It’s a little late, but here’s my first blog!
I’d like to talk about crisis management and the role of public relations in the process.
I’m currently completing my internship at Clarity Communications in Subiaco. One of our major clients; Magellan Metals recently experienced a ‘crisis’. I’m not in a position to divulge too much information on the matter, but they did need the help of our PR team during the crisis.
We got word from the company on a Tuesday night, and many of Clarity’s employees stayed back until midnight preparing press releases and organising a press conference. We needed to prep ourselves so we were ready for when the media hit the next morning.
On Wednesday morning John Yates; head of Magellan’s operations in WA spoke at a press conference at the Perth Exhibition Centre. This was organised by Clarity Communications. It was media frenzy, Channel 7, 9, 10, ABC, The West Australian, and many other media bodies attended. We also handed out press releases at the conference.
Later that day footage and a statement from the press conference were all over the news, and the following day articles were in the various newspapers.
This whole experience really emphasised the notion of being prepared in a crisis. I believe Clarity handled the situation well. The team was fully prepared for the media the following morning, a press conference was organised, media bodies contacted and press releases issued all in the space of 24 hours.
PETER DEVLIN-CLARITY COMMUNICATIONS
1 comment:
Did your team at Clarity have a pre-prepared crisis management plan for Magellan Metals? I suppose this would depend on how long they have been a client - or whether the team has a standard crisis plan that they customise to each client...?
Just curious as to how crisis situations are dealt with in constultancy vs in-house PR. As I'm currently in an in-house placement and have been reviewing the crisis plans my workplace has in place, and being a Hospital, the documents are quite extensive and indepth as something could go wrong at any minute.
Great to see that everything was handled so well by your team in just 24 hours!
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