This issue of RESPONSE outlines some of the problems Brown Nelson has helped clients solve in the past six months.

NOBODY HERE NEEDS PR HELP...

...said the ship owner, once the excitement died down. A bulk-cargo vessel being loaded at the dock had suddenly rolled over and sunk, creating an obstruction to navigation but -- it turned out -- no ongoing environmental or safety hazard. The response manager hired us to keep the media “fed” but safely out of his way. As the salvor took over, neither he nor the vessel owner saw a need for further PR support, and took us off the payroll.

When the lawyers discovered it, they insisted we be put back on. They knew the various parties involved would be jockeying for legal position, trying to blame someone else for the accident, and wanted to make sure no one used the media to the vessel owner’s detriment. Besides, there would be more opportunities during the righting and raising of the vessel for cameras to interfere with operations.

We worked with the US Coast Guard to see that the media could get their pictures and data without getting in the way, and that discussion of liability, fault and causation was deferred until after the investigation. Almost all our work was behind the scenes. We supported the USCG as the lead contact, made suggestions about procedures and statement content when appropriate, and helped staff the media function. That kept the vessel owner’s name out of the news, and a Coast Guard assurance of “no hazard” had more credibility than ours would have.

WE REALLY DO NEED PR HELP!

Again, it was the lawyers who called us for an out-of-state natural gas accident. Liability exposure in the high-profile incident was certain to be great, and everyone wanted to avoid being blamed. There was also a need to reassure the community to keep safety from becoming a public issue. Both a Houston staff member and a nearby affiliate answered the call. Using the local PR responder’s knowledge of the community, politics and media, we quickly sized up the situation and developed three plans of action: best case, worst case, and most likely.

It turned out our best-case scenario was most practical. Another company involved had taken public “ownership” of the incident already, so we were able to let them attach their name to it while we, and our client, stayed in the background to keep our client’s name out of the news as much as possible. We worked with the lead company and public agencies to “declare victory” and go home as soon as the operational side of the response permitted, shutting down the flow of news and taking the incident out of the press. The result was no public hysteria and no public pre-investigation blame-laying.


IS THIS A CASE FOR CRISIS PR?

As it turned out, yes. The client was a new, un-known non-profit whose goal was to deliver food to mass-hunger situations around the world, such as national and regional famines. But they had just been asked, they said, to fill a ship for Honduran victims of Hurricane Mitch, which was still blowing in the Gulf. Three weeks later, the ship sailed...full...with another 5,000-ton load waiting in the warehouse for a second trip. The non-profit client had become well-known in the region and positioned to capitalize on its visibility and connections for future campaigns. Here’s how it was done.

We positioned our client as the lead agency among the many entities launching relief drives at the same time. We made sure media, supporters and volunteers found our client easiest to work with and report on. We actively allied with others, including TV stations which sponsored a total of five days of on-air collection drives. Finally, we kept our client in the news with stories-of-the-day, plus visuals, angles and sidebars for exclusives.

It wasn’t magic -- it was the same quick response our crisis clients expect. We seized the public position our client wanted and made it easy for the media and allies to support it. The result of the single campaign is that the door is open for the non-profit to become the regional leader in its niche, guaranteeing future campaigns will be both easier and more successful.


HELP; WE’RE ABOUT TO BE SUED

A well-known out-of-state company had received a demand letter from a plaintiff lawyer, along with a clear threat to take the emotionally charged accusation to the national news media. The public aspect would do far more damage than even the extortionate demand. Could he make that threat stick?

Unfortunately, he could. We quietly determined that, although his PR counsel was weak, the lawyer had a track record of making media splashes with similar cases. The threat was real; so how could we minimize the damage?

The key was timing. The suit would generate only one news story, so we HAD to respond in the same news cycle as the accusation. But corporations often can’t turn on a dime, and this one had no staff spokesperson in the lawyer’s market. We suggested some steps to enhance our response time within the news cycle, and worked with the client’s national PR counsel to delay the showdown so we could prepare a response. We developed a public position (which was disclosed to the plaintiff lawyer) explaining our side of the story logically and rationally, while positioning him and his clients as money-grubbing opportunists. The national PR firm prepared a means to parachute in an instant corporate response. We were as ready as we could be.

Then they settled. The client’s lawyers and third-party allies convinced the opposition that the rewards of settlement were greater than the rewards of trial (even with a public smear), and a deal was struck. No suit, no negative publicity.


HELP; WE’VE ALREADY BEEN SUED

Actually, it was the tail end of negotiating the settlement of the Natural Resources Damage Assessment for an old pollution incident. We’d worked with the lawyers at the time to minimize media and public anxiety about the incident, which in turn held down clean-up costs, insurance claims and litigation. That part had worked. Now, years later, the NRDA was playing out, and one of the federal trustees was taking a hard -- almost punitive -- line. Did we have anything in our archive that could help?

As it turned out, we did. Although our standard procedure in litigation-sensitive cases is to maintain only minimal files, we retrieved media clips which lent independent, third-party support to our client’s position on key issues...making a strong case for a lower settlement.

WE DIDN’T KNOW WE HAD A CRISIS

The out-of-town client was trying to negotiate a major (delicate and time-sensitive) development deal through a law firm. That’s sound...as far as it goes...but lawyers and PR people work through different channels and on different levels. Often one can develop information and understanding the other will miss. The client brought us in late because they’d seen no media coverage and the deal was progressing smoothly toward deadline.

This time, it was the lawyers who were blindsided. Our sources showed us there HAD been media coverage (just not the media the lawyers and the client followed) and we were warned the client’s self-imposed deadline wasn’t going to be met. The sources the lawyers relied on either weren’t aware of the forces at work in the community, or weren’t disclosing them.

Armed with that new understanding, the client put the question to its contacts directly. Is this true? It was. End of deal. Had the client known at the beginning what he discovered at the last minute, he might have averted the impasse. By going into an unfamiliar community with limited knowledge and communication channels, he reduced his comprehension of the working environment, and wasted his investment.

It’s not that PR people always bring in better facts than lawyers, or engineers, or salesmen...it’s that different agents working different sources bring in different facts...and by cutting back on eyes and ears in an unfamiliar community, a company runs the risk of not getting key facts which make large differences.


IF A NAME FALLS ON THE INTERNET, IS THAT A CRISIS?

It certainly can be an example of how PR practitioners, managers and lawyers sometimes look at things differently. A client engaged in a plant siting issue hadn’t protected its name on the Internet, and the opposition established a hostile Web-site under the company’s name. Management saw improper use of the name, and called the lawyers. The lawyers saw infringement, sent a demand letter, then filed suit. We weren’t asked, but saw a much more complex situation in which even a win may be a net loss.

First, such suits have a poor record of success, so it may be a wasted effort. Second, taking a hard line initially precludes a back-channel negotiation from putting the company in a better public posture, if not actually settling the issue. Third, while the suit moves through the legal system, the opposition is posting the heavy-handed rhetoric on the net, making the company look like strong-arm goons. Finally, filing suit may open the door to discovery, in which the anti-permit side not only can get information to bolster their legal position but also be used in the public debate and to oppose the permit.

A better approach would have been to try other avenues first, and at least build a better public case for the suit. The best approach would have been to sew up the company name on the Internet, which is what we suggested in the first place, before it ever became a crisis.