INVOLVING PR PROFESSIONALS IN DECISION-MAKING
To clarify, I’m not attributing blame to the PR folks at Sentosa or even the event organisers. What they did is largely how many organisations handle their crisis communications. Indeed, you don’t know the consequences of saying things in public, and how it might be viewed by certain key stakeholders, so there is a general view that saying less is best.
Hypothetically speaking, if the event organisers were instructed to replace candles with LED lights, and this resulted in a backlash, they can’t necessarily tell the whole story publicly without incurring the wrath of the stakeholder giving the instructions.
This is why it is important to reexamine the role of PR in decision-making by organisations.
Good leaders often know how to involve PR professionals when they make decisions, and take their counsel seriously, as seriously as one would take legal counsel from a good lawyer.
Could a PR person have advised the event organiser that public announcements and ticket sales cannot commence until all approvals were obtained, or failing which, map out the different scenarios of what needs to be done if approvals were not forthcoming after ticket sales started?
Could PR have advised Sentosa’s venue rental team that there was a social media post about the same event organiser failing to deliver the event in Dubai last year? Could this not have triggered a process where the event organiser was asked to show they can successfully deliver the Sentosa event, before any decision was taken on renting out the venue to them?
That process could eventually form the backbone of a public defence for Sentosa, should things get out of hand.
The latest news is that the sky lantern festival will be rescheduled in April, but the organiser has not gotten clearance from the Singapore Civil Defence Force yet, nor will it refund attendees of the earlier event. Unsurprisingly, this sparked another round of backlash.
Following a communications playbook is not inherently wrong. But in a world where every single thing that goes wrong can be amplified by millions of social media users, leaders must adopt the mindset that PR helps not only to say the right things but also to do the right things.
The old saying goes, prevention is better than cure. That sums up how PR can and should be used in today’s world.
Edwin Yeo leads the Singapore office of SPRG, a regional integrated communications agency.