A wrap for 2024 and a look into 2025: our upcoming conversation with Rupert Younger
CIPR Crisis Communications Network
The CIPR network where communications professionals learn and share best practice in crisis communications.
In our December issue:
Join us on Monday, 20 January 2025 for the first exciting session of what promises to be another year of world-class events from the CIPR Crisis Comms Network. Rod Cartwright and Katherine Sykes FCIPR Chart.PR will be chatting with Rupert Younger, the founder and director of Oxford University’s Centre for Corporate Reputation.
Did you miss the launch of our second guide, “Crisis Communication and Social Media”? Felix Östman has summarised the event in an enlightening blog and there is also a link to download your free copy of the guide.
Would your crisis response approach stand up in a public inquiry? Amanda Coleman discusses the impact of public inquiries on crisis communication plans and the need for communicators to be recognised as strategic advisors to those leading the crisis response.
And
“Disaster communications can leave no stone unturned when lives are at risk”, writes Chris Tucker, who analyses how failure to warn people early and provide clear instructions led to so much devastation during the recent catastrophic flooding in Valencia.
Crisis Communications: In conversation with Rupert Younger
Book your place here.
For our first event of 2025, our Special Advisor, Rod Cartwright and Co-Chair, Katherine Sykes, will be conversing with Rupert Younger, the founder and director of Oxford University’s Centre for Corporate Reputation.
2025 promises to be no less momentous or potentially tumultuous than 2024, and our opening event of the year takes place on the morning of President Elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
Rupert co-founded leading global strategic communications agency, Finsbury (now FGS Global), with Roland Rudd in 1994, and is co-author of The Reputation Game and The Activist Manifesto. His third book, Forked Tongues, will be published in 2025. He is also the Founder and Academic Director of Oxford’s internationally-renowned Corporate Affairs Academy.
We’ll look at how his work approaches the question of how businesses orient themselves to meet new and emerging societal issues – or ‘Alignment Challenges’ as the Centre calls them – including stigma, crisis and governance.
The event is on Monday, 20 January 2025 at 9.00 – 9.45 am GMT. It is free and worth 5 CPD points.
Crisis Communications and Social Media: Key insights from the launch of our recent best practice guide
The CIPR Crisis Communications Network recently launched our second publication, “Crisis Communication and Social Media”. The guide offers comprehensive insights into handling social media during crisis situations, emphasising both the challenges and opportunities these platforms present.
The guide emphasises that social media provides unique opportunities for crisis communications, including community engagement and trust-building; real-time monitoring and response; early crisis detection and direct stakeholder communication.
However, organisations must be prepared and have proper protocols in place before crises occur.
Read the full blog by Felix Östman, Events Manager, CIPR Crisis Communications Network
Download Crisis Communication and Social Media Guide
Download Crisis Comms Plan Skills Guide
The impact of public inquiries on crisis communication plans
It feels like 2024 has been the year of public inquiries. There have been many that have concluded, have continued or have been announced. For anyone preparing crisis communication plans or considering what they need to do to be ready for the worst, this is a significant development. It is not just something that concerns public bodies as became clear with the Grenfell Inquiry reported earlier this year. All crisis communication work to prepare needs to consider what the role of public inquiries can mean for that business or organisation.
A recent report from a House of Lords committee has called for an overhaul of the way public inquiries are carried out.
Read the full blog by Amanda Coleman, one of the UK’s leading crisis communication experts and author of three books on crisis comms strategies and reputation management.
Everyday Communication Strategies: Manage Common Issues to Prevent a Crisis and Protect Your Brand
Strategic Reputation Management: Identify Strengths, Manage Performance and Protect Your Brand
Valencia Floods: Why we all need to revisit our disaster communications
The weather had been awful for days. Nothing but rain and it was getting worse. I checked the weather app as my daughter was due to go to Valencia about an hour from where we live to stay with friends, and I was wondering if there would be travel delays. I saw that the amount of rain forecast for Tuesday onwards was so much and my first thought was the decimal point was in the wrong place.
What I was seeing was the beginning of what we now know was called a DANA (Depresion Aislada en Niveles Altos), an extreme weather front that plunged the Spanish Valencian region into scenes you would expect to see in an end-of-days movie. People were left trapped in their homes, cars swept away, and bridges collapsed under the force of the water.
Read the full blog by Chris Tucker, Chair of CIPR Crisis Communications Network
More from us
Watch our past webinars – each worth 5 CPD points for CIPR members
Thank you for reading our 7th edition.
We'll be back next month with another edition of Crisis Comms Talks.
Curated by Adelaide Arthur, CIPR Crisis Comms Network