Analyzing recent disaster communications, both successful and failed, can provide important insights for managers and politicians alike when facing the unexpected.

The hours and days immediately following a profound disaster can shape institutional and political reputations for years to come. Events such as the tragedy of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines can overwhelm the under-prepared; even country leaders can fall victim to insufficient planning. Lack of preparation can lead to a lacking response to disaster, as leaders scramble to answer the public’s justifiable demand for information and assistance. In recent years, three characteristics of outstanding disaster emergency communications have emerged.

Establish an integrated crisis communications plan before disaster strikes.

Communications should be integrated into any crisis response plan. Don’t wait until a natural disaster occurs to begin developing your communications plan.

President Aquino
Credit: Nicolas Asfouri / AFP – Getty Images

In the case of Haiyan, President Aquino’s public announcement from his presidential palace one week after the typhoon hit did little to ease the public fear and uncertainty during the growing humanitarian disaster. On Monday, Aquino attempted to address criticism by pledging to stay in Tacloban until progress had been made in the recovery process. The impact this may have on the recovery process remains unclear.

The spread of misinformation can stem from an insufficient crisis communications plan. The Japanese government’s response to the Fukushima disaster is a textbook example of how unclear messaging can lead to exaggerated perceptions of health risks. Gerry Thomas, who runs the Chernobyl Tissue Bank (CTB) at Imperial College London, stated, “They’ve got a huge problem out there — largely a PR problem; it’s not a health problem because none of this is going to do anything health-wise.”

Lead transparently with a unified message.

Most importantly, a unified message – free from political or company bias – is essential when responding to a crisis. All too often, political rivalries and blame games hamper relief efforts and damage an official’s reputation. In the wake of Haiyan, there have been widespread reports of infighting between national government officials and local politicians. Questioned by journalists, Tacloban’s mayor strongly criticized the central government, stating, “Perhaps I can say that Metro Manila was prepared for Yolanda because the typhoon didn’t hit it…”

MIT experts have cited infighting as a key reason why relief efforts were bogged down after Hurricane Katrina caused widespread despair along the Gulf Coast of the United States in late summer 2005. MIT supply chain expert Yossi Sheffi, author of The Resilient Enterprise: Overcoming Vulnerability for Competitive Advantage, writes, “Instead of taking decisive actions, city, state, and federal officials argued with one another; communications broke down, and too many civil servants … did not have the urgency or the passion required.” When lives are on the line, it’s crucial to stay set aside politics and biases in favor of unification and the greater good.

Give credit where credit is due.

True heroes are often everyday citizens – first responders and survivors—who fight against all odds to survive and help others. These achievements should not go unnoticed and may be a positive focus for messaging. For example:

• Following a deadly 2007 Virgin train crash, CEO Sir Richard Branson spoke only positively of staff and responders. By directing his praise toward the quick reactions of the crews, including the train engineer, he took a risk that paid off; according to Communicate magazine, Branson emerged from the interview with an enhanced reputation.

More recently, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott followed a similar strategy in his response to the Blue Mountain wildfires. He commented, “These are ordinary people who, on an extraordinary day, come together to support their community and to protect their fellow Australians. We are incredibly lucky to have them.” Abbott enjoyed a spike in his approval ratings.

When forming disaster response plans, it is essential to not only have a plan, but also to be prepared to communicate that plan in a transparent way. As we can see with these case studies, crisis response can either enhance or sink a leader’s reputation. Disaster response is just as much a communications mission as it is an aid and recovery mission.

To donate to ongoing relief efforts, please visit www.redcross.org.

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Ken Rabin, PhD

I have been counseling pharmaceutical and other healthcare brand managers about public relations for 35 years. And while brand managers today are much more sophisticated and analytic than they were back in the 70s and 80s, I continue to be at least a bit dismayed about the way they perceive public relations and how it fits into the product marketing mix.

Perhaps what follows are the musings of a public relations person who is past his prime and ready for whatever ultimate fate awaits people who do what I do for a living, but the biggest mistakes I still see healthcare brand managers make about PR are as follows:

1.      Bringing the PR Consultant in too late
2.      Failing to accept that all products (and companies) are flawed
3.      Underestimating the power of patients
4.      Stinting on evaluating the impact of PR on audiences
5.      Assuming that PR is a commodity

Bringing PR in too Late

This problem takes two forms. The first is not asking PR to the table early on to troubleshoot the potential flaws in a marketing campaign, the kind of things like inadvertently inappropriate images or language that can turn customers, patients or journalists against the brand and even the company as a whole. PR consultants add value in this context because they are trained to look at marketing communications through the eyes of the intended audiences. As a result, they can also provide valuable help to market researchers by spotting the unasked question, or assessing how representative a marketing survey population really is.

The second aspect of this problem occurs when brand managers  present PR with a “fait accompli” and then ask the PR people to “put some spin on it” and attract media publicity after the fact. This happens often with satellite symposia, which could gain broader impact if they were structured upfront with newsworthiness in mind, in everything from the titles of the presentations, to the media savvy of the presenters involved. It also happens when a brand is deciding to support a third party activity to promote disease awareness or help raise funds for research. I have found that PR can often find ways to enhance the visibility of what are often very substantial brand investments, but only if they are asked to the table when the negotiations are taking place.

Failing to Accept Product (or Company) Flaws

I have been encouraged that a number of brand managers in recent years have begun to ask their PR consultants to develop scenarios, strategies and responses to manage potential negative developments that could affect their products. Nonetheless, I think that most brand managers still (as I suspect they must) view their products and companies through rose-colored glasses. Good PR consultants as a rule do not take so optimistic a view.

My favorite recent example of this problem was a product brief from a company that claimed it had not just an established presence but a fairly vibrant tradition of innovation in the disease area under consideration. Unfortunately, anyone who Googled this company’s prior history in this product category would learn of its rather checkered history of exaggerated claims, withheld clinical data, and bloated consulting fees. Were the brand managers who prepared this brief new or naïve?  And how does a PR consultant respond to a brief like this with a proposal that is both honest and workable?

Underestimating Patient Power

Most healthcare brands and companies have grown considerably in sophistication in patient group relations over the span of my career. The HIV/AIDS and breast cancer revolutions saw to that. But what I have found lately is that while almost everyone now understands that it is politically correct to support patient rights (and even to put patients on the government advisory committees that review new drug applications), the capacity to underestimate or slight patients remains.

Visitors to the most recent ESMO/ECCO European Cancer Congress in Amsterdam were welcomed by a huge banner that said “Putting Patients First”. Unfortunately, due to Dutch law and the complicity of the conference organizers and commercial brand sponsors, the many patient groups that had come to exhibit at this meeting were confined to a separate, dark and distant exhibition area and denied access to the commercial exhibition area. Happily, the patient groups organized themselves into a spirited protest and submitted a rather pointed protest letter to all involved.

Thanks to social media in particular, patients today have far more weapons to use to attract public attention to the issues that matter to them (many of which involve access to innovative healthcare products). Today’s brand managers really need to seek and listen to creative advice from their PR consultants on how to leverage this opportunity appropriately.

Stinting on PR Evaluation

PR can be evaluated, but most assuredly this evaluation should not be restricted to the old advertising equivalence numbers that brand managers and PR consultants both deplore and refuse to be weaned from.

Nor are we as PR people helped by the fact that the healthcare trade media environment continues to be rife with publications (traditional and on-line) that sell “news release placement” as a fringe benefit of an advertising space buy. This practice inevitably denigrates the value of editorial placements in the minds of brand managers, and further adds to the dilemma of PR evaluation.

Healthcare brand managers are going to have to accept that meaningful PR evaluation requires investing in pre- and post- measurement of audience awareness and attitudes towards their brands and brand messages. And PR consultants (who understand the conundrum that such research is often as expensive as implementing the communications activities that are being evaluated) are going to have stand firm on this subject. The answer, I suspect, is searching for better integrated ways to evaluate the whole brand communication program, methodologies that are sensitive enough to distinguish the impact of PR from that of advertising, commercial exhibits and direct selling.

Assuming that PR is a Commodity

It is by now a fact of life that healthcare brand management includes a purchasing and procurement component designed to blend consulting fees and otherwise control PR costs. It is equally a fact of life that the large communications conglomerates that now own a substantial percentage of the world’s PR agencies will happily sell the services of those consultancies to healthcare brand managers and procurement managers as an add-on (or worse still, a throw-in) to whatever advertising, creative and media buying services that brand management wants to purchase.

I know that the procurement process cannot be avoided, but I am heartened by the fact that conglomerated, pre-packaged, sterilized healthcare PR can be avoided if brand managers choose to do so.

The fact that there are still so many smart and agile independent healthcare PR agencies in each market is strong testimony that there are more than a few brand managers out there who think that PR is a unique communications function, and that PR consultants should be selected on their individual merits relative to the brand’s needs in a specific market.

That’s why I work here.

Ken Rabin, PhD, is an international expert in health communications. From his base in Poland, he currently holds the title of Senior Consultant at GLOBALHealthPR partner Alfa Communications.

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Jorge Azevedo

In today’s world we are under scrutiny every minute. The “Berlin Wall” of privacy that once defended organizations has fallen to the hands of a generation hungry for information. The good and bad practices of companies and the individuals who represent them are publicly discussed, and ethical oversights can lead to serious consequences both in terms of reputation and financial impact.

With this in mind, I believe the key to long-term organizational success is greater transparency—transparency about processes, products and procedures, both internal and external. A coherent strategy can propel the organization to higher levels of performance compared to those who promote their activity in a more obscure and mysterious management environment. Today, more than ever, consumers want to know what values a particular company holds, in addition to what products it makes. Because we are all part-voyeur inside, we want to know management’s “skeletons in the closet” to share with friends on Facebook.

Public Relations can and should make an important contribution in helping to maximize organizations’ good practices and what their audiences expect from them. Often relegated to the background, it is important to listen to the PR professionals and incorporate their advice into the global strategy.

PR professionals are also better prepared to plan and implement policies, procedures and strategies that demonstrate the organization’s commitment in relation to public and social responsibility and ethical behavior. A positive reputation among key audiences strengthens the good value of a company and promotes greater identification with their target audiences.

The role of Public Relations in identifying key audiences and developing strategies to build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships is now unavoidable. PR professionals are prepared to help in a unique and truly influential way. Are you ready for them?

Jorge can be reached at [email protected].

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Dr. Ken Rabin

Dr. Ken Rabin and Andrzej Kropiwnicki of Alfa Communications, GLOBALHealthPR’s partner in Poland, will be featured in an upcoming issue of Public Relations Review, the oldest academic journal dedicated solely to public relations. Their precise analysis of two key health PR cases in Poland emphasizes the need for professionals to avoid pitfalls of the unprepared. A lot has changed since 2009 when the most recent edition of the Global Public Relations Handbook was published.

Andrzej Kropiwnicki

Is the handbook alone enough for global health communications professionals who do business in foreign markets? The authors answer this question and more.

Crisis management through a deeper understanding of the Polish market

In their article, Rabin and Kropiwnicki describe the importance of effective PR management in Poland amid unclear regulation and sensationalist press coverage. These two threats faced the Polish subsidiary of a prominent global device manufacturer in 2007. As untrue reports of a potentially harmful batch of the company’s product swept the country, the manufacturer acted quickly, voluntarily recalling product while establishing a media command center to develop management messages both to media and government ministry officials. Following thorough evaluations from both EU and Polish officials, the product in question was determined to be safe.

In light of the crisis, the Polish Health Ministry issued new regulations governing the product in question. Despite unfavorable initial press, the company benefitted as the new regulations forced cheaper competitors off the market, actually resulting in increased revenues for the company. “Prompt action brought prompt resolution,” the authors conclude, noting that without a keen understanding of the nuances of Polish media and concerns of the Polish public, harm to the company’s reputation could have ensued.

Grassroots advocacy for healthcare innovation

Until recently, much of the advocacy activity in Poland originated from one of two sources: workers’ unions and the Church. Following doctors’ union strikes and negative press leaks thanks to government officials unfriendly to the pharmaceutical industry, experts gathered to advocate for improved health technology and access to medicines. Polish doctors, health professors, pharmacoeconomists and patient groups united to form the Polish High Level Working Group for Innovation in Healthcare.

“The group’s main objective was to advocate innovation in healthcare by showing where clear gaps exist between Poland and its neighbors, and (more importantly) suggesting areas where, rather than simply asking for increased funding, current health funding could be shifted to achieve better health outcomes,” Rabin and Kropiwnicki write.

Within a year of the group’s formation, two studies had successfully increased public awareness on the importance of access to innovation in healthcare. However, a challenge arose in 2011, when the working group’s main outside donor withdrew its support in favor of shifting funds to other countries. The group overcame this shortcoming by finding additional funding and in-kind donations to keep its efforts going. It also formed a non-profit advocacy association (NGO) to fully dedicate itself to access to modern medicines and technology. According to the authors, this is especially crucial given Poland’s aging population.

They conclude, “As PR practitioners in Poland, we believe this last development is particularly important. It shows that the transition towards meaningful “home-grown” activism is taking root here, and that is good news for advocates of two-way dialogue as a central feature of our discipline.”

About the article

“Commentary: Practicing public relations in Poland––Experiences of a cross-cultural consulting partnership” will appear in the September 2013 issue of Public Relations Review. It is available electronically at www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0363811113000210.

About the authors

Andrzej Kropiwnicki and Kenneth Rabin are Partner and Senior Consultant, respectively, at Alfa Communications, the Polish partner of GLOBALHealthPR. They are based in Warsaw.

Need effective health communications management in Poland? Contact Andrzej and Ken at +48 603 663 822 or by visiting www.alfacommunications.pl/.

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