario planning: Scenario planning aims to develop flexible plans to deal with possible crises. It
takes account of known facts, with educated guesses, for instance, the possible reaction of the press
to news that an employee has committed fraud.
second method of scenario planning. Identifying all the possible ‘what ifs’
 Risk analysis and contingency planning: Identification and severity of the type of risk can be
measured by the organization; by means of risk analysis and can put a plans in place to minimize the
risk or damage. The contingency planning will prepare people, for instance, by providing media
training to important spokespeople who may be called on in a crisis
 PR Strategies for Crisis Management
 Every crisis is not similar, to act swiftly and assertively to limit damages we need A strategy
 Monitor: Collect all the available information and quickly prepare a thorough assessment of
the facts. Continue to do this as the crisis develops: evaluate the situation and how it is
changing. Listen to your stakeholders.
 Manage: Decide on the key messages you need to give to stakeholders and the best way to
reach each group. Brief any spokespeople and make them to speak to the media.
 Respond: It is necessary to react rapidly. A lack of information will give the public and the
media space to speculate. Rumors and speculation may be far more damaging than the original
crisis. Responding quickly may let you to direct the narrative of the crisis and limit the damage.
 Reassess: Some stakeholder will remain unhappy in spite of how good your communications
then you need to decide how to respond. At times, it may be better to stay quiet or better.
 Timelines: Timeline helps to indicate the task you need to do in order of priority so as to
monitor, manage and respond to crisis situations. Ensure you to complete each activity in a
 particular time frame effectively to handle the crisis

 Lines of Communication: Always keep open your internal and external lines of
communication. You need to keep your own people informed along with ensuring your key
messages are communicated clearly to stakeholders and the public.
FOUR STEPS PUBLIC RELATIONS
PROCESS in Crisis
Step 1: Defining PR Problems
Using a SWOT Analysis

A very common tool for analyzing situations

is the SWOT analysis. SWOT analysis
Breakdowns down a situation by looking at
the internal and external factors that might
be contributing to the situation prior to
strategy development.
The internal factors Comprise the Strengths
an Weaknesses of the organization.
The external factors take account of the
Opportunities and Threats prevailing in the
organization's environment
 FOUR STEPS PUBLIC RELATIONS
PROCESS in Crisis
 Strength –Opportunity (SO) strategies:
It focuses on using organizational strengths to capitalize on the external opportunities.

 Strength – Threat (ST) strategies:

It also uses organizational strengths to counter external threats.
 Weakness-opportunity (WO) strategies:
It addresses and improves organizational weaknesses to be better equipped to take
benefit from external opportunities.
 Weakness – Threat (WT) strategies:
It attempt to correct organizational weaknesses to defend against external threats.
 FOUR STEPS PUBLIC RELATIONS
PROCESS in Crisis
2: Planning and Programming
End and not means to an end: An objective has to be an outcome
that leads to the goal. There are three potential outcomes for these objectives:
-- Cognitive: It includes awareness, understanding, remembering,
-- Attitudinal: It create attitudes, reinforce positive attitudes, change negative
attitudes
-- Behavior: It creates behaviors, reinforces positive behaviors and changes negative
behaviors.
Measureable: PR to be held responsible for their efforts. measurable objectives. Like 65% awareness
Time frame:
FOUR STEPS PUBLIC RELATIONS PROCESS
in Crisis
Identify the public:
 Segment Audiences
 Demographics segmentation includes variables for instance gender, income, level of
education, and ethnicity. Females may be connected to the issue very differently than males.
 Geographic segmentation describes your public by their location. People living within a
thousand feet of a pipeline may have different attitudes
 Psychographics segmentation is used to segment your audience depending on their values
and lifestyles.
It is important to segment your key publics because it will help you identify their
self-interests.
 Create Communication Based on Self-Interests
Greater attention is paid by the people to communications that are linked to their
values, needs, and goals. You must ask yourself what your public value and care about. You can
create a message that connects your audience to your program based on the demographic,
geographic, and/or psychographic segmentation of the important publics.
 Choose Communication Channels
FOUR STEPS PUBLIC RELATIONS PROCESS
in Crisis
Step 3: Taking Actions and Communicating
 The best PR programs consist of both taking actions and communicating. The old saying
“actions speak louder than words” true for PR and it fits for discipline any Business. At
times it is essential for an organization to act, or react, prior to communication. For
example, training seminars are not being attended by the employees…so stimulate
employees , provide something which may change behaviors
 Two additional components Planning the calendar and Budget

Step 4: Evaluation
evaluating the effectiveness of a public relations campaign:
 Define your benchmark or set a Criteria like attitude, Behavior or cognitive
 Select a measurement tool: Normally, the same tools are used that helped establish the
benchmark data
 Analyze data, draw actionable conclusions, and make recommendations
 Make changes and measure again