There are a number of disasters, which take place everyday around the world and affect people. With the rise of industrialization, a number of disasters are taking place, which are a result of human faults or industrial failures, generally known as manmade disasters. These disasters are quite opposite to the natural disasters or the act of god as they are generally called as they could have been easily avoided with certain precautionary measures. Even after the occurrence of the disaster, proper Public Relation (PR) of disaster and crisis management could have controlled their effects.
In this report, the different PR approaches in the cases of the disasters of the British Petroleum (BP) oil spill and the Queensland floods are studied in detail to understand their effects on the PR management of the effectiveness of the disaster. The BP oil spill was one of the largest manmade disasters and is considered the worst example of PR fiasco leading to a mass disaster. On the other hand, the PR management of the Queensland Flood under the management of its Premier Anna Bleigh was an exemplary effort of perfect disaster management, which helped in controlling the effect of a large scale natural disaster.
The analysis of these two disaster management strategies will help in understanding the ideal measures one should take as a PR manager to mitigate the issues in the times of crisis. The stark difference between the two case studies is the fact that one increases the reputation of the person increasing her bankability and the other brought an organization into a downward plunge into failure.
The BP Oil disaster and the Queensland flood were two of the major disasters affecting a majority of population in the American and the Australian continent. The BP oil rig disaster was a manmade disaster leading to the death of eleven people and the Queensland flood was what one calls the “Act of God”. The population was affected due to both the disasters greatly. The people residing in the Gulf of Mexico and the population of the county of Queensland were greatly affected by these two disasters. The two disasters had a very different effect on the population due to the Public Relation and crisis management actions taken in the case of the two incidents. The lack of pr management on the part of British Petroleum after the deep waster explosion of the oil rig caused the oil slick to affect the majority of the population. On the other hand quick and adept crisis management and the Public Relation measures adopted by Queensland premier Anna Bligh greatly reduced the effects that the flood had on the general population. Therefore, these two cases the effectiveness of the two disasters varied due to the public relation and crisis management measures by the two responsible people.
The stakeholders who affected by the two disasters were from two very different sectors of the society. The BP oil spill, which is one of the largest in the history caused a great threat to the aquatic life and harmed the tourism of the area. The oil spill from the closed well greatly harmed the overall marine life and made it an uninhabitable for the tourists greatly harming the tourism industry. The PR management of the company great misinformed the people by trying to cover up the disaster they had caused. The lack of the disaster management systems and the necessary precautions greatly harmed the lives of the people in the country and the workers of the rig.
The Queensland flood was one of the major disasters in Australia affecting a large population in Brisbane and Queensland. The quick crisis management and the evacuation plans were the reason that the lives of a large number of people could be saved. During the emergency the premier of Queensland took quick measures in devising the necessary evacuation strategies of the people of Queensland who were affected by the Flood. The quick crisis management measures greatly limited the effect the flood could have on the general population.
The BP oil spill and the Queensland oil flood stand out as two of the major disasters in the history. The effects of these two disasters have also varied a great deal due to the management of the disaster in the cases by the consequent authorities. The BP oils spill is regarded as one of the largest PR disasters costing the environment and the stakeholders, whereas the Queensland flood stands out as an example of a great disaster management helping to save the lives of hundreds of people and curbing the effects of the flood.
The PR strategy was greatly criticized because they had greatly downplayed the effects of the disaster helping in the increasing the disaster’s impact. The company made major flaws by mismanaging communications and blaming the company operating the oilrig for the disaster. The oil company stated that they had made improvement and progress to avoid the spillage but could not communicate to the media the measures taken. One of the major reason of BP’s PR failure was the lack of experience of its top authorities of the work structure of united states. The lack of understanding of collaborative political situation led to one of the greatest PR fiascos of all times. The PR strategy of the Queensland flood management on the other hand was one of the best PR strategies of Crisis management enforced in the recent times. The quick action plans and their execution greatly helped in the mitigation of the long term effects that the flood. The quick planning and the transferring of the duties to the designated offices according to the flood act of 2003, greatly helped the overall pr strategy of the situation. Moreover, the direct approach to the conditions and its redressing in a planned and organized manner was the cause of the success of the PR strategy.
The reputation of the company is one of the most important factors for the success of the organization. the reputation of an organization in general term is the image of the brand of the organization in the opinion of its stake holders and the general population. The reputation depends on the Corporate image and the Corporate reputation, which are both very different terms in the ideals of the Public Relations
The corporate reputation is the image of an organization, which is a collective assessment of the organization’s environmental, social and economic impacts. The reputation of the company based on these collective analysis helps in the overall image formation in the market among the interested stakeholders and peers. They help in the forming the reputation of the company in the political and the social circuit helping in the establishment and the proper functioning of the organization in a given country. The operations and the overall performance of the company and its corporate reputation affect many success and the failure factors of the company. A number of media organizations giving the ideal knowledge of the trusted and the bankable organizations based on their corporate reputation. One such important organization is the Forbes.
The corporate image of the company is the overall perception of the company that the population has. The corporate image of the organization depends on the image of it that is portrayed by the media and the comprehension of the people in the society about the organization. The overall image of the company and its perception in a certain society is the source of the corporate image of the organization. the corporate image varies with the people’s emotions towards the organization.
The corporate image and the corporate reputation greatly vary in an organization as they develop in the two different perspectives of the human perception. The good image of the company due to its ethical approach and benevolent practices give it good image. The overall profitability and the great organizational structure helps it to achieve a good corporate reputation. The corporate image and corporate reputation are there for similar but not the same.
The PR of the BP oil could have taken a completely different approach towards the disaster to reduce its impact and avoid the reputation of the company from being hampered. The steps that should have been taken by the PR manager and the management team should have been more rational and planned contrary to the one that had been followed. First of all the organization should have taken the responsibility of the crisis and taken the initiative of the overall crisis that had taken place. It would have stopped the organization from being held responsible for the whole crisis and the crisis could have been handled properly. The underestimation of the situation greatly led to misinformation imparted to the general population leading to the oil spill having a greater impact. Secondly, as a PR in such a crisis one should publish a press release with a public apology about the situation, this would put the company in a good light among the population who are being influenced, and the stakeholders of the organization. Thirdly the organization should take make a committee investigating the issue leading to the mishap and form a crisis communication team for its quickest mitigation. Fourthly, the organization should communicate with the local government authorities about the extent of the disaster and its management within the organization. The help from the government agencies will help in the mitigation of the problem before its effect reaches mass levels. Lastly, in a crisis oil spillage the people who are to be affected by it should be informed immediately about the problem and there should be subsequent press releases addressing the issue.
Therefore, I think these are the necessary measure that should have been taken or the ones I would have taken as the PR managers of BP in case of such a disaster.
1.The corporate reputation of the organization is the amalgamation of the reliability of the company in fulfilling its corporate social responsibilities along with the different organizational responsibilities. The Corporate reputation of the company is mostly the data based analysis of the company depending in its preference of operations. The corporate reputation off the company mostly depends on its bankability among its stakeholders. For example after the Texas oilrig incident and the 2010 oil spill the reputation of the company took a major hit. The corporate reputation of the company also showed a great decadence with the shares of the company taking a major hit. The corporate reputation of an organization is quite different from the corporate image, which decides the brand value of an organization.
The corporate image of an organization is based on the perception and the emotional attachment that the people show towards an organization. it is greatly influenced by the factors for which the company is making news and the image that is being portrayed by the media. The spillage caused the corporate image of the BP to also decline to a great level because they showed a rapid decline in the reputation of the company among the local population. The image of the company was greatly maligned due the inhumane handling of the situation of the oilrig explosion, which killed eleven people. The general population shows sympathy towards the dead and is greatly impacted by the media’s portrayal of the harm that the strategies of BP have caused the environment. The media’s portrayal and the reality of the situation of the oil spill’s harm to the environment caused the people to have a negative image of BP.
The corporate reputation and the corporate image greatly affect the bankability and the brand value of the organization leading to a number of losses. The corporate image and the corporate reputation depend wholly on the PR and the image management of the organization and it was in this field that BP failed. The failure of BP greatly affected its shareholder and the stakeholder’s with its shares plummeting and a deficit in its overall economy.
2.One of the famous and renowned organization that I would consider as bad would be Nestle. The organization is one of the largest in FMCG, food and pharmaceutical products and has a huge market turnover and resource. Despite all the facilities it has access to, on more than one occasion the organization has been found to be involved in a number of unethical practices and careless business approach. The major reason for my dislike for the organization is its unethical policies in the fields of child labor, environmental issues and the misuse of the resources using its capitalistic approach.
There is more than one occasion that the organization has been found to be involved in unethical practices but is constantly evading the law due to the difference in the approach of individual government. One more than one occasions the organization has been blamed for unethical practices and being involved in child labor. According to me, if such a large organization is using child labor in impoverished nations, the right of children cannot be protected. The use of child labor has greatly affected the overall economy of the country and often leads to children deaths in countries like Côte d’Ivoire. Secondly, nestle has often used unethical marketing practices for the marketing of its product as the one seen in the Baby food formula send to the African nations.
The worst part where nestle encroaches is the right of people to have access to fresh water. The organization is the largest producer of the bottled water in the world, and has brought a situation of draught in many places due to the over use of the resource. The overall situation that the CEO of Nestle says that Water should be privatized as a resource shows the ethics the organization has.
To improve its reputation in my view the organization needs to do a lot of organizational as far as the ethical organization and operations are concerned. Firstly, they should fulfill their corporate social responsibility of repaying the society and the environment. Secondly, they should use stop their capitalistic approach in support of unethical practices like child labor. Lastly, if they want to serve the society they should respect the society and the have ethical approach of using the resources which are considered human right.
Conclusion
Therefore, it is seen that the disasters are a general occurrence in the society but their effectiveness varies on the handling of the crisis. From the two case studies, it can be easily observed and understood that a good PR strategy is necessary to mitigate any crisis. The study of the two case studies helps in analyzing the positive and negative measures in the PR strategies in the organizations. The effectiveness of a good PR strategy is also dependent on good and able communications skills within the systems helping on the devising the proper measure for handling the crisis
References
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