A police officer on duty, who is not attached to a particular bank branch, decides to stop commercial buses and commercial motorcyclists to conduct a “stop and search” operation during a workday on a street that has a lot of banks domiciled on it. Upon stopping a motorist, the police officer gets into a verbal altercation with the individual and then shoots the person. Leaving the shot motorist for dead and sensing danger, the police officer quickly runs into a bank’s premises on the street, locks the gate and hides. Word subsequently gets out on the street and an irate mob sets the bank gate and the perimeter fencing on fire in a bid to get into the compound; chaos rules over the street.
The aforementioned scenario, which occurred at the Apapa (Lagos State) branch of a tier-two Nigerian bank in 2018, indicates that there is a need for proper crisis management to abate the severe situation.
Crisis management is a system that allows organisations to communicate effectively during a crisis, protects brands’ image and lessens reputational damage. It helps to mitigate any dilemma that may arise as a result of a reputational crisis, which may lead to the loss of public trust, support and legitimacy for businesses, brands and public institutions.
Three common elements are predominant in crisis management, namely; threat to the organization, element of surprise, and a short decision time to resolve the tragedy or mishap.
All these require specialist public relations professionals and firms to proactively resolve such situations.
In this era of the digital age where there is an ever-increasing number of educated people who are sensitive to certain developments, and where information moves at lightning speed that virtually everyone can now get access to information through sophisticated smartphones, the viral nature of any crisis can severely damage the reputation of any organisation and have a potentially devastating effect on revenue, customer acquisition, loyalty, and other important business outcomes.
Although there is no magic bullet to navigate crisis management, liaising and coordinating with professional PR firms helps organisations to prepare themselves to deal with unforeseen crises and reduce the impact of the various threats to individuals or organisations and their stakeholders. PR firms, been professional organisations, have the renowned skills and techniques required to identify, assess, understand, and cope with a serious situation, especially from the moment it first occurs to the point that recovery procedures start.
A tripartite multi-pronged approach is usually employed by communications professionals to address such situations: planning, training and execution. This can further be broken down into five stages: identifying your communications team (through recruitment and training); developing a detailed communications plan (planning); preparing key messages and points (planning); initiating internal communications procedure (execution), and distribution of prepared messages and follow up with media contacts (execution). All these steps are vital in lessening any potential PR crises for organisations.
There have been notable PR crises in which renowned brands across the world, and particularly in Nigeria, have been enmeshed in. One of such major crises was in 2019 and 2020 respectively when customers heavily criticised Bolt, a ride-hailing company, as its drivers were accused by the public of sexual harassment against female riders, as well as verbal and physical assault allegedly meted out to customers.
Bolt, however, activated its crisis management plan and responded by, first of all, releasing an official statement where they addressed the issue. The company highlighted the steps it took through its high priority team, and the process it followed to deal with any of such occurrences. It also enlightened current and potential riders about the features of its safety toolkit.
The ride-hailing company also released another communication, which it sent to all its riders via email, stating its commitment to improving service delivery on the platform. To further assure riders of safety on its app, Bolt announced that on-trip insurance is automatically activated on every trip.
Another crisis was that which was encountered by Chrisland Schools in 2021 after popular Nollywood actress, Mercy Johnson-Okojie, accused a teacher of the school of bullying and threatening her daughter. The incident reportage escalated quickly like a wildfire on social media, and the actress threatened to withdraw her daughter from the school.
In a bid to douse the situation, the school management and select members of the Chrisland School Advisory Board promptly engaged in discussions with the Okojie family. Following the discussions, the school released an official statement in which it acknowledged that there were rough edges to smoothen up from an avoidable misunderstanding. It also empathised with the student and her parents over the issue.
The statement also had Mercy Johnson-Okojie quoted as saying that her family is pleased with the school’s efforts towards ensuring that all students get an all-around balanced and qualitative learning. She also stated that the school assured her family of their commitment to being responsive to the fragile emotions of children, as well as the valid concerns of parents.
A more recent incident occurred in 2022 after Ebonylife Media, a media conglomerate, got a backlash from cinema buffs over the apparent lack of quality of “Chief Daddy 2”, a sequel to the critically-acclaimed movie: “Chief Daddy”. Many persons who hopped on Netflix, a streaming platform, to watch the movie bemoaned about its plot, the perceived unrealistic dialogue and the underutilisation of the star-studded cast, among others.
As a result of the furore on social media, the Chief Executive Officer of Ebonylife Media, Mo Abudu, released a video in which she addressed some of the complaints made by the viewing public. Abudu said emphatically that the company heard the grievances and the situation was being remedied by engaging more talented and diverse scriptwriters and directors. She also urged the public not to easily forget the successful films made on the stable of her production company and assured that it would shore up its reputation by delivering better movies to the delight of movie watchers.
Subsequently, many Nigerians on social media acknowledged that Abudu admitted the movie was poorly done. But even with that, some people still blasted her for threatening to block critics from her social media pages and that of the company over the trolling. Although Abudu and Ebonylife followed the steps in dealing with crisis management, the impact of such a move, fueled by her PR team, will likely be known with Ebony’s next production.
In these contemporary times, no individual or institution can prosper for long without public support. Therefore, only a well-thought-out strategy curated by a PR firm can help prepare for unforeseen circumstances, regain public trust, reputation, and reduce the impact of the crisis on an organisation.
This is what we at SOL PR consultancy offer our clients. We have a commitment to understanding our clients’ businesses and focus on driving their growth, as well as managing PR/communication crises for organisations by utilising the skills, knowledge and tools to effectively manage their reputation, influence public perception and maintain a high level of trust and a positive relationship between themselves and the public.
We have a highly-skilled image management team comprised of distinguished former journalists and brand experts with experience working with the media outlets that clients need to penetrate, giving us familiarity with the client and agency sides.
We are accomplished managers of the marketing, business development, and communications processes for mid-size and large companies as well as government establishments/agencies.
Louisa Oseji
Account Director, SOL PR
