Good Publicity vs$.$ Bad Publicity

Roger Twain walked as usual with a pleasant aura and at a leisurely pace to his office. Roger

is a PR Manager in one of the top FMCG companies of the world. His office along with the

PR staff was recently shifted from sixth floor to the second floor of the building. The reason

was simple enough. Top management did not want external parties to wander around the

whole building in the excuse of meeting PR staff or the PR manager. Roger Twain in fact,

welcomed this shift and was glad that he didn$$t have to wait for the lift as he could now very

well use the staircase. Roger has around $15$ years of experience in PR and handling Publicity

related issues. He had worked with several companies as well as non$-$business organisations

and institutes.

Roger currently in his $53$rd year has achieved lot of success in his career as a professional

expert in the field of PR and Publicity handling. Although his plans to start his own PR

Consultancy firm didn$$t work out the way he wanted, he was actively involved in several

worldwide workshops, seminars and presentations. He even wrote articles on PR strategies

and published some books on PR$.$ Roger$$s ideologies as a PR professional was $$

$$No News is not good news... You have to be in the news $$ good or bad. And, the objective

should

be to convert bad news into good news.$$

$$You cannot create bad news about your company. At the same time, you cannot create a

good one. You can only communicate it in good or bad way.$$

$$PR is about being in the news $$ time and date don$$t matter much.$$

$$It$$s not about being right or wrong $$ it$$s about being clear and sticking to the truth and

using it positively.$$

$$Everyone has a right to express... But, a PR person should consider it as a righteous

Duty$$

$$Your Company can show only performance. PR has to talk about it$.$

A few of his career achievements in the different organizations that he worked for are as

follows:

Problem Situation $1$: Some of the cosmetic products of Jasper Ltd$.$ were selling in the

market beyond its expiry date. A media report exposed and presented this story to the public

that Jasper Ltd$.$ was desperate to increase its sales and did not consider consumers$$ interests

or their well$-$being. This led to decrease in sales volume even in the other product categories

of the company. Due to incorrect operations of some channel members and retail outlets, old

stock was sold to the consumers after the expiry dates. The outcome was Jasper Ltd$.$s low

profit margins.

Challenge: Roger$$s challenge was to make consumers more aware and responsible while

purchasing the company$$s products without ruining the distribution channel relations and at

the same time making the company socially responsible.

Solution: Roger suggested to the advertising department to create a public awareness ad

regarding the importance of checking product expiry dates before buying. He advised the

management to take back old stock from the retail outlets and distributors by offering a

reasonable price and also prescribing the time limit within which those products should reach

the company. Roger$$s view was that distributors will mostly see their benefit and continue to

sell the old stock. If they sell it back to the company itself for a price, they would definitely

make an effort to get the new stock and sell those to the consumers. Roger$$s logic was $$it is

better to spend some money on getting back the old stock than let it sell in the market at the

risk of company$$s reputation.$$ Meanwhile, consumers will also be aware about expiry dates

of cosmetics when they buy it$.$

Problem situation $2$: Acorn Seeds Company$$s assistant finance manager was involved in

some fraudulent activity and was accused of misappropriation of funds. This news became

public and soon enough, company$$s investors and stakeholders began to question the

integrity and trustworthiness of the company. Company found it difficult to convince people

that one person$$s immoral intentions does not mean that everyone in the company is beyond

trust and moral obligations. Furthermore, company$$s products and services got severely

affected and consumers started opting for competing products. There was bad publicity all

around. Sales declined and situation got worse when finance manager unable to handle

pressure resigned. Even though finance manager was not involved with his assistant, he was

linked with him and given a bad treatment from outsiders even including some of the

employees. Media accelerated this issue and created more hype than was necessary.

Challenge: Roger$$s challenges in this situation was handling bad press, dealing with media

people with patience and uplift the company$$s integrity with good reputation. He also needed

to make the financial department integrated with other departments and boost the employee

morale. At the same time he had to take care that company$$s products do not suffer in the

situat