Crisis Communication

Crisis Communication – External

The goal for this portion of the project is to develop a press release and outline other external communications that will satisfies public concern about your company by acknowledging the crises, sharing your reactions and steps taken to remediate the situation, and restore public trust and interest in your company. Only one member of the group should submit the assignment to this dropbox as a file upload.

Details

Your response should indicate:

  
Your companies reaction/response to the crisis

  
The actions taken (or planned actions taken) to mitigate the crisis

  
Any other comments that may help resolve the public’s concern over the crisis

This part of the project will be in the third page of your wiki project. You must include, at the minimum:

  
Text of your press release

  
Samples of social media responses with time stamps of when they were posted after the crisis.

  
Details of any other externally focused communications you referenced in part 4 “Crisis Response – Internal”

Also include any other relevant artifacts for your public relations campaign. You are encouraged to be as creative with your group as possible. For example, you may want to record a simulated news interview with a corporate spokesperson.

Chapter 8 of Crisis Management in the New Strategy Landscape provides a foundation for successfully completing this portion of the project.  Additionally, the internet is full of guidelines and templates for developing a Press Release.

Companies develop Press Releases for a variety of reasons.  Press Releases are developed in an attempt to frame and position news about a company in a way that is favorable to the company.  These Press Releases are sent to key stakeholders and the media and are often posted on company’s websites.  Most Press Releases are actually a marketing tool and are focused on positive company news and are an attempt to create buzz around a company achievement.  Most are written in a brief newspaper article format and in fact, the company’s goal in many cases is to have their press release be the news article because it so favorably frames their message.  In reality, some well press releases do get published in online and print media exactly are they are sent out, or with minimal changes.  Press Release development in the context of responding to the crises is an art not a science and although there is a format for developing a Press Release, each crises and each company are different.  Your company’s size, brand image, products, and customers, as well as the severity of the crisis will determine how your message should be crafted.