Send in the Drones
From our friend, Darrell Clay: Cameras are ubiquitous these days: They are found in or on street corners, hallways, retail stores, restaurants, and more. Even airplane passengers are ready to whip out their smart phones to capture and instantly share video footage on YouTube or Facebook Live. Are you prepared for the next generation of […]
The New Law of Litigation Communications: Your Case Will Now Be Heard – On Facebook
By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications The Court of Public Opinion is now in session. In fact, it’s always in session – on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media outlets. The practice of litigation communications or litigation public relations is young, as legal and communications matters go, emerging in the early 1980s, according to many […]
Did American Airlines Profit from United’s Poor Example?
[By Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications] This past weekend provided the crisis communications profession with a Petri dish-like opportunity to study the way two almost identical organizations managed two almost identical situations less than two weeks apart. If we had devised an experiment using the scientific method, we probably could not have created a more precise […]
Fox News Followed The Money In Firing O’Reilly – And Failed Crisis Communications Test
By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications The axe that hovered for weeks finally fell on Wednesday as 21st Century Fox announced that Bill O’Reilly would not be returning to Fox News Channel, the cable news outlet O’Reilly helped build, in the wake of a string of explosive sexual harassment claims, broken by the New York Times. […]
Crisis Management: Preparing for the Next Big Event
From the Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal: No matter the crisis—a billion-euro loss, a breach that leaves millions of customer records at risk or a major airline accident with the CEO on board—organizations can take steps to weather the storm, according to Jeremy Smith, global leader of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited’s Crisis Management […]
Postscript – United’s Dr. Dao Debacle
[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] In the three days that have passed since I drafted our initial blog post on this unnecessary incident, United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz tried a do-over on ABC, finally offering what seemed to be a more heartfelt apology to Dr. David Dao, the 69-year-old passenger violently dragged off of a United flight […]
Shooting Your Reputation in the Foot: Self-Inflicted Crisis Management Lessons from United Airlines
[by Howard Fencl, Hennes Communications] A video recently removed from Facebook shows law enforcement officers violently removing a passenger on a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Louisville right before takeoff. The flight was overbooked, and a United crew of four needed seats so they could get to Louisville, where they had a flight to work. Passengers […]
A Fox In The Bill O’Reilly House: A Study In ‘Mercantile Activism’
From our colleague, Richard Levick: Fox News’ slipshod handling of sexual harassment charges against former CEO Roger Ailes and über commentator Bill O’Reilly should serve as an object lesson for companies caught in Trump-era klieg lights — not to mention the indirect light these crises shed on their sponsors. In an era of one-party rule and […]
Crisis Management & Homeland Security Lessons from King Kong vs. Godzilla
Crisis Management & Homeland Security Lessons from Bad Movies: Lesson #1: Be Willing to Increase the Intensity of Your Defensive Measure In the first Godzilla movie, Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the Japanese military attempted to halt Godzilla’s advance towards the heart of Tokyo by erecting a set of power lines which carried three hundred thousand […]
Why Buying Forgiveness Doesn’t Work
From Adele Cehrs, writing in Ragan’s PRDaily: Several large companies have taken out expensive ads apologizing for bad behavior. Over the last year, Samsung, Under Armour and Deutsche Bank have all issued full-page mea culpas in prestigious publications. Reasons include missteps by a spokesperson, an attempt to control the narrative and choosing to avoid a […]