Social Media Crisis Management

I can’t believe I’m already a week into my internship!  Its true when people say time fly’s when you’re having fun! I never thought I would have fun at work but I am really enjoying the working life. I am staying in Windsor (45minutes out of central London), even though I have been to London before but I have never experienced the working life in London. It is so hectic, with the amount of people around and the busy tube lines! But it’s so exciting at the same time to be amongst all the buzz and see the true WORKING London lifestyle!  I never thought I would be driving past Windsor castle every day to get to work, or working a few tube stops away from Buckingham palace, Hyde Park and Harrods but I absolutely love it!

This week was another interesting, hectic and exciting week. Throughout university we are constantly taught about ethics and what to do in crisis situations and how to prepare for them. On Monday morning, I started off my second week of work experience by attending a crisis insider club breakfast with two other colleagues at a private members club called The Hospital Club, in Covent Garden (central London). This was a very interesting experience as there were people from all different companies, who came together to listen to the founder and CEO from Seat wave- Joe’s experience in a crisis situation and also heard from a journalists point of view. Here is the link to seat wave website: http://www.seatwave.com/.

The way in which Joe handled the crisis, related back to what is learnt at uni, including having a crisis management team on hand 24/7, acting quickly but calmly and approaching the situation in an honest manner to keep consumers informed. In this situation, Joe used social media (Facebook and Twitter) to help communicate the situation to their audience.  By listening to Joe’s experience and the way in which he effectively used social media, such as Twitter and Facebook made me realise the true effect of social media and its  ability to communicate with thousands and millions of people at once and in such an efficient way. Joe was able to tweet and reply to Facebook posts whilst the crisis was unfolding- responding promptly and honestly. I was very glad to be asked to attend this meeting, as it showed me great insight into handling crisis situations and also allowed me to recognise the importance of preparing for all types of crisis situations, as we are regularly taught during university. At Chivas Brothers, there is a crisis management procedure and they also have constant emails from media databases which prompt the communications and public relations team when any important information on the business or industry is found. This is to keep up dated and well informed of what is happening within the alcohol industry.

This week I also attended many meetings including:

• Meeting with agencies that were pitching their ideas for the brand 'Royal Salute'. I had to take notes and identify in a table format which agencies met the brief best and which agencies had creative strategies which are best suited to the Royal Salute product.
• Meeting with the head of internal communications to get an idea of how internal comms works in the Chivas Brothers office. I was also allocated to write an article on the Cannes Film Festival which Chivas Regal sponsors and this article will be published in their internal magazine.
• Attended key messages meetings, were they were identifying this year’s key messages for Chivas Regal, Beefeater gin and Ballantine’s whisky for marketing and PR purposes.
• Sat in on a conference call with John Doe, discussing ideas for this year’s Ballantine’s golf event.

I found most of these meetings interesting as I know all these brands and is intriguing to see how the marketing and PR works behind the scenes. Sometimes I felt the meetings weren't that relevant for me to listen to as I couldn't contribute much, however it was still useful to see how the meetings and conference calls take place and to hear some very creative and exciting ideas.

Next week I'll be working on my Cannes Film Festival article and evaluation on how the event went in comparison to previous years, which I am looking forward to. Until then! 

Gemma O'Hart