Crisis communications and issue management for luxury brands
Loro Piana’s placing under judicial administration by a Milan court shows how luxury brands need to be more ready than ever to implement their crisis communications and issue management strategies.
Armani found itself in a similar situation earlier this year, as did an Italian subsidiary of French luxury giant LVMH that makes Dior-branded handbags. It was announced in May that part of Valentino had suffered a similar fate.
Media training for luxury brands
As the leading provider of media training for luxury brands we regularly work with some of the best known names to ensure that they’re ready to handle crises and difficult issues. The public relations consultancies and in house communications teams of luxury brands know that as well as promoting new collections, arranging interviews for designers and talking about craftsmanship, these days they need to do more.
Over the last few years as luxury brands have reached new audiences and their profile has risen so have the risks of negative media coverage. Suddenly business and investigative journalists have the big names in luxury within their sights. How can luxury brands prepare for a crisis? How can they ensure that they’re ready to minimise the impact of any negative media coverage?
Crisis communications training for luxury brands
During our crisis communications training for luxury brands, we start by looking at where a crisis might come from and how the company’s senior leadership team might hear about it. For any brand looking to handle a crisis, “information in,” is as important as “information out.” This means ensuring that media monitoring is effective. It also requires all staff to be aware of how an incident, or a situation might spiral into a crisis. They also need to know who to inform within the company. These days, for instance, one unhappy customer can create a lot of noise on social media – and this can be picked up by news websites.
Luxury brands managing crises effectively also have to think about how they are going to communicate with their staff. It’s one thing to have identified a crisis or difficult situation and have put your strategy into place. But do your staff know about this? Do those serving customers, dealing with suppliers or talking to journalists at shows and other events know what’s going on and what they should be saying about it? This is a key part of our crisis media training for luxury houses.
Luxury brands facing a crisis
Once we have looked at these issues we then work closely with luxury maisons’ PR companies and in-house communications teams to help them to deliver and test their crisis messages. A luxury brand facing a crisis, like any other company, needs to ensure that they act quickly and that they hit the right tone with their communications. This means getting the messages right, but it also means expressing them in language that sounds confident and trustworthy as well as being sympathetic and human.
Making it clear that you’re taking action is particularly important. Loro Piana does this in its statement, for instance, and it explains clearly and concisely how the situation arose.
Detailed advice and recommendations
We put the participants of our crisis communications training for luxury brands through their paces. This involves a range of authentic, role play press, radio and TV interviews. Because all of our media trainers are working journalists (operating under strict non-disclosure agreements) they know the questions that these spokespeople will be asked. And they ask them. We then provide feedback with detailed advice and recommendations. Again, this looks at what the spokespeople say but also how they say it. Do they sound as if they really believe what they’re telling us? Do they come across as authentic, human beings as well as company spokespeople?
We also provide crisis communications for fashion retailers and here, as is the case with Loro Piana, supply chain is often a focus. However carefully they plan and implement their supply chain there’s always the risk of bad news hitting the headlines and causing a row on social media. Again, the emphasis here is on acting quickly and delivering messages that sound believable and inspire confidence.
Crisis communications training for fashion brands
In our crisis communications training for fashion brands, we test senior spokespeople and put them through their paces. It’s worth adding that the aim is not to belittle anyone, in fact it’s quite the opposite. Trainers prepare spokespeople for fashion labels to handle potential crises by asking them the types of questions they are likely to face under pressure, while ensuring the process takes place in a controlled and supportive environment.
A crisis can be a frightening experience for an organisation because its senior leaders feel out of control. This is especially true of luxury houses where control over the brand and communication is particularly important. They find themselves in unfamiliar territory with media seeming to be running circles around them. But luxury labels and fashion brands who have an effective crisis communications strategy that has been tested and rehearsed will find these situations a lot easier to manage.
As we say in our crisis communications workshops, you can actually emerge from a crisis with your brand intact. If you take action quickly, appeared to be in control but also human and sympathetic it’s likely that your audience will take the view that you did all you could, and sometimes bad things happen to good people.
Crisis communications courses
Every luxury brand and every fashion retailer is different. That’s why our crisis communications courses are made from scratch to meet the needs of each client. Come and talk to us about how we can help you to protect your brand and feel confident that you have minimised the potential damage of a crisis or difficult situation. You can follow us on LinkedIn here.
