That an image crisis will visit your company is as certain as in the bank. Americans even claim that there are three issues that are bound to affect everyone: taxes, death and crisis. And if this is the case, if we know that somewhere out there on the business maps of how a company operates, there are changing currents and their effect can be at best a change in the weather for the rich and at worst a typhoon that tears our company from its roots, it is worth doing something. To think about how to secure it, to root it firmly in its operating environment. Give it the highest level of stability.
And this is by no means about building entanglements or stone walls around it. On the contrary. It is about doing things in such a way as to eliminate as much as possible the anxiety that something unforeseen might happen. An earthquake, flood or pandemic is beyond our control. What we can do, however, is prevent man-made crises.
Image crises – In the beginning there was chaos
You had a great business idea. You found a niche in the market and created a business. It was probably hard, but now it is thriving and growing quite well. You have more and more customers and profits. Think about how many hours, days you spent to get to this place? How much time have you stolen from your family, your kids, your wife, your husband, your girlfriend, your boyfriend through this? How many cool moments in that time could you have spent pursuing your personal passions?
Now ask yourself, how will you feel when all that hard work goes down the drain for some reason? After all, aren’t you able to predict everything? You work with people who are only human. You don’t have the chance to constantly watch them 24 hours a day and control everything. Remember that almost 90% of company crises are due to human error. And the first and most basic one is to assume that nothing will happen in your company.
Image crisis in practice
The effect of the crisis is the loss of a good image. The first example from the coast. The Tiger brand published a series of graphics on social media in 2017. On the day of the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, a picture appeared showing an outstretched middle finger and next to it the vulgar inscription ‘Screw what was. What’s important is what will be’. As a result, Tiger not only disappeared from social media, but was also removed from some petrol stations. There are plenty of such major and minor slip-ups and examples. We have already stated that they cannot be avoided, but the possibility of their occurrence can certainly be minimised. That’s when crisis PR comes to the rescue… But it can also be done in a different way, with enough advance notice….
Image crisis management
When to start preventive action? Long before there are any signs of a crisis. For if you do not prepare for it, and it does occur, chaos will follow you and your colleagues. The physician Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland, who promoted natural cures, stated that ‘Vorbeugen ist besser als heilen’ (prevention is better than cure). And this statement should be at the very beginning of any consideration of image and its protection. In short, it can be said that the more crisis situations you imagine, the better. The more possible flashpoints you find in your business, the easier it will be to extinguish them.
Secondly, you should already hang a banner above your desk with the slogan ‘VISUAL RESERVE’ written in big letters. This is the stock of credibility and trust that you should gain with your clients, in the environment in which you operate, among journalists. It’s that emotional element that can’t be calculated in any parameters. Thanks to it, if something negative happens, you can avoid the more serious consequences of a crisis. Clients will say that it could have happened to anyone. And journalists will come to you for information because they trust you and won’t get it from other sources, such as your competitors. But what if you don’t have this reserve? What if you don’t have a reserve? You don’t have the time to create one either… It’s useful to have ready-to-use tools that tell you what to do and when – how to minimise the impact of a crisis.