Every disaster is a chance to learn... or at least to try out your crisis management PR skills. Here's what we learned from some PR blowups in the last 12 months.

1. The 3 biggest PR disasters of
2013 and how to avoid them
In a world of social media, PR disasters are common – but the real
mistake would be not learning from them.
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2. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
The Self-funded Smear
The Tweet below says it all, doesn’t it?
Don’t fly @BritishAirways.
Their customer service is horrendous.
British Airways lost Hasan Syed’s bags. And didn’t
respond to a complaint on their Twitter feed. Syed was so
incensed he Tweeted again. Not to his own Followers...
but via a sponsored Tweet costing him $1000.
Disaster #1

3. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
50,000people in BA’s key markets viewed the Tweet.
18,000news outlets covered the story in the next 7 days.

4. Searching for the story today produces results on Google.
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5. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
Customers want to
use their preferred
channel...
...but BA wasn’t
listening.
Because it wasn’t
listening, the issue
escalated.
If a customer is
$1000 worth of
angry, it’s not an
incident, it’s a crisis.
What went wrong
In fact, Syed didn’t even fly BA. Due to code-sharing, his BA-booked
flight didn’t use a single BA plane. But nobody’s interested in that.

6. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
Lesson Learned:
Your PR has to engage across all media. If you’re not
listening on a key channel, odds on there’s a customer
there getting angrier and angrier. Public Relations
today isn’t about controlling the newsflow or
even about crisis management PR; it’s about
engaging with your audience.
Look at the media as a whole, not
separate channels.
The instant a complaint pops up,
make it Code Red.
Even if it needs ten senior managers
to drop everything, it’s better than
the alternative.

7. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
It’s All In The Timing
Another month, another big British brand in the dock.
Nobody told British Gas that maybe – just maybe –
scheduling a public Twitterfest on
the same day you raise prices isn’t a
good idea.
Disaster #2

8. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
16,000people responded.
British Gas top-trended on Twitter within an hour...

9. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
Reported by over 3,000news outlets worldwide.
....for all the wrong reasons!

10. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
Mixed messages are
a surefire strategy
for disaster.
One PR team was
organising the chat,
while the other
announced 10%
price rise.
An honest attempt
to engage seen as
patronising.
Led to Parliamentary
investigation into
energy pricing
tactics.
What went wrong
When a news story becomes big enough for politicians to score points, you
can be sure they’ll do it. The UK government’s investigation into the Big Six is
ongoing, producing negative headlines to this day.

11. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
Lesson Learned:
Customer chats are great. But be prepared to
take the rough with the smooth.If you’re not
able to engage honestly and with genuine
concern – why are you in business at all?
Be humble. Ranting customers are
your best teachers.
BG missed a trick. Honest
engagement might have rescued the
situation.
Above all, make sure the left hand
knows what the right hand’s up to.

12. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
A Thousand Times Neigh
But the UK’s most memorable PR pile was
back in January 2013: the Tesco horse meat
scandal. British-sold burgers were found to
contain up to 29% of our equine friends…
Disaster #3

13. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
25,800newswires reported the story over the month.
50,000extra inspections ordered by UK government.

14. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
Tesco’s share price fell 5%over three months.
... and Tesco wasn’t helped by a flippant Tweet two days after the story broke.
It’s sleepy time so we’re off to hit the hay!...

15. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
Briefings focussed on
how safe the burgers
were to eat...
… but the issue was
horsemeat. Not how
safe it was.
Finger-pointing at
suppliers was also tried
– and didn’t work.
What went wrong
Worst of all, Tesco made excuses - perhaps the biggest sign of crisis
management PR failure. Like it or not, your supply chain is your responsibility.

16. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
Lesson Learned:
A plea of diminished responsibility
belongs in the courtroom, not the
public square. In crisis times, take
responsibility, no matter what.
If you’re the biggest, you’re the
target.
Try to evade responsibility and you’ll
just be hit harder.
You can’t enjoy cheap sourcing
without assuming its risks.

17. www.tomorrow-people.com Public Relations
These big British names incurred multi-million pound hits to brand equity and profits. But
their losses are our gain – because we can learn from them. So keep your PR team (and
not just your crisis management PR skills) on the ball:
Always watch the horizon. A disaster seen early is a disaster averted.
Understand you can influence... but never control. It’s engagement, not overlordship.
Study how stories develop over time – a small-seeming risk can explode in 24 hours.
And have a crisis-free financial year!
The Bigger They Come,The Harder They Fall

18. Public Relations
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