For as long as I’ve been in the PR business, we’ve been counseling our clients to tell their story….and helping them craft the messaging, the platforms and the proof points to do so. I’ve done this for almost 20 years….and I’ve often found myself telling clients that we can’t tell their whole story….that certain items and issues are too inside baseball, too granular or simply not newsworthy or noteworthy enough.

However, it seems that those of us in the reputation business need to ask a new question…

Is this the whole story?

Today’s NYT has a front page story about SmithKline Beecham’s failure to disclose that a new drug for diabetes had a risk of cardiac problems.

It also has a story about BP’s relentless pursuit of growth at all costs prohibiting them from learning from their mistakes.

The Toyota crisis will go into the text books as a classic case of trying to minimize or cover up an issue, making it worse.

When I started in this business, no one talked about transparency…they just did it. Today, there is a lot of talk about transparency, and seemingly less of it than ever before.

There is a difference between putting your best foot forward and hiding material information that tells a completely different story…and counseling clients today is more about being their Jiminy Cricket than their “Spin Doctor.”

cwinters General Corporate BP, Reputation Management, SmithKline Beecham, Toyota, Transparency

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

Despite my desire to avoid jumping on the Tiger Woods and Toyota bandwagons, the events of the past week make it nearly impossible for me to avoid the topics.

First, Tiger Woods sets the example for what not to do with apologies. My colleague Mike has already written about the need for authenticity for apologies to be impactful. Apparently Tiger doesn’t read our blog. So Tiger delivered the canned apology we all expected, with about as much personality and sincerity as a doorknob. The winning personality that matched his golf game, and made him a sponsorship darling, was nowhere to be seen. But at least he re-assured his sponsors that he intended to compete.

But even more striking to me was the artificial, overly managed nature of the event. Press credentials were carefully guarded, and only issued on the condition that the news outlet not ask any questions. Some, like the golf writers, boycotted the event in protest and refused to cover it. But Tiger’s hand selected group of friends was there, creating the appearance of a press event and public appearance, but in reality Tiger’s people could have hired extras from SAG with the same result. Perhaps the ultimate irony is that Tiger used that opportunity to chastise the media for harassing his innocent wife and children – when the media feeding frenzy was exacerbated by the fact that he was nowhere to be found. Does he really think this orchestrated “press conference” will be enough to feed the media beast?

Tiger is presumably a smart guy. (And his extra-curricular love life is certainly the best thing that ever happened to Kate Gosselin since her new hairdo – but I digress.) He certainly had the resources to hire enough advisors and handlers to orchestrate this inauthentic apology. It’s hard to imagine that this approach was originated by these strategists and approved by handlers whose livelihood depends on Tiger’s image rebound. And while the American public is forgiving, and will readily move on as soon as Tiger returns to the PGA tour, it is hard to imagine that the objectionable stalking of his family will stop any time soon.

My grandmother used to tell me, “The only way through something difficult is through it.” And I think that requires legitimately going through it – not creating a sanitized version of through it.

No one knows this better than Toyota as they prepare their leaders for Congressional appearances and some pretty tough questions, particularly in light of documents revealing the cost savings of a phased recall, and the potential perception that the automaker chose profits ahead of the safety of the people driving those vehicles.

Carreen Winters can be reached at cwinters@mww.com.

cwinters Crisis Communications, General Corporate Tiger Woods, Toyota

Saturday’s Business Day section of the New York Times offered an interesting juxtaposition of perspective for anyone who was paying attention. Page B4 featured a continuation of a story on Toyota’s belated apology to customers for the recall of vehicles announced January 21st due to some brake issues and on page B5, a column entitled “An Attempt to Revive the Lost Art of Apology, “ by Alina Tugend. I noticed the latter item when I turned the page of the newspaper while wondering why the CEO of Toyota waited nine days from the day of announcing the recall to apologize and why he did it from Davos as opposed to returning to his company to sort out an issue which is clearly devastating to sales.

It’s understandable that companies do not like to communicate with customers when things go wrong until they feel that have the complete story and can answer the question “what will you do to fix the problem.” It may even be legal counsel that is discouraging a public apology or communications.

But, the equity gained by saying “I’m sorry this happened” first, and then communicating as information and solutions are found, is profound. The need for an apology has even been noted in reviews of malpractice litigation where plaintiffs frequently report that all they wanted was for the doctor to say “I’m sorry.”

The power and value of an apology is clearly pointed out by Professor Jonathan R. Cohen, a law professor at the University of Florida, in Ms. Tugend’s piece. “Saying I’m sorry, or asking forgiveness permits you to have a future relationship,” he said.

While the apology finally came from Toyota’s Akio Toyoda, one has to wonder if it came too late to allow a future relationship with affected customers as they look to take advantage of the trade-in incentives being offered to owners of the recalled Toyota vehicles by competitors such as Chrysler, GM and Hyundai.

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

awadler Crisis Communications apologies, reputation, Toyota