Oscar Ceremony Team on High Alert With a Crisis Communications Plan for This Sunday’s Broadcast
By Bruce Hennes, Hennes Communications The Academy Awards ceremony is one of the most high-profile events in the entertainment industry, drawing millions of viewers from around the world. With a large audience and so many moving parts, it’s no surprise that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has created a “crisis team” to […]
How to Communicate Before, During and After Layoffs
By Sean Devlin for PR Daily With all the news of economic turmoil and layoffs at major companies in the news lately, it’s hard not to think of how these job cuts were communicated to employees. According to recent reports, Google employees were told via email, with some getting the news at 3 a.m. local time, that […]
When Crisis Threatens an Influencer-Deal Partnership
By Eric Yaverbaum for O’Dwyer’s 2022 brought no shortage of high-profile crises for brands and celebrities alike. Under Elon Musk’s thumb, Twitter has been marred by continual controversy, including imposter Twitter accounts buying verified status and pretending to be brands—a subscription service that later relaunched with a higher price tag—and at one point, Musk even mentioning bankruptcy. From an […]
Speak First or Forever Lose your Crisis Message
By Katie Paine for PRNEWS Anyone who has studied crisis communications knows, “he/she who speaks first owns the narrative.” Once bad news breaks, whether it is a self-inflicted crisis, accident or natural disaster, there’s a sequence that all crises follow. Something happens, the news media finds out about it and starts asking questions, and whoever […]
Exclusive: Academy of Motion Pictures CEO Says New ‘Crisis Team’ Will Handle Future Fiascos Like the ‘Slap’
By Eliana Dockterman for TIME Since taking over the position of CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences last July, Bill Kramer has spent a lot of time putting out fires. In the past two years, the Oscars ratings sank to their lowest in the show’s history. The Academy has tasked Kramer […]
Workers Fault Their Company’s Internal Comms
By Steve Barnes for O’Dwyers Most company leaders feel that they’re doing a good job when it comes to internal comms, according to communications management platform Axios HQ. Employees, however, aren’t quite so sure. Out of the more than 1,000 leaders that Axios polled last November, 77 percent said that essential communications at their organizations […]
Mastering the Zoom Apology
By Bruce Hennes & Nora Jacobs, Hennes Communications A CEO, executive director, bar association president or other business executive has to apologize or speak about something very important. The stakes are high – and the apology is going to have to be done using Zoom or another virtual platform. Under any circumstance, delivering an effective […]
How to Keep a Change From Becoming a Crisis
By Linda Varrell for Mainebiz Over the past year, I’ve received twice as many calls for crisis communications than in the 15 years since I launched Broadreach Public Relations. And none of them had anything to do with COVID. In some of the cases, organizations were already in the throes of Def Con One, worst-case […]
Adding Self-Awareness, Compassion to the Crisis Toolkit
By Anne Green for O’Dwyers In May of 2010, BP’s then-CEO uttered what must’ve become one of the most infamous phrases in the annals of crisis communications: “There is no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back.” The leader in question, Tony Hayward, already had a reputation […]
Now Streaming: Crisis in the Documentary Era
By Liz Janisse, Rachel Rosenblatt for O’Dwyers We’re living in the era of the documentary, a time when [insert favorite streaming service here] has the scoop on cults, tigers, murder mysteries and even threats to corporate reputations. Today, there are more than 50 different streaming services in North America alone, all competing for subscribers and […]