Page 118 - Crisis Communication Practical PR Strategies

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2. Given both the needs of the field force and the tight time-
frame that had to be managed, there were more than two
dozen management executives who would need to be noti-
fied of the news, prepared to serve as spokespeople, and
then be deployed into the field – all within a 48-hour period.
3. The acquiring company’s executives understood the essen-
tial role that they needed to play: to highlight their enthu-
siasm for this acquisition. They literally needed to ‘sell’ the
transaction to the field force of the acquired company within
a very short time; it was understood that upon release of the
news, competing financial services organizations would
swoop and try to recruit the top field performers – and their
customers.

Essential programme elements
A very frank layout of the goals and considerations for the com-
munication effort was prepared and shared – first with the exec-
utives of the selling organization and, when appropriate, with
the executives of the acquiring company. In the compressed
timeline, it was critical that the top-level spokespeople had a
clear and consistent definition of success: they would be faced
with myriad decisions on-the-fly in the coming days, and would
benefit from access to a common baseline for those decisions.
A comprehensive grid was developed and shared, identifying
subsets of stakeholders, key messages for each subset and
optimal vehicles for delivering those messages to each group. A
timing-and-action plan was prepared and shared, making
explicit each management office’s role, and helping all involved
understand how their role fitted into the overall effort. This also
reinforced the essential need to honour the tight timeframe by
highlighting the interdependency of various communication
activities.
Draft materials were completed and approved through both
companies by the outside public relations team, with plans to
turn over all execution of the plan to the internal public relations
staff as soon as the news became public. Internally, it was impor-
tant to allow staff to show their professionalism under pressure;
externally, it was optimal to highlight the capacity for business
continuity to the media and analysts who would be clamouring
to cover the story that first day. Materials included press releases,
editorial backgrounders on each company, scripts for various