Public Relations and Communicators Blog

An Apology in all crisis circumstances is the most important tool that rebuilds the perception of positive intent. This in turn, forms one of the three most important pillars of rebuilding (corporate) 'Trust'. For an apology to be impactful it must have three important components. Firstly, it must be honest (and must also seem as genuine as it really is). Secondly, it must show self-sacrifice (which implies that the company or person making the apology must make a statement for the public good). And lastly, it must be done with the right attitude (which implies that it must be made in time & in the right manner). Even if one of these three aspects is missing from the apology, the apology becomes counter productive and often deteriorates the image further. When organizations willingly or unknowingly commit errors, the act almost always erodes the trust the stakeholders have painstakingly built and placed on the organization. This is because such errors question two more...

Emerging Trends in Consumer Communication The fast changing dynamics of the world economy is forcing organizations to fundamentally rethink the manner in which they have been communicating with their constituent communities and decision-makers. It is constantly being proven that conventional communication approaches that are designed to raise public awareness may often have the opposite effects of those intended. This is because they fail to take into account the public's profound resistance to the traditional communication stimuli . Therefore, organizations are placing more emphasis on developing two-way and more open-ended methods of communication in their public advocacy strategies. This is in preference to the more traditional top-down methods based on elements of audience manipulation or persuasion. Attitudinal, behavioral and social changes are long-term processes. Research into modern communication methods indicate that it is imprudent to regard attitudinal change merely as...