Crisis Communications
Protecting your reputation with smart crisis management
Our Approach
We have expertise across issues management, crisis communications, risk analysis and scenario planning with political parties, governments, corporate & financial as well as high profile families and individuals.
Each crisis is different, from shareholder activism to CEO remuneration disputes to threatening legislation to an existing business. The key to the crisis is to approach it in the wider reputation management field to protect the corporate brand and build its reputation to avoid it being the focus of a witch hunt on social media which triggers the hunt in media and political corridors. Our specialism is in strategy, crisis and capacity building.
We work across the risk life cycle. Different stages of an issue require different support as time shapes the solution needed:
- Predict – We research the company, industry and wider world to identify and assess reputation risks and create scenario planning in response to the issues becoming a crisis through identified triggers. We will continually listen and learn and horizon scan to identify triggers for future crisis issues. We will undergo stakeholder mapping to ensure we have an engagement plan for all stakeholders, not just media.
- Prevent – We create a reputation risk architecture and assessment process for the client. We will work with your senior leadership and inhouse PR for training and awareness-raising.
- Prepare. We then work with you and the team to ensure we have approved responses and content for a number of possible scenarios to avoid delay in responses during a crisis. We move our clients from being reactive and out of control, to being proactive and in control. Triggers and escalators are identified and managed.
- Resolve – We will set up a plan for resolving the issue.
- Respond – At this stage, we deliver the planned and approved responses and content to the key stakeholders. This stage is the crisis communications stage. As you see it is a smaller part of a wider approach to issues management.
- Recover – We will analyse and review the latest crisis and identify lessons learned for performance improvement. We will also develop a plan for rebuilding trust and reputation which may require organisational or strategic change.
Starting with an in-depth strategy session we map out the clearest risk-adverse path to your desired destination, with the appropriate response protocols particularly necessary during a crisis situation. Relying on our foresight and judgement to get you there safely and manage any post-crisis threat to reputation or licence to operate.
Our Clients
- ArtBAB, Bahrain
- 12 Hay Hill
- South Korean Government
How Does Crisis Communications Benefit Your Brand
A crisis can have a highly negative impact on brand image. Our crisis communications team can help save your brand’s reputation and image against threats and challenges that may otherwise conspire to damage or destroy it.
Your brand’s identity is one of your most valuable assets. Crisis communications, deployed promptly and with the correct approach, is able to protect your brand and maintain its good image amongst its stakeholders and your industry.
It is important to remember:
- Not to ignore the problem: Burying the crisis will not make it go away; nor can the media be ignored. Questions from journalists need to be answered via a well thought-through public statement and in conjunction with experienced crisis communications professionals.
- Not to criticise individuals: Do not play a blame game with your employees. This is vital in ensuring your brand maintains a united front when confronted with a crisis.
- Not to delay: In a crisis, it is essential you take prompt and effective action to minimise damage to the reputation of your brand.
Hiring our crisis communications team ensures you will have the correct advice to help you overcome the crisis.
Curzon PR can support you through:
- Our expertise and knowledge: We will audit and analyse the nature of the damage to your brand with speed and precision. More often than not in a crisis stakeholders fill in knowledge gaps with their own assumptions, many of which may be false or misleading. It is vital to deal only in fact. Our team has great experience in helping you navigate the crisis by dealing with what is real, not imagined.
- Our efficient, timely communication: Our aim at all times is to put out the fire quickly.
The steps we will take during a crisis communications situation:
- Focused approach: Our team of experts will work quickly with you to find out where things went wrong before launching effective strategies to overcome the crisis.
- External stakeholder management: We will work alongside your team to ensure the information placed by you in the public domain is correct and in accordance with a strategy designed to mitigate and ultimately defuse the crisis.
- Internal stakeholder management: During a crisis, it is vital for information to flow across departments. Employees, first and foremost, need to be aware of what is happening. Superiors need to address employees confidently. Working with personal presentation professionals, we can help guide an organisation’s leadership on how this should be done.
- Crisis communications plan: Our team will create a strategic crisis communications plan for your brand. Having this plan in place will allow you to be able to take prompt and effective action.
The first step is quick and decisive decision-making – what a crisis needs above all else to help restore the status quo.
Buyer's Guide
This document is designed to provide prospective clients with a short guide to the acquisition of our Crisis Communications Service – what it is, how it can benefit your brand, how Curzon PR can support you, what the process involves, as well as timelines and deliverables.
Further Readings and Videos
Behind the Byline — From Journalism to PR with John Harrington
The Reputation Game: Mastering Corporate Image with Rupert Younger
