How to Deal with PR Scandals and Crises

Updated on 27 January 2025

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How to deal with PR crises

Every business no matter its size or ‘age’ is susceptible to scandals and crises. It could be anything from a social media post to a disgruntled customer in the store, this could be quite the issue for your business.

Businesses are now built as brands, there is an even greater need to have a good public relations (PR) team to help combat any crises.

A PR scandal or crisis is any negative story that risks running out of control and damaging the reputation of a business or its owner. Basically, a PR scandal is bad publicity. The most damaging PR scandals these days are those involving stolen customer data or political faux pas.

Having the capacity to deal with scandals is important even for small businesses. Your reputation carries on even as your business gets bigger, so whatever scandals you have now will continue to follow you.

In this article, we look at how you can deal with PR scandals and avoid the dreaded ‘cancel culture’.

Types of PR Crises

Any PR crisis is bad for your business. However, knowing the type of crisis you are dealing with can help you create a good PR strategy. The different types of PR crises are:

Reputational Crisis

A reputation crisis is a situation where a company, brand or individual experiences negative attention or backlash. This negative reaction is typically seen on the Internet and is caused by an event, statement or occurrence.

Usually in a crisis like this, there will be a decline in trust, damage to your public image and most likely an impact on overall business success.

Public Safety Crisis

A public safety crisis is one that occurs when something puts public safety in jeopardy. This can be a recall of a food product making people sick or a faulty car. These types of scandals need to be monitored closely because they affect the reputation of the company and more importantly the overall safety and well-being of consumers.

Financial Crisis

A financial crisis is a situation where the value of financial institutions or assets drops quickly, leading to significant economic instability. Examples of this could be a company filing for bankruptcy, laying off employees or embezzling money.

To deal with any of these PR crises, you need to have good PR crisis management.

What is PR Crisis Management?

PR crisis management is the process of preparing a company for a major event that threatens its reputation, stakeholders or the general public. This process is usually handled by PR professionals.

During PR crisis management, your PR team would be responsible for informing all interested parties about the situation, potential risks and what the plan of action is. Whether your business leaves the scandal unscathed is all dependent on how well you handle the crisis.

PR crisis management emphasises the need for a good PR team which can come at a cost. If you can’t afford your own team, you will need to handle the crisis yourself.

How to Deal with a PR Crisis

Here we will look at some real-life examples of PR crises and how to react to them if they happen to you.

Example: Facebook and Cambridge Analytica

In the 2010s, consulting company Cambridge Analytica collected the personal data of over 80 million Facebook users. The data was apparently used in the 2016 presidential election.

Reaction: When the scandal broke, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg did not explain the situation immediately and the damage was already quite large by the time an apology came out.

Correct reaction: If a scandal that involves the personal data of users happens to your business, you need to react immediately. Your PR team must issue an immediate statement acknowledging what has happened.

Additionally, you must release an apology to your users especially if they did not know their data was being used and explain why it was used. Furthermore, you will need to implement new policies that touch on the security of user data on your website or app.

Example: Bell Pottinger PR Scandal

In 2017, British-based PR firm Bell Pottinger was accused of running a PR campaign which exploited South Africa’s existing racial tensions. The company was accused of orchestrating a campaign where hundreds of fake Twitter (now X) accounts posted racial messages against opponents of the Guptas.

The campaign was created to protect the interests of the Gupta and take away attention from rumours of ‘state capture’ associated with the family.

Reaction: Initially, there was denial from the PR firm on what they had been accused of. This only worked to fuel the tensions that were brewing between white and black South Africans. Eventually, the company released an apology and has since dismissed all members involved in the scandal.

Correct reaction: This type of scandal affects the reputation of the company. The correct reaction is to always react before the public can build its own opinion on the situation. This is especially important in a society like South Africa.

Additionally, dismissing the members of your company responsible for the scandal is a good way. If your company has policies in place about ethics, there is room to dismiss those who are against it.

This will show the public that you care about their ethics and values and will bring to the forefront the ethics and values of your company. Responding quickly can lessen the blow to the reputation of your company and ensure that consumers ‘forgive’ quickly.

Example: FlySafair Overbooking Scandal

At the start of 2025, South African airline FlySafair was accused of unlawfully overbooking seats and using tricks to avoid compensating affected customers. The scandal broke out after a disgruntled customer complained about the airline on X (formerly Twitter).

Reaction: In response to backlash, the airline admitted it overbooks flights to ensure tickets remain affordable. Ultimately, this response (on a public platform), led to an investigation launched by the National Consumer Commission.

Correct reaction: This is once again a reputational PR scandal. The correct way to react to an unhappy customer is to address their concerns either privately or publicly. After hearing what the issue is, you have to compensate the customer because you have inconvenienced them.

FlySafair made the mistake of not having the correct knowledge of regulations within its industry. It’s important to know all regulations in your industry so you can avoid issues. If there are any issues, your PR team should know what regulations might have been broken and immediately rectify them.

Additionally, you need to release a statement that showcases that you (as the brand) are apologetic about the issue and immediately compensate the customer. This will protect your brand image and will also show other customers you care about solving their issues.

These examples might seem far-fetched for a small business but in the age of social media, anything is possible. You need to ensure you have a good PR crisis management strategy that you can implement whenever needed.

For those who want to help businesses with their public relations, explore our guide to starting a business in public relations. To get advice on any PR issues, visit SME Advice and speak to one of our experts.

Get Personalised Advice from Experts

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