Trust. It’s the most important currency a brand has. Particularly in the world we live in; that of untruths and desire for instantaneous information.
It heightens the requirement for communication to be on-point at all times. This is particularly the case for organisations or high-profile individuals (i.e. brands) who need to ensure they are portraying the message they want to in a clear and confident, and most importantly of all, transparent manner.
It’s crucial when things go wrong. How we react as people and as organisations to internal and external stakeholders when it hits the fan can make or break a company’s reputation. In short, messaging matters.
These audiences need to be able to trust what you are saying and have trust in you to resolve the situation, and transparency is something that is becoming more and more important. Being transparent and authentic in a tough situation can – but not always – lead to a positive outcome.
A recent example is TotalEnergies deciding to release video footage which showed two workers trying to secure a helicopter to the Elgin Platform as it was hit by Storm Otto. The footage shows one of the aircraft’s blades being sheared off while the workers were still on the helideck, with the company admitting “someone could have died” in the incident.
Not only was that decision a brave one, but it was an important one, as it allowed the company to impose its narrative on the story without potentially dangerous speculation that could damage its brand becoming the accepted truth.
The flipside of that is when a brand finds itself open to scrutiny and makes the situation worse with a misjudged approach, as we have seen with the British Royal Family this past week.
If you aren’t aware, here’s a quick recap: There has been constant speculation as to the whereabouts of Catherine, Princess of Wales following abdominal surgery two months ago, with the princess – rightly – staying out of the public eye to recover from her operation. So far, so good.
In order to ease concerns and take back control of the story, Kensington Palace – the household of the Prince and Princess of Wales – released an image of Kate and her three children to mark Mother’s Day in the UK last weekend. The problem is that the image was doctored.
Five of the world’s biggest news agencies, namely PA, Getty Images, AFP, Associated Press (AP) and Reuters, issued a “kill notice” on the image after AP noted "the source has manipulated the image", something unprecedented in the modern age for such a high-profile institution.
It took what was a nice family image, the issuing of which was most likely planned to reassure the public that Kate was fine and well, and turned it into a crisis. An unnecessary one at that.
At a time of heightened interest in the Royal Family with King Charles undergoing treatment for cancer, the Prince of Wales pulling out of an official event at the last minute due to a “personal matter”, and his brother Harry engaged in legal battles with UK media, the issuing of a doctored image was misjudged in the extreme.
We live in an age where the truth will always come out. Gone are the days of trying to brush something under the carpet, or putting a ridiculous amount of spin on a story. The risks that come with attempting to mislead far outweigh any positive outcome.
In the UK, we need only look at the lockdown parties in Downing Street, Michelle Mone’s involvement in PPE Medpro and the Post Office Horizon scandal to see how, even after the event, they are quite rightly in the eye of the storm over their response now that the truth has come out. They have lost the trust of the public.
Kate and the wider Royal Family will be well aware that the court of public opinion is undoubtedly in session at a time when two of the top four members of the household’s health is under scrutiny.
And as we have seen with many high-profile examples in business through the years, there can quite often be greater repercussions in the court of public opinion than there are in a court of law.
Unfortunately for Kate, and perhaps even the wider Royal Family, it’s her credibility that is in question. Why was the image doctored? Was the comms team aware? Did they buckle under the pressure of the scrutiny they were faced with? Did they feel the need to get something, anything, out there to show that Kate was well? Whatever the reasons, the whole thing has been a complete mess and brought more negative headlines than positive.
By the time Kate (eventually) took to X to express her “apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused” the damage had been done. The truth was out there. The bond of trust between the brand and its stakeholders is broken. The question is, will they win it back?
Their efforts won’t be helped by the various conspiracy theories doing the rounds, including the fact she wasn’t wearing her wedding ring in the picture. There will always be doubters when it comes to what high-profile organisations say, there always have been. However, not filling the void with factual information only fuels them, while filling the void with manipulated content just adds the spark. Inauthentic communications leads to speculation. Transparency squashes it.
Recovering from any crisis requires a strong communications strategy that is clear, concise, confident, compassionate, and most of all, credible.
We are human. We will all make mistakes. And when we are under pressure we present the worst versions of ourselves. It’s how we respond to these situations that matters. Words matter, stories matter, people matter, reactions matter. Messaging matters. No matter who you are.
A common approach to mitigating these challenges is framing a story so you can test and refine your response before it gets to this point. You have to have trust in your process and your ability to deliver in a time of crisis and beyond.
