Leveraging Horrible News To Your Advantage
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| Bad news creates good PR opportunities. |
PR experts know that every cloud has many silver linings.
In other words, when there’s bad news in the world, it’s a great PR opportunity.
My friend Rahm Emanuel, who served on the board of one of my startup companies, said it best when he recently opined: “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”
That’s great advice for PR firms and the clients that use them. This blog post offers a quick example of how bad news creates PR opportunities.
In future blog posts, I’ll explain why crises should be viewed as PR opportunities, how to make the most of bad news, and how to walk the fine line of not offending journalists and the general public by trying to turn horrible news to your advantage.
Recent Example of a Bad News PR Opportunity
I could write a book on this topic (and probably somebody already has) but there are many examples of firms that are taking advantage of bad news and/or bad situations that have resulted in great PR opportunities. You can see them in the news every single day.
Recently, for example, we have the Christmas Day Terrorist, or the Underwear Bomber as he is also known. You know the story. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, an al-Qaida terrorist, hid explosives in his underwear and subsequently tried to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger plane on Christmas Day, December 25.
Quick brain exercise for you: Who do you think benefitted from that horrible news?
Another way of looking at this brain teaser – if you were in charge of selling PR services, what firms would you call up and say, “Hey, not sure if you are working with a PR firm right now, but, due to this recent terrorist incident, wouldn’t you agree that you really should be making a full court press on the PR front?”
The answer, of course, is the companies that make full-body scanners.
These scanners use radio waves or weak X-rays to scan airport travelers for hidden objects beneath their clothing, finding things (e.g. liquid explosives) that metal detectors don’t spot.
Sure enough, full-body airport scanners have been in the news a lot lately. A quick Google News search for a leading body scanner manufacturer, American Science and Engineering, shows 112 media placements between December 25 and January 2. Another body scan security firm, ICx Technologies, scored 185 Google News mentions. Other body scanner makers, such as OSI Systems, Millivision Technologies, and L-3 Communications, also all got significant media play post-Christmas.
For these firms, terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab gave them the best of all possible worlds. Without taking a single life, he gave these companies an amazing PR opportunity to get in front of the public and say: “See, if you just spend hundreds of millions of dollars with us, you will inoculate yourself against this horrible possibility.”
Accordingly, those firms have been very aggressive on the PR front. Indeed, while listening to NPR the other day, I heard former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff advocating that the federal government buy more full-body scanners for airports.
Pressed by the reporter, he acknowledged that his firm was working for these companies, so he wasn’t exactly impartial. Still, as flawed as this particular make-lemons-out-of-lemonade PR effort was, you don’t have to be much of a deconstructionist to realize that Chernoff’s involvement was undoubtedly the brainchild of some smart PR person.
So, there you have it, an example of how smart PR specialists jump on bad news and turn it into good news for their clients. In the end, the firms that hire the best PR agencies do better than this than their competitors. Companies that don’t anticipate and prepare for bad news PR opportunities will ultimately likely lose in the marketplace, even if they have a better solution.
Regrettably, none of these body scanner firms is a Walker Sands PR client, but it’s the kind of work we love. For a PR firm, getting these firms positive mentions in the media now, thanks to horrible news, is like shooting fish in a barrel.
What’s your take on using bad news to get media placements? We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions.
About this contributor: Ken Gaebler founded Walker Sands as a full-service marketing firm back in 2002 with the goal of creating an exceptional consulting firm that could be instrumental in helping other organizations to achieve greatness. Read more from this author
Ken-I understand your logic and this seems fine for political campaigns and perhaps those providing services to the government. Where I differ with you is from the standpoint of reputation management. We live in such a cynical society today that companies that try to capitalize on a crisis may get a short-term bump at the expense of their long-term reputation.
As for the public relations profession, isn’t what you describe above one of the reasons why many people loathe our profession? In fact, when Michael Jackson died, Peter Shankman from HARO promised to out any publicist/pr person who tried to tie in their client’s product to his death. To me, that highlights how people feel about those who try to profit from the misfortune of others.
I understand the concept of striking while the iron is hot and as a small agency owner, I know a guy’s gotta eat. But, perhaps we should set our aspirations higher.
Lastly, if people do take your advice, they might not want to use the “full court press” concept. A full court press is a defense.
Thanks for writing your blog and giving folks like me a chance to weigh in. Happy New Year.
I understand exactly what you are saying. However, I think that leveraging bad news to get press is not innately bad. It’s all about execution and the specifics of the situation. In the case of body scanners, a PR firm for a body scanning equipment manufacturer would be derelict in their duties if they sat on the sidelines after this recent bombing attempt.
PR is, at its core, debate. No debate team, discussing the pros and cons of airport body scanners, would omit the Christmas Day bombing attempt from their argument. So why would a PR firm be well-advised to not leverage this particular bit of bad news to their client’s advantage?
I do agree that poor execution of leveraging bad news for PR gain would be bad for the PR industry. But, bad execution on any front in the PR business is bad for the reputation of the industry. I don’t think this particular technique, executed poorly, is any more egregious than a dull pitch, a poorly written pitch, or an email blast that says “Dear [First Name]“.
The good news is that the PR marketplace will take care of those publicists who leverage PR in a distasteful way. If journalists receive a PR pitch that is in bad taste, they are likely to blacklist the PR professional. In this respect, the technique of leveraging bad news to garner press is not for PR newbies. It’s an advanced technique that comes with no small amount of risk.
As for the Michael Jackson scenario, I don’t think that leveraging Michael Jackson’s death for PR purposes is inherently bad. Again, it depends on the specifics of the pitch. If a drug overdose expert, who advocates tighter control of the anesthetic propofol in order to save lives, used Michael Jackson’s death as an opportunity to get his message to market, I would have no problem with that. You say that we should “set our aspirations higher,” but, in the hypothetical example I’ve given, the PR seeker’s aspirations seem pretty high to me: they want to change the laws in order to save lives. So, I don’t necessarily buy into your argument that having high aspirations to do the right thing as a PR firm in any way precludes the use of this PR technique. Again, it’s all about execution.
Shame on those who leverage horrible news for PR gain in the wrong way. On that point, I completely agree with you.
Thanks tons for your comments. It’s always good to have a healthy dialogue on topics like this, and I hope a few others will weigh in with their thoughts as well.
Oh, and, by the way, you wrote that “Peter Shankman from HARO promised to out any publicist/pr person who tried to tie in their client’s product to his [Michael Jackson's] death.”
I’d ask you to ponder this question: Didn’t Peter Shankman, in issuing this ultimatum, himself leverage Michael Jackson’s death to promote his position as a thought leader in the PR industry?
There’s no small amount of irony in the fact that you’ve, in effect, given Peter a “placement” here, as a result of his quickly seizing on Michael Jackson’s death to assert his PR industry thought leadership on what is and what is not an appropriate PR technique.
Peter is a smart PR guy, as evidenced by his artful way of using the PR technique I’ve outlined in this blog post.
Hi Again, Ken-
I agree with you that it matters how this type of PR is executed makes all the difference. This is good food for thought. The Shankman example (very well played, BTW) here is perhaps inapt in that he was already a thought leader prior to his pronouncement. Plus, if he needs to rely on my “placement” he’s likely going to go a long time between meals.
Looking forward to reading your stuff in the future.
Omg.. i just love Michael Jackson.. I’m still sad he died..