A Stitch in Time Saves Nine

It is a rare case to find crises that had come up as one that was foreseen from before. While manufacturing a product or providing a service most organizations plan carefully so that there are no complaints from their stakeholders. The major priority for any organization is customer/ stakeholder satisfaction. This is simply because of the surge in the use of new media, which allows anyone to access a vast amount of information regarding any organization from the Internet. Therefore, in today’s technologically advanced world, organizations are forced to be transparent to their stakeholders because crises can be born out of anything, anytime, anywhere.
Crises are generally of two types.
1) Unexpected crises: the news of which spreads fast (Ex: Nokia in Crisis Management Mode over Faulty 'Bl-5c' Batteries)
2) Ones which start out small but then develops into bigger ones (Dominos Youtube Crises)
However, in times of crises it is key for the organization to respond fast because otherwise once the ‘word spreads’ the organization can suffer a severe loss both in terms of goodwill and income generation.
This had happened to Baush & Lomb (one of the worlds most renowned and leading eye care company) in 2006 when its contact lens cleaner, ReNu with MoistureLoc (ReNu MoistureLoc) was reported to create a fungal infection of the eye called Fusarium keratitis. In this case Baush and Lomb had initially overlooked and delayed in reacting to the crises due to which many analysts and critics said that B&L had adopted a "self-destructively passive role" in dealing with customers and investors and had thus broken the basic rule in crisis management.
They should have reacted like Nokia which despite its crises of faulty batteries came out of it almost unscathed.
Therefore, organizations need to remember that denying or trying to evade a complaint can result in paying high prices. They need to think and act fast in order to keep their goodwill and sales figures unhampered because truth is a ‘stitch in time saves nine.’

Watch the Dominos Pizza Prank @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaNuE3DsJHM

Are the Codes Created to Be Broken?

Ethics has been and will always be a subject of debate within the PR industry. There are many articles and books written on the fact public relations is ethical because through their work, public relations professionals promote mutual understanding and peaceful co existence among individuals and institutions (Seib and Fitzpatrick 1995) If this is the case then why are the PR professionals themselves divided in two groups? Then can it possibly be true that the term “public relations ethics” is truly an oxymoron?
The pragmatic PR people versus the idealist PR people
In their book PR a Persuasive Industry the authors Trevor Morris and Simon Goldsworthy clearly stated that PR professionals can be divided into two categories. While the pragmatic PR people themselves admit to lying but generally keep their heads down and get on with their jobs there are the Idealists who publicly deny to lying. If practitioners themselves are divided in opinion is it any wonder that people outside the industry generally end-up accusing PR professionals to be liars?
Many suggest that the Public relations codes of ethics are actually codes that are setup to give the profession an actual professionalized and institutionalized status. More importantly they are setup to show that PR people do have ethics and although there is an ongoing debate within the professionals themselves PR is a profession like, any other which has rules and regulations, which are to be abided by, by its practitioners.
Sadly, the enforcement of these codes is only limited down to the pr practitioners who are members of the (code setting) organizations such as the PRSA and the CIPR. And it has been recorded that only a mere 10 percent of the active PR professionals in America are today a member of the PRSA. The worst bit of it all is that members who violate these codes are at max expelled from the organizations. After expulsion there is no licence that the organization can take away from the practitioner. (Therefore, the practitioner can easily join other companies or organizations or set-up his/her own practice) Although PR has followed its counter professions such as law and medicine when it comes to setting up codes, what it did not do is provide license that can be seized if rule are violated.
Therefore, can it not be said that without making a license for the profession, PR has actually given its professionals the license to practice unethically? Can it not be said that not enforcing the codes as a mandate for its professionals is PR’s way of providing a leeway for the practitioners to do as they see fit? Most importantly, can it not be said that PR professionals have actually made the codes keeping the notion in mind that “ rules are meant to be broken?”

“THINK GLOCAL”- It’s Not Always A Matter Being Global Or Being Local

“Practical skills might get you your first job. But understanding the context in which you are operating and the strategic and communication issues, which affect your work, will get you your second job.” (Morris and Goldsworthy 1)

All the activities that the PR industry does are primarily based on communication. The major job of a PR team of any international organization (which intends to establish itself in foreign lands) is to establish, build and maintain relationships with their international stakeholders. This brings us to the question that who are their stakeholders with whom they want to build relationships? The local people! Therefore it is not enough for a PR practitioner to have the practical skills for the job to just plan and organize campaigns and events. In order to execute a successful task (internationally) it is very important for them to do the background research to know the economic, sociological and cultural context in which they are to operate before executing a plan.
McDonalds did this very successfully. Being one of the world’s largest international fast food chains, which has restaurants in 119 countries and territories around the world, before franchising itself to India McDonalds tailored its menu according to the Indian context by offering a vegetarian menu for a vast majority of population in India (who are vegetarians.) This step taken by McDonalds bonded them with the Indian population.
This is where the notion of “ Think globally- Act Locally” comes in. While it is important for the progress of any international organization’s PR team to think and compare itself to global standards it is integral for them to act locally- because truth be told their stakeholders are the local people. And in-order to connect and establish relationships with them it is important for the PR teams to focus their practice on keeping the local context and cultures in mind.
“Therefore, it can be said that Good PR is culture and context specific but in-order to progress forward, global standards to have to be kept in mind”