Crisis averted, with ...honesty?

Oh. Em. Gee!  I mean, are you kidding me here?  There’s no way that’s true. Or is it……?  I suppose
that it’s possible…? Could it be?  I can’t really picture that actually happening, but if there wasn’t some
truth to it, would the story have really gotten so big, would it be online?  It must be true or at least have
some truth to it… Right?

The biggest struggle with a crisis is that people tend to believe what they hear first.  That becomes the
baseline for their belief. Even if they never would have believed it otherwise.  We see it with politicians all
the time. Once a political leader or candidate realizes that the media knows something about them or
about their past, they know the best thing they can do at that point is to tell their story before the news
does.  If they are able to do that then they are able to navigate the story in their own direction versus
whatever awful spin the media would put on it. Main point here? Get out in front of it and tell the
TRUTH!! Once you put a lie out there, it is crazy hard to come back from.

Think about how difficult it is to keep a lie from coming to light when you only tell a single person.  So,
why would any organization lie to a bulk of people or an entire nation in their Ads? Step one of crisis
management, TELL THE TRUTH from the start.  This can easily save you from having to come back
and recover. Let’s look at the Sketchers Tone up campaign from 2012. Remember that? You could
tone up your booty and those legs and calf muscles and never step foot in a gym. Just from all the
regular walking around you do all day, because that really should count for something, shouldn’t it? 
Heck yeah, who isn’t gonna jump on board with that idea? So many people did. (I probably shouldn’t
tell you this, my parents were two of those people, please don’t tell them I told you though).  

The really crazy thing is that Ketchers went far beyond a typical lie.  Would the shoes assist in toning?
No, shoes can’t do that, that was a lie.  But they had their product endorsed by a doctor! They had the
full seal of approval and all. This was a truth.  There really was a chiropractor who endorsed this story
that the tone-up by Sketchers would work and were your best bet in shoe buying.  There was even a
study to prove it, it must be true, they work! NO. What Sketchers didn’t tell you was that the so-called
doctor was not only paid by Sketchers to conduct the study, but was married to a Sketchers marketing
executive.  Boom! They told the truth, but were wildly deceiving about it. 

End result?  Forty Million Dollar Settlement.  Because some crises are not managed well and then they
have to pay you to make it go away.  But, does it ever really go away? For some, maybe, but I used
to like sketchers and it’s weird how I just can’t buy them since then.  Personally, I hate liars and I think
that ad campaign forever lost at least one customer. My hilarious parents on the other hand saw it as
a win.  They’d bought shoes, worn them, and got reimbursed without having to return (insert hilarious
laughter for my “always trying to save a penny” parents).  But, companies have to be careful and they
have to be honest. I suppose the company could have chosen not to settle, but I can assure you,
Sketchers wouldn’t still be around at all if they hadn’t at least settled.  

When we talk about PR crises, we know that in today’s world with media at our ever-outstretched fingers
we have to be overly prepped and ready to handle any type of negative attacks.  There should be
someone on staff at any time monitoring and ready to handle anything. But, how?? One of our readings
this week discussed just that and tells us that the first step is determining if something is a potential threat
or not.  One of the worst things you can do is escalate something that would have died down had you left
it alone. We are told there are three stages of every crisis: before, during and after. It is pointed out that
the “during” is the part that feels like it lasts forever, but before and after are the ones that actually do
follow you forever.  This is why you have to always be prepared and expect to have to handle things that
you don’t want to have to handle. 

Always have a plan in place.  There are many things we can expect to happen and we should always be
prepped and ready for that no matter what, but we also have to be ready for things we may not expect. 
When you have a crisis plan in place, with steps to take no matter the situation than you can handle these
scenarios much better than if you didn’t.

Get ahead of it!  Snapchat for example had issues about their photos that were ‘supposed’ to disappear
forever, but didn’t.  You see, photos can always be saved and it’s quite simple really. But, at the first signs
of these allegations and media coverage, the company had people working on their privacy policy, app
description and in-app notifications, so that come time for the settlements and coverage this had already
been handled and they could move forward with a much cleaner slate.  

How do we know when we’re being lied to or deceived by the media?  It’s a tough tell. As consumers
(and boy are we consumers) we have to use common sense, patience and do a little research ourselves.
  It can be difficult, believe me, I know. But, lets not take the word of someone we don’t know a thing about,
especially if it sounds too good to be true.