Outbehaving the Competition

Just this week, my agency published its 15th annual Top 10 Blunders List. While we make no claims to be the supreme arbiter, we do base our credibility on a wealth of experience and success in helping clients navigate through turbulent seas (see www.finemanpr.com for crisis and other cases).

Crises come in all shapes and sizes, from national crises that impact a wide variety of audiences to industry-specific crises. For the past 21 years, Fineman PR has been called upon to handle front page crises including Avian Influenza fears, bacteria in packaged salads, animal rights activist bombings of academic researchers’ homes, riots and insurrection at KPFA Radio in Berkeley, tainted wine in the Napa Valley and, most recently, a tragic, fatal explosion at a Truckee housing development. The heart of the matter, though, is what sets our approach apart from others. Fineman PR’s byword is -- always take the high-road.

We just do not believe that effective and smart public relations strategy and tactics are about spin, deflecting blame or unleashing attack dog tactics; it’s about demonstrating the organization’s goodwill, good faith and interest in doing the right thing. History shows that companies who act responsibly and forthrightly stand a better chance at weathering the storm and may even increase brand trust while they’re at it. This is not “apology PR”; many crises are situations in which organizations are wrongly accused. But there is a need for an ethical dimension to the crisis response, and that is often forgotten.

Dov Seidman sums it up best in his new book How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything when he makes the point that there is an increasing competitive advantage in outbehaving the competition.