Conventional crisis management theory, as sepoused by most traditional crisis management agencies and details in most books on PR and crisis mangement, is to seek to contain a crisis for as long as possible in order to seek to prevent it going public, and then switching to a proactive strategy once it becomes public, where you admit your mistakes publicly adopt an open ‘Tell It All, Tell It Fast’ policy and ensure that our CEO takes visible ownership of the crisis.

This approach is flawed and simply won’t work in the digital era. Initial containment is impossible as GDPR regulations mandate prompt and wide disclosure. Admitting mistakes openly only works if you can persuade people to view as the victim of the crisis. In digital incidents, the hacker or whever coused the incident is rarely known and the blame automatically falls on the comany whose data was breached. And putting your CEO in the firing line will only invite futher damage. We explain the new realities in our white paper: ‘Exploding the Myths of Conventional Crisis Management Wisdom’