Public Relations and Crisis Communication

This assignment delves into the crucial role of public relations in managing crises. It examines various theoretical frameworks and practical models used in crisis communication, emphasizing the importance of strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, and ethical considerations. Students are expected to analyze real-world case studies of organizations navigating crises and develop a comprehensive crisis communication plan.

Running head: PUBLIC RELATIONS
Public Relations
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary.................................................................................................................. 2
Introduction............................................................................................................................. 3
Discussion.................................................................................................................................3
United Airlines Incident........................................................................................................4
Public Relations error made by the Company......................................................................4
How the PR manager should have handled the issue..........................................................5
Public criticism and recommendations from the PR perspective.........................................6
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................10
Recommendations................................................................................................................. 10
Odwalla Foods Company PR crisis......................................................................................11
Pepsi PR management........................................................................................................11
References..............................................................................................................................13

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Executive Summary
Public in accordance with Public Relations, is a group of people with some kind of common
interest or concern. Public means every segment or groups of people with which an
organization has relations, that can be employees, suppliers, customers, communities,
governments or others. Public Relations is he relationship with individuals or groups which
comprise an organization’s publics. Public Relations practitioners always find new ways in
order to achieve a favorable relation with these publics. Public Relations is the management
of communication between a company and its publics. In other words it is the life blood of
any company or organization. If any crisis occurs in an organization, it is the duty of the
Public Relations officer to implement crisis management strategies, in order to save the
company’s image. A crisis can mar the reputation of any company to a huge extent. The
report discusses about such a crisis which occurred with the United Airlines and how the
Public Relations officer handled the situation.

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Introduction
Public Relations, often abbreviated as PR, is an art of spreading and managing the
information between an organization and its public, be it the internal public of the
organization or external. The organization can be anything such as a private company,
business, or government agencies, non-profit organizations and non-governmental
organizations and others. It acts as a bridge which connects the road of communication
between an individual or an organization and its publics. It is a way of gaining exposure of a
company or individual to their publics through marketing communications, publicity and
advertising (Austin & Pinkleton, 2015).
The aim of a Public Relations manager is to inform a particular company’s publics
and prospective customers about the company’s products, leadership or political decisions.
The report throws light on the Public Relations errors made by United Airlines’ company on
the removal of Dr. David Dao from the Flight 3411, which was awaiting departure from
Chicago to Louisville and was overbooked (Austin, Fisher Liu & Jin, 2012).
The report throws light on the duties and responsibilities of a Public Relations
manager with an explanation of its publics and the factors which may influence his or her
decisions. Moreover, this report contains a brief description on how the company should
have handled this issue from a Public Relations perspective, along with some
recommendations.

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Discussion
Public Relations is the relationship state between an organization or a company or
some famous personality and the publics. In other words, it is a process of communication
that helps in building a mutual and beneficial relationship between an organization and its
public. A Public Relations manager has loads of responsibilities for his/her company. He/she
acts as the chief advocate for the company; the communicator, problem solver and opening
maestro of the company who is responsible for the company’s success (Bryce, 2017).
United Airlines Incident
On April 9, 2017, Dr David Dao was forcefully dragged from United Airlines, when he
refused to move out of the flight, on the management’s demand. David screamed when the
officers were pulling him out of the seat. During this struggle, his face hit a seat’s armrest
and he fell unconscious. He was dragged out of the flight with blood on his face. The
management provided the passengers with travel vouchers in order to vacate the seats for
four airline’s employees, and Dao was one of the passengers. He refused to move out as he
needed to go home, which resulted in such a horrific situation. The incident went viral which
resulted in an outrage and several passengers criticized the Airline’s management (Coombs,
2014).
Public Relations error made by the Company
The upsetting incident was handled in more disastrous way which enraged many.
The CEO of the company didn’t apologize for the occurrence of such a situation, rather
stated that he felt sorry for re-accommodating such passengers. He defended his employees
and said that the passenger was belligerent and disruptive. This led to intense criticism and
the Airline’s reputation was marred, as the angry customers threatened to stop flying with

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them (Cutlip, 2013). Moreover, they concealed many facts, regarding overbooking and
more, from the media, which the eye witnesses revealed. This created a negative impact on
the company’s reputation in the eyes of the media. The company underestimated the
power of the social media, which was its greatest mistake. They even made remarks on the
behavior of Dao’s co passengers (Dozier, Grunig & Grunig, 2013).
How the PR manager should have handled the issue
The Public Relations officer of the United Airlines could have easily handled the crisis
situation in a different manner. One thing that should always be kept in mind is
underestimating the power of social media can lead to serious consequences. The incident
got instantly viral with millions of viewers from different parts of the world. The Airlines got
severely criticized for this shameful act, which resulted in an outrage. In such a situation, the
first and foremost duty of the Public Relations manager is to respond to the customer’s
incidents quickly and directly apologizing to the people who got affected (Duhé, 2015). The
company is responsible for such a horrific situation, and, thus they must have shown
empathy towards the passenger’s family. Secondly, the Public Relations practitioner must
get all the facts clearly, related to the incident. He/she must be aware of the full situation,
with every detail, before drawing a vague conclusion. After getting all the details of the
incident, the Public Relations practitioner now must decide whose fault it actually was and
based on that he/she must take actions, without any prejudices (Grunig, 2013).
Thirdly, a Public Relations practitioner is always accused of withholding the
company’s information from its publics. This is ethically wrong. A company’s publics have
the right to know about the company’s strategies or policies, its products, failure and
success and others. Therefore, Public Relations manager of the United Airlines must be

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honest and transparent in front of the media. Distortion of the reality mars the company’s
reputation and progress (Helmig, Jegers & Lapsley, 2014). Along with that, he/she should
maintain integrity and transparency to avoid conflicts among employees. Fourthly, it is
his/her duty to own the response. It was fully the company’s mistake, therefore, the Public
Relations officer should have the guts to own it and apologize for the situation. He/she must
be able to address the problem properly to the media and the external as well as internal
public of the company, knowing what to say and what not to say. It is his/her duty to put all
the necessary tools in place in order to manage such a situation and see that such incidents
do not occur in future (Hendrix, Hayes & Kumar, 2012).
Public criticism and recommendations from the PR perspective
The United Airlines, after this incident, faced severe criticism from the media and
people across the world. Many tweeted regarding the upsetting issue, expressing their
hatred towards the flight’s management. Handling the situation in a smarter way could have
helped the company to save its image to some extent. The Public Relations manager could
have scanned the entire incident before letting the CEO comment on that (Johansen,
Aggerholm & Frandsen, 2012). He/she needs to make sure beforehand, whether such
statements would be beneficial for the company and its future or not. It is his/her
responsibility to build a scenario or a good image of the company in front of its publics and
media. It is important to convince them that in future such horrific situation will not occur.
This requires Public Relations manager to have good communication and convincing skills.
Most importantly, he/she needs to be a good orator (Kunczik, 2016).
Hiding failure details may mar the company’s reputation. So the Public Relations
manager must be honest, truthful and avoid hiding details of the company to its publics.

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Moreover, he/she should implement some strategy and policies to gain the trust of the
people and the media in order to stick to the company’s mission. This includes detailed
description of the company’s good will and image, the good things it has done in the past
and what it is going to do in the future (Mehta & Xavier, 2012). This may help the company
gain some positive feedbacks and publicity. In such crisis situations, it is the company’s duty
to behave in a humble manner. The company must be empathetic towards the passengers.
Behaving in an insensible manner can even worsen the situation and enrage the customers.
Therefore, the Public Relations officer should open up and plan accordingly with the
company’s CEO, in order to gain their faith and trust. Managing such a crisis may be tough,
but handling such sensitive issues in a sensible way may prove beneficial for the company
(Pang, 2013).
A Public Relations practitioner needs to know the proper definition of ethics. Ethics is
the study of right and wrong in human endeavors. It basically answers the question “what to
do?” and “what not to do?”. He/she should know the organizational values. He/she must be
as transparent as possible to maintain the credibility of the company or organization. Lying
or distorting the reality may mar the organization’s image. He/she must be able to manage
crisis (Parsons, 2016). For instance, when the Airlines Company’s employees took such a
drastic measure of throwing out a passenger, it was the Public Relations officer’s duty to
look after the matter without any biasness. It was his/her responsibility to convey this
message to the company’s owner without any distortion of the reality. The Public Relations
manager could have applied some strategies in order to fix things, by apologizing in front of
the media (Pearson & Mitroff, 2013).

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A few months later, a giant rabbit was found dead on the United Airlines, which was
flying to Chicago from London. An incident like this does not make international news, but
due to the Doctor’s case, each and every mistake made by the Airlines group was shown
across the world. Such was the negative impact of the company, that even the Public
Relations officer couldn’t manage the crisis (Smith, 2013). The brutal video drew huge
attention of people even in China, which is an emerging market for the Airlines Company.
Dao claimed that he was being targeted most likely because he is Asian. Therefore, this will
also have an adverse affect on the company’s business in that zone, as majority of the future
passengers would have probably seen the video (Stacks, 2016).
In order to avoid such a situation in the future and to gain customers’ trust and faith,
the Public Relations officer of the company need to undertake several strategies and
implement those. Being the company’s life blood, it is his/her duty to change its impression
and bring it into positive light. In my opinion, the company should not allow the security
forces to get involved in situations where they are not required. Dr. Dao was being forcefully
removed by the security agents from the flight even when he didn’t pose any security risk.
The Public Relations practitioner must make the company’s employees clear regarding their
duties and responsibilities (Wilcox, Cameron & Reber, 2015). Secondly, none of the
customers will be forced in giving their seats up, involuntarily, unless there is a safety or
security issue. Therefore, it is the duty of the officer to undertake such strategies to save the
company’s image. Thirdly, if any customer voluntarily gives his/her seat up, he/she must be
offered with compensation up to 10,000 dollars. In the flight, where Dao’s incident occurred
the passengers were given only 800 dollars travel credit, with expenses and accommodation
for that particular time being (Ye & Ki, 2012).

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The company must create a “solutions team” for the customers, whose task will be
finding alternative solutions for the flights which are overbooked, like rerouting the
customers in nearby airports. The Public Relations officer must be available, if any issue
occurs at the time of selection. His/her duty is to make the customers understand in a very
humble way. Crew members of the flight should be booked at least sixty minutes before the
departure. Dao’s incident occurred because the Airlines tried accommodating four members
from the crew, as because their earlier flight got delayed (Bryce, 2017). Staffs must receive
trainings on how to behave with the passengers. The Public Relations officer must make the
employees understand on how to handle tough and most difficult situations in the most
effective and efficient way. Automated systems must be introduced through the apps, which
will record a customer’s interest if he voluntarily gives up his/her seat in overbooked flights.
In such a case, the Public Relations practitioner must check the entire issue and arrange for
compensation. Even if any customer’s bag is lost, the company must be ready to pay
compensation for the loss (Coombs, 2014).
In this era of social media, news travels really fast, be it bad or good. Social media
has the ability to bring out the truth. A Public Relations officer has no longer the ability to
shape his/her opinion through a Press Release or House Journal. The raw and opinionated
news have already started shaping people’s views. If any mishap occurs, anybody can record
the entire incident and upload it very quickly. So there is no point of hiding the truth from
the media and at times, media comes to know about an incident before the company itself
(Austin & Pinkleton, 2015). This gives rise to crisis situations. Over here, the Public Relations
officer of the company comes to the rescue. With his strong communication skills and good
command over language, he/she has the ability to turn any incident into the company’s

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favor. At times, saying the word sorry can change everything. Therefore, it is his/her duty to
take full responsibility of the company’s wrong doings and manage things in accordance
with that (Austin, Fisher Liu & Jin, 2012).
Conclusion
To conclude, Public Relations managers are appointed by every company and
reputed individuals. Famous personalities, especially politicians employ Public Relations
professionals in order to maintain a good image in front of their followers. It is a strategy
which helps any organization or individual in maintaining its corporate identity. The sole
purpose of Public Relations is to develop a two way communication, in order to resolve the
conflicts of interest and by seeking common areas or grounds of mutual interest. It helps to
establish an understanding based on the truth, with full information and knowledge.
Therefore, Public Relations is building a relating with a unit, that is, organization or
any individual, on which it depends for its viability. Its practice as a profession can be
regarded as art being applied to science. A Public Relations officer should be a professional
journalist. He/she should maintain high moral and ethical standards as his/her conduct
reflects the conduct of an organization or a company. Effective Public Relations helps in
establishing a meeting point to the highest degree of adjustment between an organization
and its publics. It is based on reality and not on images, whether true or false. Actions and
deeds that serve the interest of the public are the basis of sound Public Relations.
Recommendations
The Public Relations manager needs to scan the future of the company where he/she
works. He/she needs to build a scenario or a good image of the company in front of its

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publics. The Public Relations manager should have good communication and convincing
skills. He/she needs to be a good orator. Moreover, he/she can write press releases, house
journals, and present annual reports or organize a press conference, which will give detailed
information about the company’s products or what it deals with, its success and failure as
well. Hiding failure details may mar the company’s reputation. So the Public Relations
manager must be honest, truthful and avoid hiding details of the company to its sponsors.
He/she should open up and discuss plans with the company’s publics in order to gain their
faith and trust.
Odwalla Foods Company PR crisis
The Odwalla Foods Company had the worst nightmare when Washington State
linked e-coli outbreak to Odwalla’s unpasteurized apple juice. It caught media’s attention
immediately and the outcome was so bad that the company’s CEO Stephen Williamson
promised to pay all the medical costs for those who got affected. It spent the next few
months in building its good image and reputation. It focused on the relations, by advertising,
publicizing and organizing press conferences. However, due to inefficient Public Relations,
the Odwalla Foods Company lost the battle and suffered huge losses. Eventually, Coca Cola
food Company bought the Odwalla Company for 186 million dollars in the year 2001 (Duhé,
2015).
Pepsi PR management
Therefore, from the above example, it is evident that a company needs a good Public
Relations officer, to manage the crisis, whenever needed. A good example of managing crisis
can be the involvement of the famous aerated drink, Pepsi, with a case which marred the
image of the drink in Washington. Rumor was; a syringe was allegedly found in the drink.

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There were more than fifty reports of tampering Diet Pepsi but all those turned out to be a
hoax. Negative publicity is never ideal, no matter what the situation is. However, Pepsi then
managed to work with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and produced reports which
were in favor of the company, conveying that the story was not real and was fabricated. The
company was able to gain trust of the people and the media and CEO Craig Weatherup
himself appeared on all news channels with the evidences and reports, which were in favor
of the company. Sales did fall at that point of time, but good crisis management help the
company to earn faith from its publics (Parsons, 2016).

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References
Austin, E. W., & Pinkleton, B. E. (2015). Strategic public relations management: Planning and
managing effective communication campaigns(Vol. 10). Routledge.
Austin, L., Fisher Liu, B., & Jin, Y. (2012). How audiences seek out crisis information:
Exploring the social-mediated crisis communication model. Journal of Applied
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Bryce, H. J. (2017). Financial and strategic management for nonprofit organizations. Walter
de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.
Coombs, W. T. (2014). Ongoing crisis communication: Planning, managing, and responding.
Sage Publications.
Cutlip, S. M. (2013). The unseen power: Public relations: A history. Routledge.
Dozier, D. M., Grunig, L. A., & Grunig, J. E. (2013). Manager's guide to excellence in public
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Hendrix, J. A., Hayes, D. C., & Kumar, P. D. (2012). Public relations cases. Cengage Learning.
Johansen, W., Aggerholm, H. K., & Frandsen, F. (2012). Entering new territory: A study of
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Pang, A. (2013). Social media hype in times of crises: Nature, characteristics and impact on
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