The Fallacy Of Old World Pr
Toyota’s safety warnings and vehicle recall over recent weeks has provided a succinct case study in the realities of old world PR in a society of high speed information.
After two weeks of deafening silence, the Global CEO Akio Toyoda finally made a statement…only to be driven away in a black Audi. You literally couldn’t script it. Yet another punchline distributed across the world to hundreds of millions of people within seconds.
Meanwhile in the UK, Toyota comms chief Scott Brownlee was forced to admit the company was aware of problems 13 months prior, and sweated out a cringeworthy Channel 4 news interview, where even the most cynical would have felt sorry for the guy. That is, until he confirmed to PRWeek that Toyota would not be seeking external crisis advice in Europe.
But even if such crisis advice was in place, preparation is critical and mandatory for every company that has a product or service.
The reactionary approach to PR simply doesn’t fit with the speed and efficiency of today’s ultra-connected world. Japanese corporations tend to manage PR in-house and are known for waiting until all the facts are in before making a decision, let alone taking action. This is another factor why they have a limited perspective, resulting in a slow reactive attitude.
Even before this ultra-connected society, the reactionary stance and cautious approach that companies like Toyota had taken, increased the risk of others spreading a one-sided or ill-informed version of events. Now, an eventual reaction is more complex than a press release, it has to address the constantly moving and unseen targets of inaccurate information. The eroded trust will take years to re-build, if it actually does at all. It has been reported that negativity on twitter has fallen by a few percent so now only 1 in 4 people a spreading bad vibes…..great news right?
Today, the time taken for perception to change, en masse, is hours not days, and definitely not weeks.
It will be interesting to see how many more companies have to experience disasters like this before realising that their entire PR mentality needs to be re-booted.
As shown here in this recent social media crisis case study, we created at this fluid world, the speed and efficiency of public versioned stories out-paces and out-distributes all traditional means.
And these cases are just the start.
With over 100 million blogs and the general public increasingly being able to create, edit and publish, this isn’t a fad – it isn’t a blip….and now its time that companies such as Toyota realise this, along with the mandatory need to prepare, and significantly adjust their strategy – or live in a perpetual recovery period.
