Think of your social media asset as a classroom, and you are the teacher. How do you use the carrot and the stick to inspire,…
Peter WilkinsonOctober 7, 2018
Crisis PR Overview Crisis PR is perhaps the most stressful type of communication. It usually involves intense media, which can be merciless, and for a…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 20, 2018
Crisis PR: Overview After over 30 years as a journalist, and 15 as a public relations consultant, mainly in Crisis PR, I've learnt the discipline of…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 13, 2018
Media Training: Overview Photo: Channel 7 News In this now hyper competitive environment, CEO’s must be able communicate on behalf of the company to external…
Peter WilkinsonMay 1, 2018
The power behind the school student uprising that’s taking on the NRA over the US gun laws, is a warning to governments (and large companies)…
Peter WilkinsonFebruary 26, 2018
It’s pretty clear that we are now entering a painful period for many people, mainly women but also men (scoundrels, yes, but good men too)…
Peter WilkinsonNovember 20, 2017
Ian Narev (Commonwealth Bank), Ahmed Fahour (Australia Post), Deb Thomas (Dreamworld) are all defined by events in which they lost control of the narrative. Their…
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 21, 2017
Criticism imposes confronting choices on an organisation. And repeated criticism, particularly in the media, starts a downward spiral, eroding trust, inspiring more criticism, further eroding…
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 4, 2017
Little destroys a political party’s or a company’s hopes faster than the loss of trust in the leader; think Trump, Turnbull, Narev (Commonwealth Bank). We…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 7, 2017
In Australia there's a conversation, an undercurrent, about replacing PM Turnbull. Some say "Why, who else is there?"; others say "Why not replace one lack…
Peter WilkinsonJune 19, 2017
We can learn a lot about how to deal with crises and crisis PR from studying others under extreme pressure. It’s hard to imagine what…
Peter WilkinsonJune 10, 2017
This week on Channel Seven’s Sunrise I was asked how Schapelle Corby, incarcerated for almost a decade, can get on with her life, particularly when…
Peter WilkinsonMay 30, 2017
James Ashby (Hanson’s chief-of-staff) was caught on tape describing a way to describing a way to ‘skim’ money from taxpayers and the party’s candidates. There…
Peter WilkinsonMay 24, 2017
Watching Trump carries lessons for us all, especially for practitioners in Crisis PR. If your boss doesn’t have values grounded in solid foundations, beware. That…
Peter WilkinsonMay 16, 2017
Crisis PR is about probabilities – there is no certainty. So I think it was reckless for the CEO of United Airlines to commit to…
Peter WilkinsonMay 3, 2017
Crisis PR & Communications Some entrepreneurs think change is easy – “I’ll lead, you follow.” For others, it’s hard; we like what we are doing,…
Peter WilkinsonApril 5, 2017
So, we’ve had our crisis and it’s been flagged we need to transform our communications team. We can use history to inform us but not…
Peter WilkinsonJanuary 23, 2017
We’ve all seen that Dreamworld, and its parent company, displayed a woefully inadequate crisis plan. What are the lessons for the rest of us? How…
Peter WilkinsonNovember 2, 2016
There are two distinct phases in a crisis: • First, stop it • Then, repair the damage It is generally a mistake to try and…
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 6, 2016
Eddie McGuire might have got away with his 'drowning Caroline Wilson' comments, but for social media. For years he’s been making these outrageously inappropriate comments,…
Peter WilkinsonJune 21, 2016
Justice Lindsay Foster is a Federal Court judge in Sydney. He is presiding over the class action brought by lawyers against Volkswagen over the ‘defeat…
Peter WilkinsonMay 3, 2016
Absolutely. I know this is a sensitive and emotionally charged issue, so I’ll do my best to tread lightly, but I’ve held this view for…
Peter WilkinsonApril 24, 2016
Crisis PR: the killer This past week two clients have been threatened, one overtly and one implied. One is a threat of a negative media…
Peter WilkinsonApril 19, 2016
Public Relations can’t spot a well hidden crime, or deceptions or lies. What Public Relations can do is help instill a culture of integrity and…
Peter WilkinsonMarch 8, 2016
Crisis PR is perhaps the most stressful type of communication. Some people around us will lose their cool, others try and interfere and think they…
Peter WilkinsonFebruary 9, 2016
The VW deception - what not to do This morning in the Australian Federal Court, VW Australia explained it had no knowledge of what head…
Peter WilkinsonNovember 26, 2015
Case study in Crisis PR: Recently the office supplies store, Officeworks, failed to deliver some paper to us, having promised a same-day service. It created…
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 22, 2015
I’ll be watching on Twitter as the verdict in the #AJretrial is read out this Saturday evening, Sydney time. I’ve worked with the Greste family…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 27, 2015
This story in the SMH (here) is a lesson in Crisis PR; it reflects a lot of current sentiment, and you can see plenty of…
Peter WilkinsonJuly 24, 2015
I think apologies are now overrated, simply because they have become overused in Crisis PR, even if the apology contains all the required elements (see…
Peter WilkinsonMay 11, 2015
From Andrew and Mike Greste: "Peter Wilkinson was recommended to us in late July 2014 as someone who might be able to help campaign to…
Peter WilkinsonApril 14, 2015
Abbott should have been fired this week. It would have happened in a successful business with a clearly focussed board. The kind of paralysis that…
Peter WilkinsonFebruary 14, 2015
Side issues like the punitive cuts to the ABC (a broken promise with little economic benefit) and the knighting of the DofE created crisis level distractions…
Peter WilkinsonFebruary 14, 2015
Writing a communication plan is hard. You need to assemble many disparate, and sometimes competing, thoughts into one coherent flow. All I want is a yes…
Peter WilkinsonDecember 12, 2014
This is a Crisis PR tip I picked up from Lord Tim Bell. It's going to sound over-protective, but it pays dividends. I was a…
Peter WilkinsonDecember 7, 2014
Yesterday Abbott apologised – well sort of. There’s a lesson here in Crisis PR. In this case the crisis is a failure to sell the…
Peter WilkinsonDecember 2, 2014
This week I helped a significant Australian company with a media crisis - an attack by a TV program alleging it had ripped off another…
Peter WilkinsonOctober 13, 2014
In a crisis it's very easy to get lost in the heat-of-the-moment, be it a fire, a death, sexual abuse or fraud. Or a war.…
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 6, 2014
In Crisis PR, there are clearly defined steps to offering an apology: Define the issue Be remorseful and show concern (you can't fake either) Apologise…
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 2, 2014
Fire destroyed the factory belonging to a client of ours in the middle of 2012. Although the company is smart and nimble, and their recovery…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 20, 2014
A slow-burn issue in Crisis PR is a problem that has been identified that can escalate into a crisis. Some research indicates that 80-90% of crises are…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 18, 2014
Crisis PR Case Study The famous Goldman Sachs experience is a scary reminder for us in Crisis PR that departing employees may attempt to have…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 18, 2014
In mid 2012 a manufacturing plant, employing approximately 180 people at SW Sydney, burnt to the ground. While no-one was injured the plant was completely destroyed…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 17, 2014
Social media creates chaos in a crisis Transparency is not always your friend. Sometimes we must manage the message. The risk of social media in…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 15, 2014
When we develop a social media strategy clients often ask us about 1) how to manage the negatives and 2) how to minimise the risks. It…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 14, 2014
We’ve been asked the following question by Influencing PR: How can PRs successfully use Twitter hashtags? And if it backfires in some way, how can you recover? This is after McDonalds…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 13, 2014
Why aren’t we undertaking a normal Crisis/Recovery Program? In most crises, our aim is to return to ‘normal’ as quickly as possible. However, in some…
Peter WilkinsonAugust 13, 2014
Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s changed approach to working with media once in government (most controversially with boat people) is a great case study for Crisis…
Peter WilkinsonJanuary 13, 2014
A case study demonstrating the importance of Community Relations in Crisis PR. From the public’s point-of-view we may have gone past the point of intelligent…
Peter WilkinsonSeptember 21, 2012