Why This Should Be The Year Of Crisis Preparedness For Your Brand

Erik Bernstein crisis management

Would you be ready if you needed crisis management today? While we’re seeing more interest in crisis planning and preparedness work than ever, it’s a simple fact that most organizations out there are not prepared to face a fully fledged, all-hands-on-deck, act-now-or-incur-serious-damage, crisis management situation. Some have no formal plan …

Avoiding the Legal Response Syndrome

Erik Bernstein litigation-related crisis management

  [Editor’s note: Australian crisis expert Dr. Tony Jaques has just published a new book which addresses the challenge of how to balance legal and communication advice when a crisis strikes: Crisis Counsel: Navigating legal and communication Conflict (Rothstein 2020). In this extract, he introduces the idea of what he …

Marketing During A Pandemic (Without Creating Crises)

Erik Bernstein Crisis Prevention

Protecting your reputation is critical when marketing and advertising [Editor’s note: We’ve all seen some seriously tone-deaf marketing messages going out as everyone works to cope with the coronavirus pandemic, so we thought this reminder from PR and marketing expert Megan Licursi was quite timely.] Advertising during today’s pandemic can …

Coronavirus and the Permanently Changed Face of 21st Century Crisis Management

Erik Bernstein crisis preparedness

  The face of 21st Century crisis management has been permanently changed, for worse and for better, by the coronavirus threat. We have always preached the idea of preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. The reality is that most organizations don’t fully prepare for the worst cases, …

Freakout Crisis Management: The Wrong Way to Respond to COVID-19

Erik Bernstein Crisis Response

Freaking out is not a crisis management plan Headless chickens running amok appear to be in charge of many organizations – including media outlets – in response to the spread of COVID-19 globally and its imminent status as a pandemic. Freakout Crisis Management is not an effective means of responding …

A Different Take On Peloton’s PR

Erik Bernstein crisis management

Our crisis management consultants share their takeaways from this outrage outbreak You’ve undoubtedly already seen coverage related to Peloton, maker of high end exercise bikes and treadmills, becoming the first brand to draw the internet’s ire in the 2019 holiday season. While pundits have been furiously drawing lines in the …

Why Crisis Management Best Practices Matter To You

Erik Bernstein crisis management

Ever since the early days of Bernstein Crisis Management we’ve referred to much of what we share with readers as, “for all crisis managers, whether it’s in their job description or not”. While we know most of the folks who wind up on our site are wearing other hats in …

Boeing: “Sorry” Doesn’t Have To Be The Hardest Word

Erik Bernstein crisis management

  [While there’s absolutely a need to take care when dealing with issues involving major risk of litigation, sometimes the situation demands a clear, “We’re sorry”. In this guest post, reputation and crisis expert Mark Story asks why it was those words Boeing battled to avoid saying in the face …

Don’t Let Good Attorneys Make Bad News Worse

Erik Bernstein litigation-related PR

  [Editor’s note: The following guest post from Silicon Valley-based writer Leslie Kelsay leverages her previous experience directing strategic and crisis communications to help us understand the unintended consequences that come with over-lawyering a public issue.] Don’t Let Good Attorneys Make Bad News Worse By Leslie Kelsay We get it:  …