Public Relation Crisis - Essay Example

? Public Relations Crisis Table of Contents Introduction 3 Discussion 6 Crisis on Saudi Aramco 7 Crisis on AL watanya 8 Conclusion 10 Learning Outcome 11 References 13 Introduction The concept of public relation originated more than thousand years ago. It was mainly developed by the Greeks. They used words such as ‘sematikos’ which means semantics. Such words were used by the Greeks to make people accomplish certain things and believe certain things. This is also marked as the beginning of public relations. As we move through the pages of history similar PR activities can be found in large numbers. For example In 394 A.D., St. Augustine, the professor of Rhetoric in Italy was responsible for delivering eulogies to the emperor on a regular basis and was probably the most contiguous to the monarch. It can be clearly cited as one of the oldest practices of public relations. Its equivalent in the modern day would be the communication director or press secretary of the President. Again as we move in to the 19th century public relation became a profession (Rowan University Communication Institute, 2000). With further development of PR concept, certain issues also got associated with it. One of the common issues pertaining to public relation is PR crisis. The report will now emphasize on these concepts and will further evaluate its impacts and how it can be effectively handled by the organizations. To describe it more elaborately two cases will be chosen which will demonstrate the impact more clearly, a brief overview of public relation and PR crisis will be presented. Public Relation Public Relation is defined as the process of managing and controlling the inflow and outflow of information between an organization, an individual and the public. It is basically an approach by which organizations try to gain exposure to their target addressees by employing topics of public interest and spreading some zesty news. The primary rationale behind practising public relation is to convince the investors, employees, partners, customers, and stakeholders about the company’s products, political decision and leadership activities. Some of the evident ways by which the practise of public relation can be portrayed are winning industry awards, working closely with the press, speaking at meeting or conference, and employee communication. In the present business environment, importance of public relation has been like never before. Public relation is now treated as one of the most vital management disciplines. Moreover, if properly practised public relation can play a crucial role in maintaining a sound relationship with the internal and external stakeholders of the company. The support is also important to meet the goals and objectives of the organization. In general public relation is a mere communication activity, that put emphasis on the two way communication process. Therefore it is way by which a mutual understanding between the organization, its stakeholders and the customers is established (Kitchen, 1997, p.8). Public Relation Crisis: A Brief Overview A crisis generally descends without any warning. It does not even give time to take any kind of precautionary measures. A crisis suddenly expands hysterically leaving hardly any chances for an immediate recovery. Moreover it disrupts the business transactions and at times intimidates the survival of an organization (Fearn-Banks, 2010, p.2). Some of the example of PR crisis includes Johnson & Johnson's cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules, PepsiCo's can tamper rumours, Texaco's racial discrimination lawsuit, Odwalla Foods' apple juice E-Coli outbreak, Cadbury's worm infested candy bars, JetBlue's week-long operational breakdown and The Red Cross' rogue tweet among many others. Public relation crisis is some time referred to as the communication crisis from the organizational context of view. However it is also important to overcome the issue effectively. It can be done by adopting sound crisis management techniques. Some of the ways by which the challenge can be faced are illustrated below:- Maintaining a strong connectivity with the external world. The company should make itself readily accessible to the news and broadcast media. The company should show compassion for the people involved with the PR events. Distributed access must be allowed. Rationalization of the communication processes. Maintain information security. Ensure continual audit trails. Multi-channel communications should also be supported. Any dependencies on paper based process must be removed. Discussion This section will critically analyze the two cases chosen for depicting the PR crisis and how PR crisis impacts the overall reputation of the firm. The analysis will be done on the basis of how the companies were impacted due to the PR crisis. Also the analysis will be done to underpin whether PR crisis affects the reputation of the firms or not. The identification of the events will be done by properly sourcing the information. The information will be taken from the authentic sources. Mostly the study will be done on the basis of secondary research. The secondary sources to be considered for this study includes books, journal articles, electronic sources and through various articles and websites of the renowned news channels. Channels such as BBC news, AL Jazeera news, al Arbiya news, al Hayat news will be extensively used. In addition utility websites such as youtube.com will be also used to get insights of the actual scenario. Furthermore it is believed that substantial amount of information will be available to accomplish the study successfully. The primary rationale behind this observation is that, the chosen events are extremely popular and therefore vast information will be available. Secondly it is also important to notify that prior to choosing the events pertaining to PR crisis, moderate secondary research have been carried out to test the amount of information availability. Therefore based on the substantial amount of information availability a thorough and in-depth analysis of both the chosen cases can be carried out. Now the next sections of the report will shed light on the aspects such as implementation, evaluation of the PR crisis. Crisis on Saudi Aramco There have been reports that on August 15, 2012, which was the day just before Night of Power in the Islam calendars, the computers of Aramco were attacked by viruses. The attack was so fierce that it went on to strike 30,000 work stations (Slumdog911, 2012). In a statement, the officials of the company have highlighted that after a fight of 10 days, the company has been able to successfully restore all its affected computers. Nevertheless the spokesperson also emphasized that the operation was not at all impacted by the malware attack. According to the reports of Alhayat, the primary intention of the hackers was to steal the confidential documents and important information (Heni, 2012). To take further preventive measures the company decided to close its corporate website for few days and corporate remote access were suspended (Leyden, 2012). In this context of the study, PR crisis comes in the form of company reputation. With the occurrence this incident people may perceive that the network security of the company is so weak, that a hacking group entirely stops the operation of the company. The company took ten days to revive the situation completely. Thus it portrayed a negative image in the minds of the people thereby resulting in a PR crisis. The reputation of the company is on the line and the study is also being carried out to assess the reputation of the firm In other words the study will be done to understand how the reputation of the firm got affected due to this PR crisis. For the first case, the company (Saudi Aramco) has been able to fully recover or restore its internal network services within ten days after the virus attacked the internal servers of the company. Reportedly around 30,000 work stations were impacted (BBC, 2012). It has affected the reputation of the company resulting in a PR crisis. However the company handled the situation very intelligently and took control of the situation very early. The spokes person of the company in clearly stated that the primary business of the company was not at all affected by the virus attacks. Similar statements were also released for the press media. The statement of company indicates that the company has sound technical infrastructure and the network securities are also high. According to the press release of the company strong network security has prevented the hackers to disrupt the internal network and operation of the company. Furthermore, handling the issue in this manner has also helped the company to get rid of the crisis situation very early. The impact on the overall sales volume was also negligible. Therefore it can be stated that the company handled the situation very well. Crisis on AL watanya The second case entails about the increase of chicken prices by AL watanya. Al Waanya, a poultry company has increased the price of chicken by 40%. The company stated the price of chicken was hiked due to the increase in poultry feed price. Furthermore, a production shortfall in Saudi Arabia and Brazil is another reason for the problem. According to reports the agricultural minister of Saudi Arabia has highlighted the price was intentionally carried as the demands were far more than the supply (Wattagnet, 2012). Thus to strike a balance between the two, the price of chicken was raised. However this move has affected the entire organization. People of Saudi Arabia opposed the price rise decision. In this regards they have also initiated a protest campaign with the help of social media. The people of Saudi Arabia calls it ‘Let it Rot’. The campaign asks the Saudi people to castigate the traders for increasing the price. It is encouraging the shoppers to stop buying chickens and the traders suffer for their decision (Liddle, 2012). In the second case, we have seen that AL watanya has increased the prices of Chicken. However this action was not supported by the people and Saudi Arabia and the people directly protested against the company through the social networking medium (Tayyan, 2012). The protest against the company clearly highlights that AL watanya is facing a PR crisis. In this context also the reputation of AL watanya was at stake and the study is also being carried out to assess the reputation of the firm. In other words the study will be done to understand how the reputation of the firm got affected due to this PR crisis. Now in the context of the second case, AL watanya, the poultry company has suddenly increased the prices of chicken. This activity was not supported by the common people of Saudi Arabia. The people protested against the company with the help of social media campaigning. Now from the perspective of the company, it can be clearly portrayed as a PR crisis. Moreover the reputation was affected. In this context there were hardly any responses from the company. They also did not conduct any press release activities to let the customers exactly know about the cause of the price rise. The news highlighting the exact cause of price rise was only generated by the government of Saudi Arabia. The company also did not notify the people about any future possibilities of lowering the prices of chicken. This clearly depicts how the company failed to maintain strong public relation which resulted in a PR crisis. Hence it can be clearly stated that the company did not handled the situation effectively. It is important for a company to face the PR crisis effectively in order to maintain its market share and sales volume. This section will therefore underline how both the companies should have handled the situation. In order to deal with the crisis both the companies have to take certain steps. Some of the ways by which the companies could have effectively handled the situation are highlighted below:- The first step towards effective management of the crisis is to identify the type of crisis. Since it is a PR crisis, the company has to deal with the media and common public. The second step is to communicate the crisis internally, which includes employees, shareholders, bankers and other officials (Gutner, 2008). In order to effectively communicate the message a consistent message should be developed, which will be presented to the media by the spokesperson. The next step is to monitor and manage the media flow. It is always better to manage the activities of media rather than controlling it. Both the companies should keep open communication lines and should monitor the reports of media about the company. This will allow the company to control any speculative news. Conclusion The report was primarily meant to assess the importance of public relation from the perspective of an organization. The report was also about understanding the concept of PR crisis and how it impacts an organization. Furthermore how PR crisis affects the reputation of an organization was also an area of study. The two cases used in this context to illustrate PR crisis are ‘hack in Saudi Aramco’ and chicken price rise by AL watanya. The study revealed that PR crisis is one of the most important aspects that organization considers while formulating the business strategy. Now for the first case of Saudi Aramco, the computer hack has impacted their operation and it took 10 days to fully restore the systems. The company nevertheless stated the media addressing the people that the virus did not affected the regular operation and it functioned smoothly. The company tried to present that it has strong network security system and ready to face such challenges in the future. This initiative satisfied the stakeholders. Hence it can be concluded that Saudi Aramco has handled the PR crisis very effectively. On the other hand AL watanya after increasing the prices of the chicken did not even notified the cause of price rise, which led the people to protest against them and resulting in a huge PR crisis. Hence it can be concluded that AL watanya did not handled the situation properly. Learning Outcome The study has helped me to learn a number of things. Especially it taught me how to effectively handle a project and complete it within the stipulated time frame. There are many learning outcomes of the project. I have learned how to identify a possible PR crisis. In simple words why a company face crisis is learned from the project. Furthermore the project has taught me several ways by which a PR crisis can be effectively handled by the organization. I have also learned how a company can position itself into the minds of the consumers by sound public relation practices. Most importantly I have also learned to develop public relation strategy for a company. However still I am in the process of learning. It is also important to let you know that I have also learned the benefits of public relation and how it helps an organization to portray its presence in the market. References BBC, 2012. Saudi Aramco Oil Giant Recovers from Virus Attack. [online] Available at: [Accessed 09 November 2012]. Fearn-Banks, K., 2010. Crisis Communications: A Casebook Approach. 4th ed. Oxon: Taylor & Francis. Gutner, T., 2008. Dealing with a PR Crisis Takes Planning and Truth. [online] Available at: [Accessed 09 November 2012]. Heni, S., 2012. Aramco Reach to ‘Hacker’ Who ‘Destroyed’ its Network. [online] Available at: [Accessed 12 November 2012]. Kitchen, P. J., 1997. Public Relations: Principles and Practice. Connecticut: Cengage Learning EMEA. Leyden, J., 2012. Hack On Saudi Aramco Hit 30,000 Workstations, Oil Firm Admits. [online] Available at: [Accessed 08 November 2012]. Liddle, A., 2012. Saudis Protest After Chicken Prices Soar [The Independent]. [online] Available at: [Accessed 09 November 2012]. Rowan University Communication Institute, 2000. A Brief History of Public Relations. [pdf] Available at: [Accessed 08 November 2012]. Slumdog911, 2012. Shamoon Computer Virus Destroys 30,000 Saudi Aramco Workstation Computers. [video online] Available at: < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn7YYWDzqOM> [Accessed 09 November 2012]. Tayyan, A., 2012. Soaring Sheep Prices in Saudi Arabia as Eid Al-Adha Approaches. [online] Available at: [Accessed 09 November 2012]. Wattagnet, 2012. Qatar Chicken Prices Up On Global Production Challenges. [online] Available at: [Accessed 09 November 2012]. Read More