We wanted to share this commentary from our CEO, Michael Kempner, which was also published at New Jersey Newsroom

The old rules no longer apply. In fact, they have not applied for quite some time.

As recent headlines made clear, crisis communications is now driven by digital media. Television. Radio. Newspapers. Rather than leading the public discussion of Tiger Woods or Toyota, these traditional – some would say increasingly archaic – mediums seem more like they are trying to catch up with the drama being played out minute-by-minute on Twitter, on Facebook, and on blogs.

To say that the news cycle moves at a frenetic pace may be an understatement. This is the new normal … and it has been for several years. In fact, shrewd companies implemented corporate social media policies years ago and have incorporated them into their daily marketing and communications activities.

This is particularly true for brands in crisis.

Gone is the focus on the evening news or the morning newspaper. Gone is the ability to craft a single, official-sounding press release. Gone is the ability to control the flow of bad information.

When the 1982 Tylenol scare was unfolding, company executives had to deal with a relatively new, relatively challenging phenomenon: a 24-hour news cycle. Information had to flow faster. Stories were harder to control. And crisis communications took on a whole new meaning. In other words, CNN made life a whole lot more challenging for companies trying to do damage control.

Yet, the medium and the message were essentially unchanged. Johnson & Johnson still relied on traditional media and were still able to use the same statements – substantively – for each venue.

Fast forward to 2010 when Toyota and Southwest Airlines were confronted with their own crises, and you have a vastly different, vastly more challenging picture. New venues. New expectations. New opportunities. New challenges.

Without question, Toyota’s response to its growing recall has failed in almost every respect. It has been slow. It has been confused. And it has been premised on the company’s misguided belief that it could control the flow of bad information. These missteps, in turn, have been compounded by Toyota’s failure to effectively use social media – something that is further undermining the company’s ability to tell its story, connect with its customers and maintain its credibility.

Southwest, on the other hand, immediately turned to digital outlets when actor Kevin Smith began tweeting to his 1.6 million followers about his “embarrassing” experience aboard a recent flight. Granted, the airline got beaten to the punch in this case of “he said, she said”, but it moved swiftly across a range of digital mediums — with a host of individually tailored messages — to issue its apology and clarify the situation.

Yet, it is instructive to recognize that this relatively minor story – which started from less than 140 characters on Twitter – almost immediately resulted in over 500,000 Google web results, over 50,000 blog entries, and nearly 2,000 news stories on the matter.

Back in the day, Tiger Wood’s carefully choreographed press event would have largely controlled the story. The evening news would have covered it. The morning newspapers would have covered it. And that would be the end of the conversation until later that evening. No blog postings. No Facebook comments. No tweets. No nothing. Just some water cooler talk among colleagues.

That was then.

Today, regardless of the company or the crisis, the fact remains: Information – real and rumor – travels at lightning speed…literally. The pace and form of information flow is now near impossible to control. The best a company can hope to do is try to manage it. And the best way to manage it is to embrace the new normal with respect to crisis communications.

In other words, go digital … yesterday.

msacks Crisis Communications, General Corporate Crisis, Tiger Woods, Toyota

Remember the nursing home scandals of the late ’70s and early ’80s? Allegations of neglect, misappropriation of resources and even abuse of older adults led to nursing home closings and even prison terms. So, how is it that some 30 years later, the so-called long-term care industry (nursing homes) still haven’t fixed their issues?

With the Senate Finance Committee opening investigations into patient deaths and alleged maltreatment and neglect at long-term care facilities, it’s a bit of “back to the future” for an industry that despite decades of scrutiny, have not done what is necessary to protect their clients…or their reputation.

The for-profit end of the business is most at risk to the perception that they skimp on patient care in pursuit of profits. Yet, this is not a new allegation.

The long-term care industry would be well-served to take a hard look at itself — and at the nursing home business that preceded it — and set a standard of care, and new protocols for self-scrutiny and self-correction, in the interests of our elderly and their own credibility as caregivers.

In the meanwhile, some basic crisis communications training would benefit its spokespeople who responded to an NYT article by saying the reporting was “misleading and inaccurate and it looked forward to providing the (Senate Finance) committee with accurate facts…” I suspect the families of their clients would appreciate those facts as would any family member of a potential client.

Ame Wadler can be reached at awadler@mww.com.

awadler Crisis Communications crisis communications training, nursing home

I know we’ve all had our fill of the Tiger Woods soap opera over the past few months, but in the wake of his video apology this commentary from iconic golf writer Dan Jenkins just begs to be shared.

Jenkins’ conclusion, in a nutshell: Woods’ reputation is “graveyard dead, as the Southern expression goes.” Jenkins compares the Tiger brand to those of Nicklaus, Palmer and Hogan, who were in his opinion “accessible, likable, knowable, conversant, as gracious in loss as they were in victory… All the things Tiger never was.”

So what’s the takeaway for corporate brands? Accessibility, engagement with your core audiences and grace under pressure are excellent building blocks for a strong reputational foundation. So is honesty. By failing to incorporate these key blocks into Tiger Inc., Mr. Woods and his handlers have watched their foundation erode more quickly than sand against a strong tide.

Bob Silver can be reached at bsilver@mww.com.

bsilver General Corporate Tiger Woods