“We’ve Got a Crisis on Our Hands” – Transcript

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MIN LEE
Social media this holy grail, what it could take care of everything.

MAURICE BAYNARD
Welcome to Drexel’s 10,000 Hours Podcast. Our goal is to mine the stories behind our region’s innovators, inventors, and thought creators. We’ll be talking to experts in subjects from fashion to neuroscience to find out where their passion for work and inspiration for ideas comes from. I’m your host, Maurice Baynard.

MAURICE
Min Lee is an assistant professor in Drexel University’s Department of Communications, where she specializes in public relations, and her research focuses on social media strategies for relationship and reputation management. Min’s the one you call when your Twitter posts have gone awry, and you find yourself with a crisis on your hands. All right, I’m excited. So there are a million ways to start, but I hate the formal, Dr. Min Lee, welcome to the 10,000 Hours.

MIN
OK.

MAURICE
So I’m going to start like this. What is your favorite question to answer about yourself?

MIN
That’s a great question. I’ve never thought about that before, nor has anyone asked me that before. I guess the story as to how I came to the US in the first place.

MAURICE
OK, so tell me about that story. Where does it start and what’s the really interesting part of that story?

MIN
OK. I majored in PR throughout my entire academic career, undergrad, graduate, master’s, PhD. All of that was in public relations.

MAURICE
When did you know that you wanted to do a public relations? Did you know in a high school or when you got to college?

MIN
I think I’m a product of the self-fulfilling prophecy because my middle school teacher said that I was a good writer, and she thought that I would be a good journalist, so I wanted to major in journalism. So when I entered college, I did a dual degree in journalism and public relations because that was a popular thing to do at the time.

MAURICE
And situate us. Where are we in the world?

MIN
We are in Seoul, South Korea.

MAURICE
And where did you go into college?

MIN
And I went to a women’s university called Sookmyung Women’s University. The university that I graduated from, it was actually created by the empress in Joseon Dynasty. So by the time I went to college, it was celebrating its 125th anniversary. So it’s been a while.

MAURICE
So long history, a lot of luminous graduates.

MIN
It’s been around, yes. And I did a foreign exchange student program while I was an undergrad that led me to Florida State.

MAURICE
Was that culture shock?

MIN
It was, but it was a pleasant culture shock. I experienced culture shock more so when I moved from Florida to Missouri then when I moved from Korea to Florida.

MAURICE
Did you have a sense of where Missouri was and how different it would be than Florida before you moved there?

MIN
No, absolutely not. And I think when I moved to Florida, I was prepared. I was mentally getting ready to move to a new country, be kind of open minded in terms of what was going to greet me. And then I think I thought I was done with that process. And then when I moved to the Midwest, it was just completely different.

MAURICE
How long were you in Florida?

MIN
Not too long. I only stayed there for three years total. So I did a year of exchange student, went back to Korea, finished my degree, worked for a little bit, and then came back to do my graduate studies.

MAURICE
Did you work as a journalist or in a PR firm?

MIN
I worked as a PR person. So to kind of backpedal a little bit, the reason why I switched over completely to PR was because I was better at it. It took me less effort, but it came out with better grades. I don’t know. I think it was just a better fit for me that I wasn’t even aware of.

MAURICE
Where do you see the world going now that we all are interested in projecting messages about ourselves? How do you think that’s playing out since most of us aren’t PR professionals?

MIN
Right. I’ll talk more from the organizational standpoint because that’s where my background is. But for organizations, when social media emerged and became the channel to communicate, it was quite exciting, particularly for public relations because we now don’t have to go through that gatekeeping process. We have a channel to communicate directly, engage directly, and the ways in which how we could strategically craft our messages really made a difference. So that also cut down quite amount of time, energy, and even money in terms of trying to build and forge relationships with the journalists so that they could convey the message on behalf of the organization.
Now, with that part of the equation, not to say it’s unimportant, but less significant than before– social media was this holy grail, where it could take care of everything. But then the audience, so to speak, with the public, so to speak, they became more savvy, but they also became a little more snarky in the ways in which how they engage with organizations as well. So on the one end of the extreme spectrum, you would have rumors or faux pas events where they say, oh, organization xyz accused hoaxes. They would accuse the organization of doing a wrong thing when in reality that wasn’t the case. So a classic example I can think of is back in, I believe 2009, when these employees at Domino’s, they created a YouTube video where they were showing pizzamaking with unsanitary hands, or picking their noses, and putting boogers on the crust and whatnot. And that got circulated through YouTube.

MAURICE
And were they trying to be funny?

MIN
They were trying to be funny. Yes, they were trying to be funny, sarcastic, that, hey, this is what’s happening when you’re ordering your pizza. And definitely, it blew up. But it wasn’t a real thing. But Domino’s CEO had to come in, and step out, and issue a formal apology because obviously, the public was outraged, and they were concerned that this was really the way, how the pizzas were created, but if not, that it was OK for these employees to continue working, continue to work in these situations.

MAURICE
That’s a great story. Should organizations try to steer clear of the humor unless they– because you never know how it’s going to land?

MIN
Well, one of the positives, if it is, that came out from these series of incidents– so the Domino’s was a big one. And all of these instances that happened in the mid-2000s, it led to organizations putting together a social media handbook, more specifically, a social media crisis handbook. So what do you do when you’re dealing with social media content? Minuscule things, as to how do you as an employee deal with content that you distribute even if you don’t think you are doing so on behalf of the organization, but because of your association with it what happens when that gets distributed through the personal accounts or whatnot? And then how do you also respond to attacks or rumors or hoaxes that are directed towards the organization as well?

MAURICE
And how should organizations, when it seems like the world is coming at them, how should they get ahead of the messaging?

MIN
So there’s a couple of different things that you can do. And we, in public relations, we have a theory called situational crisis communication theory, or SCCT as an abbreviation.

MAURICE
I’m writing it down.

MIN
SCCT, it’s pretty awesome, but you’re talking to an academic over here. But what the theory suggests is regardless of the medium that delivers the crisis, the very first thing organizations need to do is to determine whether the locus of control is internal or external. So if the organization is at fault, then you obviously have to take more accommodating stances, apologize, or–

MAURICE
Can you explain for us locus of control?

MIN
Sure. Locus of control basically just means who’s responsible for the crisis. So if it’s the employee who messed up, for the lack of better words, then it’s your job as the organization to confront, and be upfront, and say, hey, we messed up. And this is what we’re going to do to correct these or remediate the situation, issue an apology. If the responsibility is external, then you have more, yes, room to be advocating towards your organization, saying things like, look, this is a malicious attack towards our organization. It’s unverified. But at the same time, you still need to let them know that we’re looking through things, making sure that we’re covering all grounds and whatnot.
Now, the sort of contingency factors associated with this is how severe the crisis is. So if it involves human causalities, then regardless of whether the responsibility is within or on the outside of the organization, you want to be more accommodating because it’s the human thing to do, right? You apologize, or you express condolences for the situation. So that gives us sort of a framework as to how to respond in those situations. And when we put social media into the equation, the key factor that we now need to consider is the timing of the responses. Because back in the day, crisis happened. You had to worry about the press coming in, and figuring out, and putting that story out before you. Nowadays, with social media, A, it can go out before the press reaches you, or B, it can recirculate even after it’s been a done deal. Like the Abercrombie–

MAURICE
On the internet, nothing ever gets old, and things always come back.

MIN
Right. So the situation I think about is the Abercrombie crisis that happened with the CEO. But he made a comment when one of the customers asks why the sizing in Abercrombie and Fitch is so limiting. And he said, well, we cater to a specific audience.

MAURICE
I remember it well.

MIN
We want to market for the cool kids, right? And that comment resurfaced in six years after he made the comment to press. And it recirculated again. And they issued an apology through Facebook. And I can see you making a very questionable face over there. And everyone is exactly thinking the same thing. Why would anyone issue an apology over Facebook?

MAURICE
Right. Is Facebook really the place where you want to adjudicate your evils and your ills?

MIN
Right. So–

MAURICE
What do you think the company was thinking, in that– were they also doubling down on the idea that our customers and who we care about are young, and hip, and technically savvy?

MIN
I think a part of it had to do with the fact that this crisis blew up again on social media. So they thought they were being savvy and perhaps tailored in their approach.

MAURICE
They were aiming the hose where they felt the fire was.

MIN
Right, so happened in social media, so we’re going to respond back on social media. Obviously, the structure or the content itself was also quite problematic because what they said was basically, oh, I’m sorry people discovered this comment rather than addressing the initial situation.

MAURICE
Sorry, not sorry.

MIN
And then, of course, you have thousands and thousands of people replying to that post, which generated even more coverage of the situation.

MAURICE
Right. So in some ways, so all press is good press. But on the internet, every comment generates more momentum around the comment.

MIN
Right.

MAURICE
So I know we tend to focus on the egregious examples of big companies that become really public. But are there any examples of people managing crisis, either utilizing social media or in the real world that you thought were really exemplary, that you point your students to and go, they got it right?

MIN
Right. So Southwest, that’s one of the airlines that I can think of. And if you look at the customer satisfaction survey results, they tend to be the top three airlines when it comes to customer satisfaction rates year after year. And they have a pretty awesome social media game going on. Basically, they know how to communicate in a manner that conveys humor, but more importantly, humanism. So if you look at their Southwest blog, that’s one of their more active places. They have independent or individuals that will post regularly who, of course, are southwest employees. But the manner how they post, it’s just very basic things. But it gives you a face, it tells you where that person’s hometown is.

MAURICE
It draws you into them as people.

MIN
Right. Yes. So you get a little bit of background story as to who they are, the hometown, why they came to or why they joined Southwest, what their role is within the company. And then they will curate content that’s not only relevant to the airline business, but something that’s also just fun, and entertaining, and good to read to the audience. So you provide them content that’s relevant, but also interesting to continue traffic to revisit. I think, basically, they’re just trying to be personable at the end of the day, and to differentiate themselves through the communication channels. And also, one of the key things with PR is that you can never have a good PR with a crappy service or a crappy business.

MAURICE
It’s impossible–

MIN
It’s impossible.

MAURICE
–to put out a good message on top of really crappy service.

MIN
Right. I think that’s where a lot of the bad blood towards PR comes from, is that certain organizations have this idea that they can be– they can cut slack, they can do– I’m thinking about the S word over here– but they can do wrong things, and expect PR to come in, and clean up the mess, and people will be all happy and forgetting about the incident.

MAURICE
I feel like all our audience is now Googling S word just to figure out what she means. No, I totally get– I’m super excited about this insight that I hadn’t thought about much. And that is, when you craft a really great message and you try to lay it on top of really bad service, it makes you more angry.

MIN
Yes, exactly.

MAURICE
So you, like I, monitor all kinds of media, both television and on our phones. Is there any example of any company or organization that you see how they’ve wandered into a crisis, and how they’re handling it, and you say to yourself, I’m super happy that I don’t work for them, or I wish they’d call me?

MIN
Well, Boeing. That’s the corporation that I can think of at the moment with their series of–

MAURICE
Planes falling out of the sky.

MIN
–plane crashes.

MAURICE
Not so good.

MIN
Yes, not so good, definitely. And we talked about how there are certain business models where because of the ways in which they operate and the products and services that they create, it’s just embedded in their business model to be more proactive and resilient in terms of dealing with these crisis situations. And I think with Boeing, the interesting aspect is that they’re not used to dealing with direct consumers, if that makes sense. They are not a business-to-consumer company. They are a business-to-business company.
So even at this day and age, I don’t think they had a strategic class crisis plan in hand in terms of how to deal with and respond when these incidents happen. Because if you think about it, initially, it was about Lion Air, all right? It was the airline company. And then the black box came in. Then it talked about the aircraft itself. And then I forget what the second airline that crashed. Ethiopian Airlines, right. So when that happened again– and then there was a third case where it didn’t end up in a crash, but basically, AA–

MAURICE
But same problem.

MIN
The same thing. The same thing happened. And when the investigations showed that it was actually because they failed to make a critical piece mandatory, that they had to purchase it separately, I mean–

MAURICE
And they didn’t message to pilots that some things were different, and that perhaps you would need additional training.

MIN
Right. So that in itself is just– this isn’t even about crisis communication anymore. It’s about being a good business.

MAURICE
And a good global citizen.

MIN
Yeah, a good global citizen, being ethical, being responsible of what you create to the world. It’s not even about responding to the situation. It’s about how the corporation from the get go was inviting the crisis to happen. It was just a matter of– it was just a matter of time.

MAURICE
So I have a hypothetical for you. So a VC discovers us here at the 10,000 hours and thinks we’re geniuses, and gives us $2 billion to build a podcast network, and we want to hire you as our crisis management PR person. What would be the five things that you would tell us when we got ourselves into real public harm?

MIN
So I think it would be instrumental to have a pre-crisis plan and also a post-crisis plan. So you have to have a handbook or a manual in hand so that you know how to prevent crises from happening. And there’s some really interesting literature over in the PR field. We say that about 80% of crises are actually preventable. It can stop at the risk or the issue management level. So at the pre-crisis stage, you have to be vigilant with your environmental scanning, right? You read the news, you follow the public opinion, you monitor your social media channels, you build good relationships with the press, you also build good relationships with your customer base. And I talk about this over and over again, but you make sure that you do a good job in your business model itself. But let’s say eventually a crisis happens. It’s inevitable, and you have to do some sort of responding. The first step definitely would be to determine the responsibility of the crisis. Is this something of our fault? Is this something of an external fault? And if you say it’s external, then perhaps wait a little bit to see the type of information that rolls in. At the same time, you will need to alert the public and say, hey, we’re investigating. Information will be released promptly. Act transparently and whatnot. But beyond that, perhaps not wait a little bit to issue an apology or form a corrective actions, or whatnot. But then let’s say you find out even though the responsibility is external, that there are causalities associated with it. Then you have to take a more empathetic response to it, right? So the responsibility access and then the severity are the two things that I would determine at the very initial level, and that after that’s been done, then you need to understand who the affected audience is, right?

MAURICE
Understood. Right.

MIN
Is this the direct hit to key publics, or is this something that is more tangential in terms of our business model? And this might sound horrible, but if this doesn’t involve our key personnels, then it can wait a little bit as well. But let’s say it ticks off all the boxes. Worst scenario– internal–

MAURICE
Core customers.

MIN
–core customers, then you need to what we call steal thunder. And stealing a thunder is the idea that you’re the first person to put out a response message. Don’t wait until the press comes to you. Don’t wait to have this formal press release, or press conference. Issue a statement, build a key message, have a phrase or two that you are going to cohesively and continuously communicate with the public, and then make it available as soon as you can. So although we say that social media is a no, no in terms of distributing the message, it can be a good place to start the initial conversation. We don’t want 140 character tweet apology, but it can be a good place to direct you to a longer, more extensive–

MAURICE
Something more thought out.

MIN
Right, thought out place. So once you steal that thunder, you have a cohesive message. And then now it’s time to just continuously monitor and respond to really the influx of communication that’s going to be directed towards you. And this is where your pre-crisis planbook is going to be handy, because that should have a list of your– a hot list of your media contacts. Who is it that you have a good relationship with? Where is it that your key audiences are following? Make sure they get covered first. Afterwards, you need to figure out where is it that my key audience is communicating on social media. Make sure that place is covered. And then if the resources allow you to do so, create a black page, or a black website, which is what we say– it’s a site that’s dedicated exclusively for crisis communication.

MAURICE
To the issue.

MIN
Right, because you don’t want people to go to your official website or official page and just knock out traffic. You want to have that entity running separately and smoothly while you deal with this situation.

MAURICE
Dr. Min Lee, thank you for being on the 10,000 Hour.
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MIN
No, thank you. Thanks for having me.

MAURICE
Drexel’s 10,000 Hour Podcast is hosted by me, Maurice Baynard. Our producers are Shaun Fitzpatrick and Nathan Barrick.
Drexel’s 10,000 Hours Podcast is powered by Drexel University online.