Your Guide to Reputation Management PR: Tackling a Crisis with Confidence
Written by Nicole Brief
Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni.
U.S. Tariffs.
Matt Lauer.
19,000 pounds of meat recalled.
What do all these have in common? The word “crisis” comes to mind.
As communications professionals, it’s quite literally our job to steward our brands: building consumer trust with positive associations and managing brand reputation, no matter what might happen.
When something calls that image into question – a negative product review, a public customer complaint, or executive misconduct – it’s our responsibility to handle it as quickly and cleanly as possible. This is Reputation Management PR.
So, what happens when your brand finds itself in the middle of a crisis? We tackle the issue with confidence. If you’re not sure how to do that, here’s our guide.
5 Steps to Your Reputation Management PR Strategy
Step #1: First, Don’t Make Your Crisis… A Crisis
In the summer of 2023, our client was ready to file a lawsuit against a major competitor to protect intellectual property. We were notified a few weeks ahead of time and asked to put together a crisis PR plan to put the story out there, combat any misinformation, and handle any wild cards that might come up.
Pro Tip: Always loop in your PR team early to any crisis situation. The more time your team has to gather information, devise a plan, and control the narrative… the better.
Here’s the first step to any crisis situation: Remain calm.
It’s the PR team’s job to remain calm and be the sounding board for your brand as you enter into initial crisis conversations. The larger organization is likely already panicked, feeling pressure, and scrambling to figure out what happens next.
They need their trusted PR team to be the calm in the storm and help them take a breath, objectively assess the situation, and formulate a strategic plan together.
Step #2: Build Your Crisis Task Force & Gather the Facts
One of the first steps in developing that plan is identifying the working team. The team managing the crisis should be a small group of need-to-know people who will develop and execute the crisis PR plan.
While you may want all the key folks in the room, it’s actually in your best interest to keep the group somewhat restricted to one or two representatives from each department. Any relevant subject-matter experts – especially if you plan to offer interviews – should also be informed, depending on the situation at hand. For our client, we included a few decision-makers from leadership, communications, legal, HR, customer service, and operations.
Set clear expectations for confidentiality within this team and level-set on the best communications practices. Keep all documents restricted, marked as confidential, and labeled appropriately with the situation code name (example: “Project Amber”).
Pro Tip: Never put anything in writing. It feels a bit counterintuitive to share that advice as I’m literally writing this article, but it’s the most important piece. Stick to the facts and avoid sharing opinions, guesses, or assumptions in any written form that could be found out publicly, or even subpoenaed. Yes, you’re in for a slew of phone calls, but your brand is ultimately more protected in the long run.
Make sure to gather every possible detail to formulate a well-rounded action plan. There are no stupid questions! Some example factors to consider and align on with your team include:
What are the known variables, and what is unknown? Flag uncertainties and suss out any curveballs or interesting pieces of information up front.
Who was impacted — customers, employees, partners, the public? Determine who you need to communicate with and if that’s within the company or beyond.
What is the impact? Is this a legal, regulatory or safety risk matter – or something greater?
Has the news already been made public? If so, how will you address it? If not, how will you get ahead of it in a timely yet effective manner?
What’s the current public sentiment of the brand, and how do we expect this situation may impact it?
Step #3: Craft the Narrative and “PR-ify” It
From here, find the positive story angle and frame your entire crisis communications plan around it. After several conversations with our client’s leadership and legal teams, we gathered all the details of the situation to help us craft a narrative that would hone in on the “why” behind the lawsuit and reinforce our client’s industry position positively.
From holding statements, to internal company memos, to social post copy, press releases, and more, you should be telling one cohesive and consistent story to the media and anyone who will see and digest this news.
Let’s look at how a few well-known companies have “PR-ified” their crises:
Situation: Slack suffers a widespread outage on a Monday morning.
Potential Message: We're using this moment to further invest in our system reliability to keep the world’s teams better connected.
Situation: Target recalls a thousand baby toys.
Potential Message: We’re investing in our R&D to improve the safety and quality of our baby toy line.
Situation: Amazon warehouse conditions are criticized during peak pandemic demand.
Potential Message: We're doubling down on employee safety and long-term well-being.
Situation: Anker’s Eufy security cameras are spying on you.
Potential Message: We’re now encrypting all video streams on our smart home products to ensure privacy is at the forefront when you choose to trust Eufy.
Remember, a promise made in crisis mode should be a promise kept even after the crisis ends. While it will take continued effort, this can ultimately help in maintaining brand image by turning a brand’s weakness into a strength in the long run.
Step #4: Prepare Your Crisis PR Materials
Keep in mind: A crisis plan is a PR plan. As with any good PR plan, you need to prepare the right materials and call on the right partners for your goals.
We can’t give away all our secrets, but here’s a general guide to get you started on the materials you’ll need to execute your crisis communications plan:
Holding Statement – This should be short and sweet. A holding statement is a couple of sentences that your PR team issues – or is prepared to issue – to address the situation. In this initial statement, NEVER say “we’re sorry” or “apologies” as this assumes blame and at this stage, you don’t have all the facts.
Media Audit – We conducted an audit of all media that covered our client’s opposing party, considering how the press and the public might react as the top priority. If your competitors have faced a crisis, consider researching who covered it for your own media plan.
Messaging Document – This document maps the main facts of the situation and often includes anticipated Q&A with approved responses for quick, effective, and legal-approved communication.
External Memos – Consider how employees, partners, and investors might receive this news. Craft internal communications accordingly. They should all hear the news from you first.
Website & Social Copy – Create concise statements addressing the situation with the need-to-know facts for public posting on owned channels (including executive feeds). In addition to employees, your customers should hear the news from the brand directly.
Press Release – This is the platform to convey your narrative with that positive spin, so you can control the storyline in the media as much as possible. Our client proactively shared a press release with all media we identified in the audit.
In a crisis, speed matters, but so does strategy. Having all your materials ready ensures your brand can control the narrative confidently.
Step #5: Own the Narrative and Monitor All Coverage
Now it’s time to plan out your media approach.
Our prime objective was to keep our client in control of the narrative, so we could inform the storyline we wanted the media to portray.
Some brands decide to offer exclusive coverage in a crisis. This depends on many nuances, such as the situation’s severity, the outlet’s reputation, and existing media relationships. Others engage in an extensive media relations campaign, especially in situations where you need to correct misinformation or have an important resolution or update that needs broad awareness. Discuss options with your working team.
Throughout an active crisis situation, keep your Google alerts active, monitor for future developments, and flag anything that may seem significant.
In many crisis cases, the goal is neutral coverage. There likely will be, however, some media that approach the storyline negatively. Leave it be. You can’t win ‘em all, and it’s important to stay grounded in the fact that your brand is facing a negative situation in the first place.
We monitored and fielded reactive inquiries for our client around the clock for three days. Ultimately, execution of our crisis PR plan and robust media outreach approach led to 60+ placements across top-tier publications, generating more than two billion impressions, all with neutral (and some positive) reporting – no negative stories! That’s a huge win in a crisis.
Some crises need to be over quickly. But for certain situations, a sustainable PR lens might bring other opportunities to shine a positive light on your brand.
Almost a year later, we launched the product that our client was suing to protect. We were able to use the crisis situation to lay the groundwork for an incredible showing at a virtual press briefing where we revealed details of the new product for the first time.
Think about how to make the most of the work that’s just been done. You’ve likely built new media relationships, clarified your client’s messaging, and come up with new story angles. Use it to shape future stories, strengthen your media presence, and build long-term brand resilience.
A good PR team can prevent a situation from getting out of control, but a great PR team can turn a crisis into long-lasting positive opportunities for your brand.
