Costa Concordia press briefing

One of Costa Concordia’s cruise ships hit a rock near Italian coasts on January 13, 2012, leading to the sinking of the ship, and the death of a dozen of passengers. A mock briefing was organized to address the crisis only a couple days after the accident happened.

The main difficulty in responding to this issue was to take into consideration the timeline as the group chose to held the press briefing a couple days after the accident. We now have many more information about it. The group did well in choosing to reinforce the notion of safety of its ships, especially because its reputation as a safe cruise company would be heavily damaged after this episode.

The accident, even a few days after it happened, was so important and dramatic that the company’s reputation would have been destroyed in any case. It’d take more than a press briefing to rebuild it. Despite all these difficulties, the group managed well its message and stuck to it.  They were also well prepared to respond to any kind of questions, even recurring ones.

Given the extent of the situation, it was smart to include people from the cruise company, Carnival Corporation, but also from the training program, CSMART, to reinsure that every level of security is included and working on it.

Overall, how the group addressed the situation at the press briefing was the best way to handle the situation only two days after the tragic event. The media coverage of the accident in Europe was so huge, as well as the search for other survivors was such a mess, that it was impossible to handle it without a hitch.

Starbucks: How to transform a crisis into an opportunity

The vice president of public relations of Starbucks held a session during the public relations day at Newhouse. James Olson presented an interesting view on his company, and how going back to basics was a wise move.

Starbucks underwent a financial crisis back in 2008 when it had to shut down more than 600 under-performing locations. It leads to the departure of its emblematic CEO, Howard Schultz, who came back to the company a few months later. This situation brought important change within the company’s communication approach. Right after that, Starbucks tried to find again its true spirit and identity.

This quest to find the company’s true beliefs leads it to go back to the basics: its customers. The company grew so fast and so big in his years of existence, with more than 17,000 stores in 60 countries, that it became difficult for it to keep a common voice shared by all its stores. In conducting change, Starbucks’s CEO played an enormous role as the leader and face of this change.

Howard Schultz at the Global Leadership Conference
October 2012, Houston, TX

Starbucks’s case illustrates how well it was able to handle a crisis, but also how important is the CEO within a company. The strength of its communication after 2008 was to put Schultz in the front line and having him being the bond of this huge organization. From Olson’s presentation, I’ll tend to say that crisis management is all about being able to question yourself: When something is wrong choosing to change is a key to evolve toward the right direction.

Schultz’s personality was the driving force through Starbucks’s global communication to retrieve their roots. Employees programs, community relations, being transparent by advocating their decisions and policies, were the main implementations done to strengthen their company’s overall communication.

Global Leadership Conference
October 2012, Houston, TX

This situation is the perfect example of a strong corporate social responsibility program. Starbucks managed to turn its crisis into an opportunity and by doing so, it wisely communicated toward both its internal and external publics. Employees were one of the key targets, and the feeling of belonging to the company was one of the top messages to spread out.

This case will surely become a classic of crisis management and of the use of CSR as a communication tool. It will now be even more interesting to keep an eye on Starbucks’s future communication to assess whether it is a lasting project that will guide the company through its future years of business.

Of new markets and fresh perspectives

Scott Kronick’s presentation on international public relations during Newhouse’s PR day was exciting and inspirational.

Kronick has been working for the international public relations agency Ogilvy for more than 20 years. He began his career in the US, before having the opportunity to move abroad to China, 17 years ago. He arrived there at the beginning of the 90s, right when the economical independence and growth started.

Through his presentation, he managed to show us two things: How the use of PR in China differs from western countries, and how much one country and its whole population has evolved over two decades.

China is the country that we always hear about as the new world’s economic leader, the biggest population, or the sweatshop of the world, but we never have insights from a PR perspective. Especially because there are so many Chinese students at our university, having more information about their country allows us to appreciate and understand their culture.

Doing PR means above all knowing who are your publics. This statement is even more accurate when it comes to international PR. But the fact is, it is harder to capture these audiences when it’s another country, a completely different culture, and therefore another way to consume or respond to messages. “You can’t start talking to somebody unless you understand them,” was one of Kronic’s key points.

Cross culture business and communication has existed for decades, but the more interactions are made with eastern countries, the more we have to learn again how to do effective PR through new perspectives. “You gotta know what you don’t know”.

What I’ll remember from this presentation is that doing good PR is more than ever about curiosity and passion for your job. Having already an international background, I’m even more interested in exploring international PR as a potential path for my future career. As Kronick said in an interview he gave to Voices From Other Lands: “Building bridges between cultures is [my] mission,” and he surely knows how to talk about it.