Crisis communications training for fashion brands – what the Asos cyberattack tells us
Another week, another retailer hit by hackers. It’s little wonder that more and more companies are asking us about our crisis communications training for fashion brands.
The website belonging to Asos, it was widely reported this week, was hacked after a mobile alert from the company’s app was sent to many of its users on Tuesday. “Dear ASOS DPO and IT,” it read, referring to the company’s Data Protection Officer, “we have fully compromised the Snowflake instance. Engage with us, or we will leak it.” Snowflake is probably a reference to a US cloud-based data platform. Asos’s website and app were both still accessible after the alert.
Crisis communication workshops for fashion retailers
This cyberattack comes after both Marks & Spencer and the Co-op were targeted last year. In our crisis communications workshops for fashion retailers, we look at these and other examples to pull out learning points.
There’s still a feeling among some senior managers that a cyberattack is really just an embarrassment. The damage is more reputational than financial, they argue. However, it’s worth noting that shares in Asos, a FTSE 250 firm, fell by as much as 14 per cent to 432p following the attack. An attack on carmaker Jaguar Land Rover last August was estimated to have cost the company, its suppliers and local businesses £2bn.
How effectively has Asos reacted in response to this serious but in many ways, predictable attack?
The company was right to issue a statement early on – something that we strongly recommend. If they’d waited a couple of days, then their reputational – and financial – damage would be much more serious.
Crisis media training for fashion companies
“But how can we say something when we don’t know what’s happened?” one participant in the practical exercise of one of our crisis communications courses for fashion companies asked us. These practical exercises, by the way, are key to all of our media training and other courses. At Communicate Media we passionately believe in experiential learning. We teach you, then we let you put that learning into practice, then we challenge you, then we give you feedback on how you did and teach you some more. We repeat the cycle to build your knowledge and confidence during the day.
Back to the idea of a crisis statement. The truth is that there are lots of things you can say before you know what’s going on.
In our crisis media training for fashion labels, we’ll ask the participants: “If you don’t know what’s going on, what would you do?”
“We’d find out,” comes the reply. “We’d carry out in investigation.”
Bingo! There’s one thing that you can always tell your target audiences during a crisis and that is you’re carrying out an investigation. The benefits here to you as a brand are two-fold. The first is that you’re being seen to be doing something. We provide acronyms and templates in our crisis communications training for fashion retailers and one of them, in particular focusses on the need for action. If, as a business, you’re seen to be slow to respond, then it can appear that you’re not taking the situation seriously. You might also appear to be in chaos, like a rabbit frozen in the headlights.
“Isn’t it safer not to say anything?” No, it’s much more dangerous. Except that you have to be very careful about what you’re saying of course.
Carrying out an investigation
The second advantage with an announcement that you’re carrying out an investigation is that it gives you protection. You’ll have lots of questions thrown at you when things go wrong, some of them simple and factual and some of them speculative, even wildly so. Answering with a statement along the lines of “We’re carrying out a full investigation,” will enable you to sound proactive and convincing when you have to decline to answer a question. It’s such a shame, you’d love to help but, you’re still working to find out what’s going on here so that you can fix it.
In-house media relations teams
Getting the participants to work together with their PR consultancy or in-house media relations team to work on messaging such as this comment about an investigation or inquiry, should be a key part of any crisis communications training courses for fashion brands. For us it’s that experiential learning thing again.
This brings us on to another frequent occurrence with crises.
Media training for tech companies
(We also provide media training for tech companies, we should say. This is an example of how tech company executives can “newsjack,” or gain media coverage by commenting on cyberattacks and other issues.)”
Paul Arnold, Chief Executive of the Information Commission’s Office, has also commented. Academics, cyber experts and other commentators will pop up to offer their insights. That’s why the company suffering the attack, we explain in our crisis communications training for fashion retailers, needs to be part of this conversation – and to join it from the start.
Not surprisingly, given their audience, Drapers, the fashion and apparel trade title, reports that third-party brands that it has been speaking to have found sales to be “slow,” following the attack. “The chief executive of one women’s fashion brand stocked on Asos told Drapers her business has not yet received any communication from Asos,” it says. Asos needs to take action here to stop this story gaining “legs.”
Crisis communications training for fashion brands
In our crisis communications training for fashion brands, we can’t protect you from a cyberattack – or any crisis. But we can help you to manage it effectively, protecting your reputation and, very important the value of your business.
Come and talk to us about our crisis communications courses. You can follow us on LinkedIn here.
Fashion retailers
