8.22.2010

Gem of the day

Today, The New York Times delivers us an unusually lengthy examination on reputation, disasters, and what it all means. Leaving aside obvious trepidation, fear and loathing at the idea of calling Deepwater Horizon a 'fiasco', which is what the article's title seems to suggest, here's what's going on. 

PR king Howard Rubinstein on the 'reputational impact' of disasters on BP, Toyota and Goldman Sachs this year:

"They were real reputational implosions...In all three cases, the companies found themselves under attack over the very traits that were central to their strong global brands and corporate identities.”

Christ. And here's the analysis the New York Times offers up to support this article:

"The calamities have served up a lifetime supply of case studies to be mined for lessons on best practices, as well as pitfalls to avoid when disaster arrives." 

So we have here two extraordinarily misguided points of view. Rubinstein delivers The Usual for his industry, entirely neglecting to examine the substance of the crisis itself, and The Times seems to suggest that we as the public and corporations themselves should expect disasters on the scale of Deepwater Horizon to happen occasionally.

Luckily it doesn't end here. The ingenious, sassy minds at The Times finally get around to asking this incredibly obvious question:


"Are some crises so dire that public relations victory is simply not on the menu? And, if so, what’s an embattled company to do?" 

Rather than take an opinion themselves--this is a newspaper, after all, fit to print 'only the finest' objectivity--at this point another 'expert' is summoned to weigh in. This time we get Eric Dezenhall, who--wait for it--worked as a communications strategist for Reagan. As The Times paraphrases, Dezenhall "argues that the standard playbook is useless when the facts are sufficiently distasteful. (He would know. He once represented Michael Jackson after allegations of child molestation.)"

Right. But he goes on to say the following: "The goal is not to get people not to hate them. It’s to get people to hate them less.” Cringe-worthy.

Here's where it really gets interesting, though. The Times takes us through a very bpgulfcsr.com inspired journey examining BP's environmental record in tandem with its Beyond Petroleum greenwash--oh sorry, I meant 'rebranding.' But time and time again, the article fails to capture the reality of the company's greenwashing and total disregard for compliance. 

In fact, by framing the article itself as an analysis of 'lessons learned' from BP in crisis management and crisis communications, The Times is simply contributing to the normalisation of the crisis as a modern corporate 'mistake' which has been vilified by the media and the public due to a series of PR 'missteps'. Last but not least, as a final gem to exemplify this failure, here's a 'parody' phrase The Times delivers:

"Mr. Hayward opened the gates to Sound-Bite Hell. Gangs of reporters deployed to the spill now had a cartoonish narrative to lean on, instead of the discomfiting mélange of scientific conjecture that had been their story before: Here was the evil corporation, headed by an unfeeling rich guy with a fancy accent (no matter that Mr. Hayward wasn’t born to wealth and attended none of Britain’s patrician schools)." 

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