Bite Size Comms

After a crisis, what do we recall? The words spoken at a press conference or during an interview? Sometimes, like these famous gaffes, “I would like my life back” (Tony Hayward, former CEO of BP after an oil spill) and “We sell total crap” (Gerald Ratner, former CEO of the family jewellery chain while giving a speech to the Institute of Directors). That last example became known in popular parlance as ‘doing a Ratner’! 

However, it is often an image that remains with us.

Two images from crises that still haunt me. The first is from 2015. It is a picture of a young boy washed up on a beach in Turkey. His name was Alan Kurdi, a two-year-old who was trying to flee ISIS in Syria with his family. That image defined the migration crisis in Europe. For a while, it probably got people thinking more sympathetically about the plight of refugees.

The second image is from 1988. It is the distinctive cockpit of a PanAm jumbo jet in Lockerbie, Scotland. A terrorist bomb had exploded on the transatlantic flight, killing all on board the aircraft and 11 people in Lockerbie. The remaining half of the cockpit became the image that defined that crisis.

For you, it might be the naked girl running along the road after the napalm bombing during the Vietnam War or the hijacked airliner crashing into the World Trade Centre in New York.  

As a society, we prefer images to words. Yet, in crisis communications, we primarily focus on the words that should be said rather than on the image that may accompany those words.

An example. In 2011, I was helping the Travellers at Dale Farm in Essex with their media relations and public affairs to make the case to stay on the land they owned. The local government wanted them out. A massive eviction operation ensued, and climate activists locked on and wanted a fight with the authorities. The image I wanted to see on the front pages of newspapers wasn’t the burning caravan (set on fire by the activists) but the caravans leaving Dale Farm with massed police and bailiffs looking on. That image would have defined the inequality and injustice faced by Travellers. Not the fight.

During the COVID pandemic, my local primary school did not want young pupils to be scared by the COVID measures and fearful of education for many years. No yellow and green or red and yellow tape was used in the school. No plastic screens. The headteacher also thought about the signage and made it young child friendly, with sheep keeping a 2-metre distance and sheep washing hands. That kicked off a storm on social media. “The school treat us like sheep,” said one angry parent. The Head handled the storm as a crisis and pointed out why child-friendly signage was used. She didn’t tag or name the blamers. Lots of people (me too!) chipped in with positive words about how the school primarily cared for the well-being of its pupils.

Consider the background of a crisis interview given by your spokesperson. An extreme example. If a plane comes down, the airline will try to paint over its tail fin and company name on the stricken aircraft. Beware of cheeky broadcast journalists. A press officer at the Foreign Office told me how a minister was being filmed giving a statement during a natural disaster, and the journalist tried to provide the minister with a parasol to hold. The press officer snatched it out of her hand. Disaster and parasol? No! In a crisis, the CEO wants to demonstrate that they are taking responsibility. They need to consider what they wear for the TV news bulletin. Someone really should have told the Board of Carnival Cruise Line that wearing formal black tie after their ship had sunk with the loss of 32 lives wasn’t the right image to project.

Words and images in crisis communications.

I thank the crisis communications expert Amanda Coleman for inspiring this article.

[Image: Markus Winkler on Unsplash]