Can Chipotle’s Reputation Management Strategy Save the Brand?
From ContentStandard: A string of food contaminations in its restaurants has put Chipotle in a desperate situation. Its sales in the final quarter of 2015 dropped by nearly 15 percent, and its stock is currently below $460 after an all-time high of $758 just a few months earlier. To try and correct its course, the […]
The Difference Between Tylenol and Volkswagen: The Imagination of Disaster
When someone added cyanide to Tylenol capsules in the Chicago area in 1982, killing seven people, Johnson & Johnson, owner of Tylenol was faced with an unprecedented crisis. How they handled that situation is still the gold standard for corporate crisis management. Today, the “gold standard” for how to not handle a crisis continues to be Volkswagen. […]
Brazil Mine Disaster Shows Value (and Harm) of Public Relations Responses
From InsuranceJournal.com: Within hours of a deadly mining spill in November that would become Brazil’s worst environmental disaster, BHP Chief Executive Andrew Mackenzie was in front of a camera offering his sympathies to those affected. Meanwhile, his counterpart at joint venture partner Vale SA, Murilo Ferreira, took nearly a week after the mine wastewater […]
Panel to Discuss How Terrorism has Changed Our Lives
By Thom Fladung, Hennes Communications Spin back 20 years or so. Was anyone in your office talking about “active shooter” training? Were school closings because of anonymous threats a common occurrence? What was it like back then getting on your flight at the airport? Americans’ fears about an imminent terrorist attack haven’t changed much over […]
Beyond the Chaos: 3 Stories of Those Under the Gun During Major Crises
From our colleague, Jim McKay, editor of Emergency Management Magazine: In this feature, we look at three separate disasters through the lens of someone in command. All three of these emergencies were incredibly tragic and difficult or impossible to predict. Besides the tragedy, these emergency managers share lessons learned, some of which we discuss here. Frank […]
Protecting Value in the Face of Mass Fatality Events
From Oxford Metrica: Extreme events provide an opportunity for investors to review their opinions about a firm and, more pertinently, about its management. Additional corporate information is forthcoming around such events that would not be available in more normal circumstances. This new information is received and digested by markets which form new estimates of future […]
Issuing a Public Warning Is Not an Easy Decision
The decision to issue a warning to the public is never an easy one. Crisis Manager Lucien Canton writes about one of the most common reasons for failing to issue timely warnings: the fear of creating public panic. He argues that fear, particularly one that is contradicted by social science research, is never an excuse for […]
OP3 Conference – For Ohio Companies Concerned About Disaster Prevention, Response & Recovery
Ohio Emergency Management Agency Ohio Public Private Partnership Conference Cleveland State University June 23, 2015 In an effort to increasingly serve Ohioans before, during and after a disaster, the Ohio Department of Public Safety (ODPS) relies on strong partnerships between citizens, government, and private business. To strengthen these partnerships across the state, ODPS created the Ohio Public […]
There Was an Explosion in New York City, and Seconds Later I Was Watching It Live on Periscope
“We are entering a new era of ubiquitous live broadcasting,” writes Ben Popper in The Verge, an online publication. “I was browsing on Twitter when someone posted an image of a smoking building, fire trucks, and a message about a crazy explosion. Then I got a push notification on Periscope, the new live-streaming app from Twitter, about a […]
Mass Fatality Events and their Impact on Public Company Value
[by Howard Fencl, APR] The emerging horror of a suicidal pilot methodically guiding Germanwings Flight 9525 and all 150 souls on board to their demise thrust the CEO of the airlines’ parent company, Lufthansa, onto the world media stage. CEO Carsten Spohr is in full-blown crisis mode, with millions – especially critics – hanging on […]