Transcript:

B I'm Bobby Jaffe

L: And I'm Leslie Farnsworth

B: And this is a FrogDog marketing minute. So a few weeks ago one of our clients reached out to us with a big concern over a potential crisis.

L: OK it's Saturday morning, I'm on the porch. A CEO of a client company calls and says we have a issue. No reporters have called yet but if they do call we think we're going to go with a no comment. Wanna run that by ya. And of course, the answer was no. No please don't do that and it always would have been, "Please don't do that."

No comment never works but in today's media climate you can't say, "no comment" more so than ever.

B: And why is that?

L: Well you saw it recently with the Boston bombings. There's this 24/7 news media glut. Anytime there's a crisis of almost any kind the media is hungry for information—even if it's misinformation—and they're not going to wait until you pick up the phone and give them a comment.

They're not even going to wait to get information from your company. They're going to report whatever they have out there.

B: So basically what you're saying is the days of fact-checking their time. . .

L: Gone. They're going to report Rover. They're going to report some male on the street who may not know anything but thinks he does. They're going to cover whatever they can cover and the possibility for damage to corporations with crisis situations is huge. More so than ever before.

B: So then that being said what does the company do?

L: Good question. It's definitely something that's evolving every day. I think companies more so than ever need to have a crisis communications plan they're reviewing constantly. And, they need to make sure they have a bigger media crisis team than ever because you can't wait even an hour to respond to the media today. You need to have lots and lots and feet on the street to handle these kinds of issues.

B: And it's different people for different crises?

L: Absolutely. Sometimes the CEO is the right person for the crisis, but sometimes it's someone else. Making sure you've got all of those key players identified well before something happens is critical.

B: Remember, if you have any questions for FrogDog and want to find out more about us, please visit our website, www.frog-dog.com

L: Or, give us a call if it can help you with anything 713-862-2505