By Arun Sudhaman
GLOBAL: Richard Levick, CEO and president of US firm Levick Strategic
Communications, made the remark while discussing BP’s comms response to
the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
A spoof Twitter account called @BPGlobalPR has
since amassed more than 120,000 followers, and has penned columns
poking fun at the PR industry. In the Guardian last week, for example,
the anonymous Twitterer, who goes by the pseudonym ‘Leroy Stick’,
offered a seven-step ‘crash course in PR’.
The article includes advice such as “acknowledge the problem without
acknowledging specifics”, and “threaten legal action if anyone crosses
the line.”
Levick said that PR industry needed to “grow up and understand that
it is now going to be part of the story.”
“PR has always wanted a seat at the table and now it’s got a seat at
the table,” he added. Levick has handled high-profile crises for such
clients as Mitsubishi and Southwest Airlines.
Neither Levick nor Bell Pottinger director of issues and crisis
management Alex Woolfall, however, thought that the spoof Twitter
account would significantly impact the reputation of the PR industry.
“The public often think PRs are one step up from estate agents:
untrustworthy spinners who get paid to massage the truth,” said
Woolfall.
Similarly, Woolfall felt that @BPGlobalPR would not affect the
public’s view of BP’s efforts to clean up the oil spill. “BP will
ultimately be judged on what they do and what others say about their
efforts and commitment to clean up the spill: not on what an anonymous
Twitterer says.”
Levick, meanwhile, noted that BP could have been quicker with its
social media response. “They could have been quicker with their
website, with their own pictures of their engineers, and they could
have been more active on their Twitter account.”
However, both Levick and Woolfall felt that BP had handled its
crisis comms well, given the magnitude of the current situation. “You
can certainly have a criticism of certain tactical issues,” said
Levick. “But, by and large, one has to remember, this is a crisis of
historic proportions. There’s got to be a villain in every tragedy –
who’s going to play the villain here? BP is the most likely villain.”
Criticism of BP has also extended to its recent hire of former Dick Cheney press aide: Anne
Kolton, former head of public affairs at the US Department of Energy.
“They are going to get criticised for everything now,” said Levick.
“Quite frankly, hiring someone of that level makes a lot of sense.”
BP’s woes are the latest in a series of issues that have rocked
major organisations this year, such as Toyota, Facebook, the Catholic
Church and British Airways. In all cases, said the two experts, the
online world’s ability to amplify events and accelerate the pace at
which they unfold had profoundly changed the traditional conventions of
crisis comms.
“What has changed is that everyone who has an opinion can voice it
in the online world,” said Woolfall. “Maybe what’s changed is there was
actually some clear water in the past, whereas now there is ongoing
commentary from the moment something happens.”
“It is the age of transparency,” added Levick.”Everything you do and
say is recorded and visited. CEOs need to understand you have to run
to the crisis.”
The fact that the two biggest crises have befallen foreign companies
in the US, added Levick, should not be overlooked. “To a certain
extent, xenophobia always plays a role,” he said. “If Toyota had been
an American company, would it have been criticised to the same level?”
Neither observer, though, felt that recent events had demonstrated a
noticeable trend towards a poorer comms response. “Quite often,
companies have responded poorly,” said Woolfall. “There’s no such thing
as a perfect crisis. There will never be one where people say this is
textbook perfect. And it’s less likely now where there is a running
commentary on everything you do.”
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