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Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the spread of information between an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organisation) and the public.[1] Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment.[2] This differentiates it from advertising as a form of marketing communications. The aim of public relations is to inform the public, prospective customers, investors, partners, employees, and other stakeholders and ultimately persuade them to maintain a certain view about the organization, its leadership, products, or of political decisions. Public relations professionals typically work for PR and marketing firms, businesses and companies, government, government agencies, and public officials as PIOs, and nongovernmental organizations and nonprofit organizations. Public relations specialists establish and maintain relationships with an organization's target audience, the media, and other[citation needed]opinion leaders. Common activities include designing communications campaigns, writing news releases and other content for news and feature articles, working with the press, arranging interviews for company spokespeople, writing speeches for company leaders, acting as organization's spokesperson by speaking in public and public officials, preparing clients for press conferences, media interviews, and speeches, writing website and social media content, facilitating internal/employee communications, and managing company reputation and marketing activities like brand awareness and event management [3] Success in the field of public relations requires a deep understanding of the interests and concerns of each of the client's many publics. The public relations professional must know how to effectively address those concerns using the most powerful tool of the public relations trade, which is publicity. [4] If ever an airline has suffered from bad press it is Malaysia Airlines. It's had two of the biggest air disasters in history in a period of four months—MH370 (which has yet to be found) and now MH17 shot down by a missile over Ukraine by Russian-backed separatists. Even before these twin disasters, the airline was experiencing severe financial losses. The airline's crisis response to the disappearance of MH370 was one of the worst in history (with no cohesive communications plan and a lack of sympathy for the family members of the lost passengers). Now with this latest disaster, can the brand survive and what does it need to do? In the short term, the brand is being helped by the media coverage over the downing of MH17. The focus is not on Malaysia Airlines but rather on Russia and the separatists who are presumed to have shot it down. As outrage mounts over the tragedy and the way the Russian-backed separatists are allowing access to the wreckage and the victims' remains, mention of Malaysia Airlines has been in passing. Also working in the airline's favor is that with acts of terrorism, most people are willing to focus their attention and anger on the perpetrators rather than the airlines. For instance after 9/11, neither United Airlines nor American Airlines suffered any brand damage despite the fact that their planes were hijacked. Additionally, Malaysia Airlines seems to have learned from its mishandling of the MH370 crisis. This time it promptly revealed all the information it had available when MH17 disappeared. The airline's social media channels carried the same message that was being given officially. The company also announced it will be fully refunding anyone who booked a flight on the airline but no longer feels comfortable traveling on it. Short term, the airline is surviving and has handled the crisis adequately. Yet the real test for Malaysia Airlines will be in the days and weeks ahead. As the stories begin to shift from the crisis in the Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, the West's response to Russia, and such, the focus will shift again to Malaysia Airlines. All the stories about MH370 will resurface and criticism about the airline will be intense as will scrutiny. What should Malaysia Airlines do? 1. Bring in an outside communications agency to work on the airline's short-term and long-term branding and crisis response. The airline has been reluctant to do so and it has shown in some of its responses. 2. Select a spokesman who can empathize and address concerns that consumers and the media have about the airline. This person needs to show not only the airline's record of overall safety but how it has taken the concerns about the airline seriously and the steps it's taking to correct these issues. 3. Take out full-page ads in the newspapers in its top markets to address the latest tragedy, express sympathy, and outline where the airline will go from here. 4. Interview former passengers expressing their confidence in Malaysia Airlines to use in promotions. One of the first things I noticed after the downing of MH17 was the support that many former passengers were expressing for the airline. 5. Make sure its social media strategy reinforces the same message used in traditional media. Malaysia Airlines is in an unenviable position. It will take a cohesive crisis communications strategy and branding effort to change public perception, but it can be done. For Malaysia Airlines, every hour counts as it deals with the loss of flight MH370 with 227 passengers and 12 crew on-board. The first 48 hours of a crisis are the most critical for an organisation as it aims to reassure people that it can deal with, and resolve, the crisis. It is in this time period that people will decide whether or not to support the organisation in trouble. A failure to act decisively and with leadership can result in inflaming outrage and blame. For Malaysia Airlines, that time is now up. It is now entering a reputational minefield. Flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic controllers at 2:40am local time (5:40am AEDT) on Saturday after it left Kuala Lumpur and headed for Beijing. The worst-case scenario of an accident is compounded by the uncertainty of what happened, where it happened and why it happened. There are so many questions but few answers. In the context of crisis management and communication, this information vacuum equates to a doomsday situation for the airline. Dealing with a crisis Although scholars are yet to agree on a definition of a crises, each event shares common themes – surprise, uncertainty, danger, reputation and relationships. All these facts have come to bear on Malaysia Airlines. Crises can impact on individuals, families, organisations, communities and even nations. Unprepared, organisations often collapse under the weight of three “crisis” realities – a lack of information, a lack of time and a lack of resources. This creates what has been termed a “crisis smog”, where organisational leaders are blinded by pressure they have never previously experienced. An effective response to a crisis demands accurate, timely and trusted information. Armed with the facts, an organisation can address many of the issues that surface in the hours after a disaster. Information helps reduce the outrage and the blame felt by victims and relatives. Information helps people make sense of what happened, and information forms the foundation of the recovery process for all involved. But Malaysia Airlines is facing a “black swan” event – an unprecedented and unexpected situation. The reaction so far The airline’s senior management has done the right thing in fronting the media early on and releasing the passenger list. Some things are known but many questions still remain – in particular, how could a modern Boeing 777-200 vanish at 35,000 feet over the South China Sea without any distress signal before impact? Feeding into speculation – symptomatic of an information vacuum – are questions over two passengers who boarded on stolen passports. How could this happen when air safety and security was supposed to be tightened following the 9/11 hijacks? As time goes by, more questions will be asked, expectations for answers will be increased and tension will be heightened between anxious relatives and the airline. Anger will overtake grief as people seek to attribute responsibility. The blame game is likely to be overwhelming. So, the airline must focus on two key areas. The first is to work closely with the search efforts – being seen to do something – as more countries, including Australia, join in. Secondly, the airline must ensure it meets the communication and emotional needs of the relatives. This will be challenging. Communication must take a people-first empathetic approach from the perspective of the families. The Singapore Airlines crash in Taiwan in 2000 is a good example of how this can be done. The airline provided counselling services at the destination airport for relatives waiting for the aircraft. It also offered a “buddy” system to support relatives. Knowns and unknowns There are some basic “rules” the airline should follow: • Ensure as much as possible that family and friends are informed about developments before the media is informed. Keep family and friends together and have airline representatives on hand to offer support. • Be consistent with information. The basic tenant of speaking with “one voice” is even more critical. Conflicting information adds to speculation and destroys trust and credibility. • Anticipate the questions and concerns of family and friends. Although answers may not be known, it is important to acknowledge the impact of uncertainty. • Address speculation quickly, particularly if it is circulating on social media. The danger is rumours can take control of the communications agenda. With such uncertainty, Malaysia Airlines could adopt the communication model used by New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the days following 9/11. This is what we know. This is what we don’t know. This is what we are doing. This is what you can do. People are more supportive of an organisation that admits “unknowns” in a crisis, at least in the early stages. Therefore, the “this is what we don’t know” approach builds transparency and trust. It removes doubts that there may be something to hide. But for Malaysia Airlines, people will be patient only for so long. The airline industry will be watching to see if the airline has what it takes to emerge unscathed from this disaster, and what crisis management lessons there are to be learnt for the future. Flight MH370: Malaysian officials criticised for poor PR, but how do you prepare for the unprecedented? Share on email Malaysia Airlines' communications has come under scrutiny The PR team at Malaysia Airlines has been under fire in recent days with the Telegraph newspaper today describing the actions of the airline and the Malaysian government as a “masterclass in how not to deal with the aftermath of an incident". But how do you prepare for an unprecedented disaster – a Black Swan event that has no case study to refer to in the crisis management manual? This desperately sad incident has no precedent. No plane has ever been missing for so long without wreckage being found. Combine that with the multitude of civil, defence and private organisations involved, the international scale of the effort and the fact that the traditional methods for tracking the plane had been switched off and I imagine the PR team were tearing pages out of the crisis comms manual with every hour that passed. I’ve written a number of disaster recovery and crisis communication plans in my career, although admittedly nothing on this scale. You consider the likely (and less likely ‘Titanic’) scenarios and build a response communication programme that will dovetail seamlessly with the operational actions that your organisation will take. And this last point is vital. Without a strong sense of what will actually be happening operationally in the aftermath of an event and clear guidance on how all parts of an organisation and its partners will work together, even the best written comms plan is rendered useless. With each passing day, I sense that this combination of lack of precedence, highly complex interdependencies between Malaysian agencies and international partners, the absence of traditional tracking sources on board and a lack of coordination within the airline have led to public confusion and poor public relations. Even the best PR team may have buckled in these circumstances. Let’s consider some of the issues: The airline took too long to let the public know the plane was missing and has appeared to be withholding information Waiting until after the plane was due to land before announcing that it was missing appears to have been a mistake. The airline’s response has been that first it wanted to ensure that families were personally informed and cared for and that it wanted to secure as many facts as possible before announcing. These are both noble and also traditional approaches but in an always on world of rolling news and digital media, they were not seen as acceptable. Subsequently, it was not until the weekend that the airline and the defence minister were able to piece together enough satellite evidence to provide an update on the possible trajectory or the fact that it may have flown for several more hours. Nor did they immediately brief that the onboard tracking system appeared to have been deliberately switched off. The satellite information may only have been verified by the airline and the authorities at the point when they actually announced it, but I get the sense that within the team, there was so much complexity and uncertainty that no one was given the job of anticipating what the public and the media would want to know, rather they simply gave information as they had it. Often it’s just as crucial to outline what you don’t yet know as it can save time dealing with speculation. The airline and the authorities have been defensive and speculation rife In a high profile situation like this, the media machine and the public crave information. Experts provide opinion and when there is a deficit of facts, speculation fills the void. From the stories of passengers who checked in but did not board to the pilot’s political affiliations, news channels, websites and social media have picked up and followed these trails. This has meant that most of the 20 media statements have had to include some form of denial or clarification. This feels like a traditional briefing model that isn’t being sufficiently supported by more regular updates on the speculation but again, I suspect that in this instance, that task may have been like trying to slay the Hydra and the team is probably just not resourced to be across all of this. There is no resolution And this is the central tragedy of the situation. For the most part, Malaysia Airlines and the country’s government have adhered to the first of the ‘R’s of crisis aftermath – Regret. But as yet, the ‘Reason’ is still unknown and there can be no ‘Recovery’ without finding that plane. Just as the BP crisis could not be resolved until the leak was plugged and the Chilean mine disaster could not have been deemed a success if the miners were not brought to safety, so too, the PR efforts of this crisis can have no resolution until more is known about what happened to the plane, why it happened and where it now is. Because of this, I have more sympathy with the airline PR team than some. I see this as a tragic humanitarian disaster and possibly an operations and logistics fail but not necessarily a PR disaster. One thing is for certain though. This event will change the future of aviation disaster planning.