This is a presentation I delivered to the annual Commercial Law Network conference in October 2019. It looks at the role of public relations in risk and reputation and talks about organisational challenges and how to overcome them. It also cites a huge opportunity for lawyers and PR professionals to work more closely on risk and reputation management, with clearly defined roles. If you want to check out my business and experience head to www.aura-pr.com and please do get in touch if you'd like to chat about I can help you come up with a risk and reputation strategy, covering internal and external factors.

1. risk,
reputation
and public
relations

2. Today's
Presentation
About Laura and Aura
Public Relations and Brand
Determining Risk
Technology
Managing Risk
Crisis Management
Resilience
Edelman Trust Barometer
Turning challenges into opportunities

3. AURA PR
Consultancy and
Professional Development

4. Established Aura in 2008
PRCA Dare Awards winner 2018 & 2019
Sir Stephen Tallents Medal 2019
Industry awards judge
Former CIPR Board Director and Council member
Chair of CIPR Fellows' Forum
Recognised PR blogger

5. Public Relations is about reputation - the result
of what you do, what you say and what others
say about you.
Public Relations is the discipline which looks
after reputation, with the aim of earning
understanding (and trust) and support and
influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the
planned and sustained effort to establish and
maintain goodwill and mutual understanding
between an organisation and its publics.
CHARTERED
INSTITUTEOF
PUBLIC
RELATIONS

6. SpinSucks
Modern public relations - integration

7. Who
determines
reputation?

8. Society, your stakeholders, anyone who comes
into contact with the brand.
A strong, positive reputation translates into
long-term value in an organisation represented
by confidence in brand equity, intellectual
capital, sustained earnings and future growth.
Reputation is likely an organisation’s most
important asset.

9. Who are your stakeholders?

10. Who is responsible for reputation?

11. how do you
benchmark
reputation?
? a. Risk and Value
b. Competence
c. Transparency
d. Public Relations – relationships,
influence and trust

12. OPPORTUNITIES
& RISKS
INFORMATION
& TECH
Social media
AI and Data
Cyber security and attacks
ACROSS
PLATFORMS AND
CHANNELS...
THINK OF NEW TECH
SUCH AS VOICE
ACTIVATION...
<<<<<<

13. Risk department, PR (as often used solely
as press office rather than public
relations), Communication often sits under
marketing in more traditional
organisations, so there is a disconnect
between all essential functions.
REPUTATION CAN
MAKE AND BREAK
ORGANISATIONS
WITHIN A MATTER
OF HOURS
W H A T ' S T H E C H A L L E N G E ?

14. THREE THINGS TO CONSIDER
SOCIAL
MEDIA
EVERY NANO SECOND
CONTENT IS
PUBLISHED ACROSS
EVERY CHANNEL
PHONES
ENABLE RECORDING
IMAGES AND VIDEOS
AND IMMEDIATELY
PUBLISH ONLINE
CITIZEN
JOURNALISTS
*THEY* SEE AND
THEY HAVE THEIR
OWN VERSION OF
EVENTS, BUT IT'S STILL
PUBLISHED
AURAPR(SCOTLAND)LTD
THEY ONLY SEE WHAT

15. What's the social impact?
Society is watching...

16. DISCONNECT
No consistency between disciplines
POOR UNDERSTANDING OF
SOURCE OF REPUTATIONAL
RISK AND HOW TO MANAGE
Not skilled or experienced in this area
and don't bring in skilled resource to
advise e.g. PR consultant
LOW AWARENESS OF COST
OF IMPACT
o Market value
o Loss of customers
o Lack of trust
o Loss of supply chain
o Business growth set backs
o Internal culture change
o Staff loss
Why
organisations
find it difficult

17. Assessing
the risks
WHO ARE YOUR
STAKEHOLDERS
what potential risk do they a) carry and
b) how would a crisis impact them?
Cause and effect...
LEAVE NO STONE
UNTURNED
Do the same wiht the services you
provide, the health and safety risk
assessments, the staff you employ...
INSIDE-OUT AND
OUTSIDE-IN APPROACH
It works both ways
Aura PR (Scotland) Ltd

18. ISSUES MANAGEMENT
Before a crisis hits
IDENTIFY
WHAT OR WHO IS IT
CAUSING THE
PROBLEM
CONTAIN
CONTAIN IT BY
ADDRESSING AS AN
ISSUE
RECOVER
AURAPR(SCOTLAND)LTD
TURN THE SITUATION
AROUND BEFORE IT
TURNS INTO A CRISIS

19. CRISIS
COMMUNICATION
When a crisis hits, do you have
a crisis plan in place?
This is developed by the
leadership and risk and public
relations team.
Right people are involved at the
right time, with the right amount
of information and the right
checks and balances carried
out, with the right
communication at the right
time, on the right channel, to all
stakeholders

20. Identify, adapt,
respond,
protect, LEARN
Assess likelihood and impact
High Risk – if a high-risk
situation arises, then it’s a crisis
situation and you need to get
the crisis plan in motion
Moderate Risk – if it’s
moderate, it has the potential
to reach high risk very quickly
Low Risk – label as an issue
and address

21. What
are
the
red
flags?

23. How public relations professionals
manage the communication
process...

24. MESSAGE AND LANGUAGE
Tone, sensitivity to audiences, in-line
with business comms strategy
CHANNELS
PR pros know channels and how they
work and how best to leverage them
MEDIA
Media relations is bread and butter
for PR pros
Skills and
experience
TIMING
Knowing when to communicate is
everything
PURPOSE
PR pros exist to ensure the
organisation represents the interests
of it's publics

25. Skills and
experience
ETHICS
Complete transparency
APOLOGETIC
If you got it wrong, you need to admit
to that and apologise
MONITORING
PR pros have tools to monitor
channels and brand sentiment

26. It doesn't have
to be a terrorist
attack to be a
crisis...

27. PREPARE COMMS FOR
DIFFERENT AUDIENCES
Different messages and tones for
different audiences
PREPARE CEO FOR
INTERVIEWS
Own the story. PR pros will advise on
the best approach, what to look out
for in interview techniques with the
media and how to move the interview
on.
WHAT ABOUT OTHER
PEOPLE AFFECTED?E.G
FAMILY.
It's not just people directly involved
who are affected... showing a human
side and empathy is everything to
those affected in some way.
So what?
Go back to your
risk
assessment
and review...

28. RESILIENCE
STAKEHOLDER
MAPPING
RISK ASSESS CRISIS PLAN
AURAPR(SCOTLAND)LTD
TEST
COMMUNICATE
THE PLAN
KEEP
TESTING
TRAINING

29. Globally, 75 percent of people trust
“My Employer” to do what is right,
this is significantly more than NGOs
(57 percent), business (56 percent)
and media (47 percent).

30. "Building resilient trust through meeting
employee expectations."
Employees are potentially a brand's
highest risk during an issue or crisis, often
the cause of the crisis

31. INTERNAL COMMUNICATION IS
FUNDAMENTAL
That doesn't just mean
communicate between
departments.
It's part of stakeholder
engagement and the overall
PR strategy.
Employees are the biggest
asset to the business and have
a huge potential to make or
break reputation.

32. The opportunity?
Great communication requires PR
professionals to be inspiring, empowering
and confident.
What happens if we don't communicate?

33. Ideal scenario
Incident / issue occurs
Plan kicks in and crisis team congregates. Time is of the essence to address or start
responding and communicate with stakeholders. PR and lawyers work together to
fact find and share findings. PR starts to draft statements, takes down social posts
scheduled, manages message on website etc.
Media, staff and/or citizen
journalists are on the case
Time is of the essence to update stakeholders. PR follows crisis PR plan and
coordinates communication with emergency services PR team and/or client CEO.
PR continues to draft communication messages as the situation unfolds.

34. If you don't have a PR strategy in place
for public relations, that means you won't
have one for issues or crisis...
That's when you start to understand the impact
of poor communication and lack of strategy on
your business.

35. SCENARIOS
M&AS
CLIENT
BUSINESS FAIL SLANDER
AURAPR(SCOTLAND)LTD
DEFAMATION
EMPLOYMENT
TRIBUNAL

36. aura-pr.com
hello@aura-pr.com
Questions?