Crisis PR column: Beko and News International fight the flames

Both are damaged brands – one has been killed off – tarnished by an alleged malfunction.

Beko first. A strong household brand which has been going for years.

It had to instigate a product recall after safety fears regarding fires believed to be linked to certain models.

At first glance Beko has done everything right, working with the London Fire Brigade and Trading Standards, identifying customers and models and publicising the recall with specific serial numbers. All good practice with plenty of time to plan.

What happened next also happened to the News of the World. It can happen in any crisis. There was a tipping point.

For Beko it was news of the recall hitting national newspapers with headlines which included such emotive words as ‘inferno’.

For the News of the World it was the revelation that investigators hired by the paper had allegedly hacked into the voicemail messages of (among others) a teenage murder victim.

In crisis management you have to identify that tipping point and plan for its aftermath, however difficult the conversation may be. You need to assume at some point that the worst might happen and increase your customer services capacity, check your insurance clauses, look your CEO in the eye and ask if there’s anything else you need to know.

Beko apparently failed to anticipate that their projected customer service calls from the publicity would not simply be drawn from those who had the published serial numbers.

Long before Twitter there was actual word of mouth - when someone’s auntie tells your sister that a certain brand of fridge freezers has been linked to fires they rarely produce a list of models affected.

Mild panic ensues, your website crashes, your phone lines get jammed and you get even more negative stories that you don’t want, an avoidable crisis within your crisis.

Of course, Beko could have taken the Rupert Murdoch approach; kicked down your door, taken your fridge freezer back and left you a celebratory note which told you about the brand’s proud history while reminding you that moaning about the fault was putting some fine people out of work.

The last ever News of the World was a stark illustration of the newspaper industry’s attitude to apology. At the end of a week in which its name was tarnished beyond repair, and it opted to sack 200 people instead of one, the self-congratulatory swansong was a little hard to swallow.

A respected PR colleague from a North West agency said it best to me this week – yesterday’s front page should have been devoid of all historic pullout styling and set with just one word:

Sorry.

You can read more from Paul Smith in his new Drum blog, which is coming very soon.