Writing a good corporate statement in a global crisis is like trying to balance a massive pyramid upside down atop a highwire. A company’s entire reputation may rest on a few sentences that get endlessly parsed on Twitter.
I’ve been the PR person in the room with lawyers, company leaders, and board members drafting those statements. All it takes is one lawyer saying “billion dollar lawsuit” and everyone shuts down. I’d push for more declarative language, but I rarely won the day, because “billion dollar lawsuit” trumps everything.
So instead I advocated to make the statements as simple, clear, and jargon-free as possible. And then, with the lawyers’ permission of course, I did background interviews with key reporters to put things in context.
Is that weak? Maybe. Is it necessary? Absolutely. PR people are nothing if not realists.
poseyblog is short. On purpose! You can always get more depth and resources in poseycorp’s newsletter – subscribe here.
Your business must scale, and you must scale with it. Great communicators create the change they want to see in the world. poseycorp helps innovators build powerful messages and the skill to deliver them so they can break through the noise and be heard! Click here to receive pragmatic communications advice in your inbox every month.
