World is not your oyster, darling!

26 FEB 2024

The longer one worries about something, the bigger the worry gets. So, the sooner they take some kind of action, the better. And yet, I will bet you Taylor Swift tickets no one will disagree, but few will really take the action. Right? Well, maybe. 

The clients we’re meeting don’t really need us convincing them to prepare their organization for crisis. And that’s when the ease steps in. We’re seeing more companies wanting to develop or perfect their comms flows, having in mind specific threats or looking for a simple horizon scan. They understand the goal, the benefit, the insurance of having ease of mind that when something happens, the organization will be ready to react – will know how to set the right objectives, to engage the right stakeholders, what to say and to whom. We love that, as we think it healthier to invest in preparing rather than saving whatever is possible. 

What do we advise them? 

To be on the lookout for everything and to direct the fear towards preparing for the worst. 

We’ve seen that most of the profound crises are born out of superficiality, be it on the comms teams side, due to insufficient research or preparation in tackling sensitive issues, or on the consumers’ side, looking to react before understanding. We see the former as a sign of organizational maturity, and the second as something that needs to be always factored in. The attention span is shortening, the volume of information we all are processing is increasing, so opinions are often formed on bits and pieces. Those opinions become universal truths, soon they spark debates in Social Media, and then they’re just a step away from a catchy hashtag that will make the crisis memorable. If caught unprepared, the comms team will react emotionally, with haste, without analyzing all possible impact and missing opportunities. 

 

The Major Risks

What we’ve just described is the effect of polarization. And World Economic Forum, in its Global Risks Report 2024, features societal polarization among the top three risks over both the current and two-year time horizons, and in top ten over the longer term. 

Do I need to say Romania is no exception? We’re familiar with hacking, even in worst-case movie-like scenarios, such as in public hospitals or the Parliament; with deep fakes, misinformation, fake news and cyber wars. As this is the two-way mirror crisis & opportunity form: not just that there’s an opportunity in every crisis, as they offer a great setup for real change and evolution, but many opportunities bring unforeseen crises. Looking at you, AI. 

What will 2024 bring? First of all, elections. And with all the above-mentioned new tech that we have little understanding of, brands are in danger of being dragged in battles they don’t really want to join. 

Inflation and higher costs-of-living, with a direct impact on most brands and not enough real understanding of their impact. 

More cyber-attacks. More pollution. Possibly more war. 

For sure, risk will always be there. It is inherited, transformed, reborn, evolved, regressed, but always there – and it's all in how one deals with it. 

 

The Major Saves

This is the determination part. The solution is there – might not be easily found, but it’s definitely there. 

I read somewhere that good crisis management is good stakeholders management. It stayed with me, as working with the media, not against them, is a save in the long run. Just like making ambassadors of the key employees, preparing the crisis management team, training the top management and having crisis exercises to test all we mentioned here.

Having an integrated approach to crisis comms is also crucial. We never talk of “social media crisis” or “PR crisis”. There is no such a thing. Instead, we talk brand crises, and design solutions that factor in all channels. 

We engage the CEOs directly. We become their advisors on their road to becoming the leaders that stakeholders trust, media listen to, and employees follow. These are invaluable assets in a crisis, and we make sure we have them in place. CEOs show the company’s transparency, its beliefs, and their swift intervention in times of need may cut a crisis incredibly short. 

And of course, we always look at rebuilding the lost reputation. We treat preparation with seriousness, management with agility, and recovery with creativity, care and courage. With a strong backbone in research, we develop smart strategies and challenge our creative team to build campaigns tailored to meet the needs revealed in the post-crisis analysis. 

`Cause when you can solve the tough ones, everything is easier. And if there’s a moment when it all seems too difficult, drop us a line, at GRF+ we thrive on difficult tasks. Contact Sorina Mihail at sorina.mihail@grf.plus to find out more about our capabilities and what you can do to start preparing for the next crisis.

Crisis Comms has been a strong pillar for GRF+ since the agency’s early year. We now have a comprehensive suite of services, meeting clients’ needs in all four stages of effective crisis management: preparedness, prevention, event management and post-crisis management. Our experience includes managing crises in IT&C, pharma, banking, HoReCa, transport and retail industries. We’ve been involved in famous topics, such as milk crisis (Aflatoxin), horse meat, Tide Pot challenge or several ANPC-related situations, and we successfully offered support to all our clients during the 2020 pandemic in relation to their employees and clients. We approach crisis communication with long term focus, always having in mind scale and impact. 

sorina.mihail@grf.plus