crisis communications

When You Don’t Own Your Story, Someone Else Will: A PR Lesson from Wicked

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When you think of Wicked, you can’t help but picture pink and green, flying monkeys, and Cynthia Erivo belting out that final note as she soars into the sky defiantly.  Last week, I had the opportunity to see Wicked: For Good. As someone who has seen the first Wicked movie three times, I was incredibly excited.   Although Wicked is an entertaining movie … Keep reading

Code Green: Effective Crisis Communication in Healthcare

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In the fast-paced and ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, effective crisis communication is paramount for maintaining a positive brand reputation. Providers, payers, pharmaceutical companies – no healthcare organization is immune to crises, and how they handle these situations can significantly impact public perception. In this blog post, we will explore strategies for effective crisis communication in … Keep reading

Thoughtful Brand Communications During the Coronavirus

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As the coronavirus pandemic continues to unfold, you can hardly turn on the TV or open the newspaper without being confronted with a story that’s related to the outbreak in some way. These days, every new message is being framed against the pandemic backdrop. That’s why companies need to be extremely thoughtful and strategic in … Keep reading

Racism in Fashion – Where are the PR Teams?

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I follow the fashion industry pretty closely. Fashion is a love of mine and, of course, I love public relations. So, when the two worlds collide, I have opinions and thoughts.

Fashion has always had a problem with racism, – from whitewashed runways to cultural appropriation and skin-lightening Photoshop jobs – but it seems that lately it’s become more obvious. In the last three months alone, we’ve read about three instances of blackface – Prada, Gucci and Katy Perry – and one use of a noose on the runway – Burberry. Skipping over the obvious question about racism in 2019, I’m curious whether or not the PR teams were involved in the creative process. 

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5 Tips to Prepare for a Media Ambush During a Crisis

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Crisis communications practitioners spend large chunks of time on communications – drafting holding statements, scripting key messages and tweaking media statements.

Courtesy of Maryland GovPics via Flickr

But it’s just as important to spend time thinking about what could – and should – happen, if a news team were to show up on your company’s (or client’s) doorstep during a crisis.

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PR Lessons to Learn from United Airlines Crisis

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As most of you already know, United Airlines recently suffered a self-made disaster that left us PR pros with nightmares. What started as damning footage surfacing of a man being violently dragged off a flight, snowballed into a highly-publicized crisis that, ultimately, could have been avoided. In fact, I wrote a blog post a few … Keep reading

Honesty is the Best Policy

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One of the first lessons I remember learning as a child was that honesty is the best policy. It may or may not have taken getting grounded a few times for it to sink in, but my parents made sure that I knew it’s always better to tell the truth, even when I’ve done something … Keep reading

5 Crisis Communication Tips from the Real-Life Olivia Pope

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What are the top tricks of the trade in crisis communications? Account Supervisor Kathleen McFadden heard first-hand recently from expert Judy Smith, who was the inspiration for the lead character in TV’s hit “Scandal.”

Fixing Data Breach PR

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This week’s blog post comes from David Fuscus, president and CEO of Xenophon Strategies.  Based in Washington, DC, Xenophon is a member of the Public Relations Global Network, of which Buchanan PR was a founding member.

“Year of the Retailer Breach” was how Verizon recently described 2013 in its annual Data Breach Report, saying that it “was a year of transition… to large scale attacks on payment card systems.” The report documented 1,367 confirmed data breaches, the largest and most infamous of which was the massive amount of customer information stolen from Target during the busy Christmas shopping season.

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