As a leading crisis communication agency, Chemistry PR & Multimedia knows that sometimes your best success stories are the ones you can’t share.
A few months ago we received a call from a potential client. The story this person was involved in was high profile. Big news! It was a story that was going to continue on for a while, thus creating an opportunity for some ongoing business. But something didn’t feel right. Do you ever get that feeling in your gut? You don’t know why, but you know it’s a bad idea. We followed our collective gut that day and politely declined the business. We referred them to 3 lawyers suggesting they need a lawyer versus a publicist. Fast forward to early November when one final story about the person turns up: The one saying they’re going to prison for four years. We made the right call on that one.
I could name the person and flesh out the details of the story here, and, Google algorithms willing, we would get many more clicks on this blog than usual. We are talking an exponential improvement over normal traffic. The trouble is, what message does that send to the next potential client? If you are nervous about a situation and uncertain about what direction it might be going, just picking up the phone to call for PR or crisis communication help is a scary proposition. If you see that we “outed” someone else who was in a bad spot, you may worry that you’ll be next, even if your situation is completely different and much more innocent. You will probably call someone else.
There are many gray areas like this in the world of keeping others’ more sensitive secrets. I’m talking about the places where you are not legally bound to be discreet, and maybe not even ethically compelled to silence. This can leave you making decisions on a pragmatic basis: how will it impact business? Or maybe your decision is following your own moral compass. (Back to the concept of “trusting your gut.”)
This is not limited to the clients you don’t work with. Sometimes your greatest successes in PR involve stories that were never told because you managed to keep them out of the media. In this case, the ethical standards we all follow are a little bit more clear, but it is frustrating when you are trying to attract new business and can’t talk about some of your finest work. (Imagine Michelangelo being forbidden from showing off the Sistine Chapel!)
At Chemistry we collectively have stories like this that will remain in the vault. Members of our team have even more of them from places dealing in sensitive information where they have worked in the past. That raises another question: Does the obligation to remain silent travel with you in perpetuity? Particularly if you never signed anything binding in making such a promise? I know I keep returning to the question of “your gut,” but it is incredibly relevant here.
I can answer all these questions for Chemistry by saying we always lean toward the more discreet approach. We are in the business of asking people to trust us on a number of levels, and you don’t earn trust by airing the dirty laundry of others….even if it makes you look good. This is why we adhere to the Public Relations Society of America’s Code of Ethics.
That doesn’t make it easy. After all, we are in the business of great storytelling, yet we are choosing not to tell some really great stories.
