Is “Bad PR” Good?!!
“Bad PR” is the most peculiar concept in the minds of many PR specialists, while upstream managers mostly get excited over it. In other words, ”Bad PR” in effect is a boastful display of your ripping muscles to the competition and the ecosystem. This technique pleases the management’s desire for superiority amidst business face-offs. But is doing “Bad PR” right? Is it ethical and professional? What is its risk rate and when is the right time to do it? In this article, we will be discussing the dark and bright sides to this concept that has been attached to Public Relations.
Businesses face numerous challenges and obstacles in their growth path; mostly in a country such as ours that innovative jobs give rise to sensitivity across the external stakeholder chain. For instance, legislative bodies in the I.R.Iran do not welcome new ideas merely due to an unforeseeable fate of undertakings. Instead of welcoming new thought streams, supporting knowledge-based businesses, and then updating the old fashion approaches, they throw a tantrum or enter the subject from an upper-hand position. Additionally, a large friction of unique ideas nowadays is built upon the power of the internet and technology, which will not appeal to long-lasting companies. Based on years of untroubled leadership, they perceive themselves as market owners, with their wide range of communications amplifying the illusion that they are well-capable of grounding new players in the market through any possible way!
This is while, by shift in paradigms and ease of accessibility for consumers, enhanced services would be expected; and this would mark the beginning of the demise of years of unrivaled totalitarianism of old thoughts. All points put forth so far, seem to provide a smooth path toward an unfair competition, don’t they?!!
Sometimes, a new-born business will face tons of such uncertainties in addition to the concern over the enhancement of their services and the quality of end products; each requires a separate divergent strategy. One of the primary solutions transformational minds of chief managers and business owners would get to is to employ the power of media to change the flow of the game and turn the page.
Yes! This is a beginning of a PR specialists’ headache. Regardless of the Communications team’s perspective toward “Bad PR”, the image created of the successful outcomes of such campaigns, aside from the significant financial and spiritual benefits that at times follow such an undertaking, in the minds of upstream people make an unbiased expert conversation a nightmare. In their perception, all topics will turn to the benefit of the rightful?(you can read “to our benefits”) through the involvement of the media.
From the perspective of many of our colleagues worldwide, “Bad PR” is a redline for an entity. They believe there are numerous channels to take, in order to litigate or resolve disputes over conflicts of interest between businesses; hence, PR should not even be considered as the last resort. In this sense, PR is defined the responsibility to gain and retain trust?for the company in the long run and nothing is more valuable than the peace of the business, reputation maintenance and continuity, even financial balance!
In our county, there are several organizations like the Ministry of Labour, Consumer and Producer Protection Organization, the Judiciary, Administrative bodies and many more such specialized and professional organizations, including the E-commerce union and Post-Industrial Inspection Organization, through which starting a dialogue would strike as much wiser, despite the slow pace of processes. Alteration of the challenge management by companies, for instance granting incentives to consumers or suppliers, with the aim to gain the trump card, in addition to negotiations with competition or involved organizations would seem as the safer approach to resolve issues and gain benefit for the company. Therefore, unless all possible channels are well examined, resolving to media is a high-risk approach.
The heirs to this approach emphasize that by entering the game of “Bad PR”, a company exposes itself to even further attacks and mischief of other injured players in the industry; so their potential reaction or response would challenge the safe continuance of business. Undoubtedly, adhering to professional business principles, honesty in performance, as well as transparency and accurate documentation, will further distance entities from potential crisis. But can we ensure that all actions acquired by our corporation are 100% flawless, when doing business in the uncertain atmosphere of the startup ecosystem, where every step is accompanied by hundreds of interpretations?
This is where angry competitors, who have nothing left to lose, use every tactic to infiltrate the organization and discover flaws to marginalize our future. This, in worst case scenario, can target the reputation of the corporation over night; and by growing further complex and pervasive, ending up crashing the number of consumers/users. In other words, given the wide range of possibilities, even the conversance of PR groups in predicting potential scenarios and crisis management training can not prevent the upcoming business wounds. An action taken under greed, which would have been easy to manage through a principled planning, receptive ears, and ownership of upstream managers.
This is while, there are groups of experts, who under such critical moments of decision believe that if an organization cannot benefit from the opportunity of media as a business tool, when can we expect for this channel?to work? Followers of this school of thought expect media to cover disadvantages and deficiencies, in line with the nature of their existance –as the society’s mirror– and shed light on corruption, in order to create a better future for us. This perspective that seems to be of enough legitimacy, would reveal its true quality in practice; an equation that is functioned by businesses’ approach toward interacting with media and the way topics of this nature are presented.
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Taking about the “Bad PR” road presents four scenarios:
As is evident, above-elaborated scenarios differ from various angels. To briefly elaborate, the first scenario requires to be analyzed case by case based on the generated content and the company’s communications channels. The fourth scenario is the death point of PR expertise, as it stands at an extreme distance from the two main principles of PR; namely, honesty and transparency. However, the second and third scenarios can be divided into two parts, regardless of whether they stand as right or wrong.
According to a thought-provoking narrative, the execution of a “Bad PR” campaign by a PR expert would be a stigma on their part. Reputable journalists and media outlets would not enter just any subject, at any point in time. Accordingly and given the unpredictable response of media outltes, a PR specialist is obliged to address numerous points of contact for media coverage and invest a lot of time in such an effort. In some cases, even if the subject is reliable, documented and appealing, the legal burdens prevent media outlets from getting involved.
The rapid proliferation of such cases and repetition of interactions of such nature will result in a negative image of PR specialists, who instead of highlighting the positive endeavors of their organization, seek to discredit competition through any means or channels, merely to meet their own purpose. Therefore, direct involvement of Media Relations representative or PR manager, in addition to using an impartial journalist or close friend with no related job titles would make up the two approaches to such complex interactions with media outlets. Each has its pros and cons but naturally, the second one is more practical, thus a safer strategy.
The credit of the targeted media outlet is another important detail of a “Bad PR” campaign. Many media outltes are tending to cover any negative controversial news that would bring clicks, only to gain more readers. Needless to say, receiving coverage in these kinds of tabloid media are easy and fast. This is while, an experienced PR expert will not sacrifice the accuracy and depth of investigative journalism to pace-up the coverage; as what they are truly after is ?to communicate the campaign output with a higher penetration rate and create awareness in a larger scale of the society. As secondary waves in this path, we should not disregard social media and the involvement of natural and legal entities.
In conclusion, I must admit that I am not a fan of “Bad PR”. I believe the controversy of this approach will distance the focus of PR specialists from the right path of creating value. From another angle, only one successful ”Bad PR” campaign would raise the management’s expectation for campaigns of this nature to be repeated for every simple case. This is while, I need to emphasize that using the power of media in line with legislation, removing obstacles, and facilitating creative business processes should not simply be perceived as “Bad PR”, and the positive outcomes echoe the ability of experts to strategically implement the organization's macro goals.
It is also important to note that what has been said can be of relevance to a variety of companies, production units, etc.;however, this article chose the startup ecosystem to elaborate upon “Bad PR”, given the popularity of successful startup narratives.
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