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Analyzing PwC Crisis Communications after the Oscar Flub

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The high profile Oscars mistake cast an unwanted spotlight on the PwC accounting firm. Russ Rhea and Jeff Hahn with the Predictive Media Network analyze the crisis communication strategy used by the company through the lense of the Image Repair Theory.

 

Transcript

Russ Rhea:    
Hi. Thanks for watching. I’m Russ Rhea with the Predictive Media Network, this time joined by Jeff Hahn. Jeff, always great to have you here. Our focus this time is on the recent uproar over the mishap at the end of the Academy Awards. In our Predictive Interviewing Model, we focus a lot on messaging and sometimes, messaging occurs under difficult circumstances similar to what PricewaterhouseCoopers finds themselves in after the Academy Awards.

Jeff Hahn:    
That’s right, Russ. One of the models that we use is called Image Repair Theory. We talk about it in the Predictive Interviewing Model conversations and that Image Repair Theory is one that was advanced by Professor William Benoit. He’s at Ohio University and he’s one of the godfathers of this really interesting model on how you dig yourself out of tough spots.

Russ Rhea:    
Yeah. This has become a crisis communication case study and so, what things do you look at when using the Image Repair Theory Model?

Jeff Hahn:     
There’s five different ways that you can repair your image after a reputation hiccup. PwC certainly has one. Let me walk down through those five. We can explain each. Then, I’ll talk about how PwC has used each of those five options during the aftermath of the Oscar ceremony.

Russ Rhea:    
Your analysis has found they’ve used all five.

Jeff Hahn:     
They’ve used five different techniques, yeah, and we’ll walk down through those. Now, let me give you a start at the top. The first strategy if you’re in trouble and you need to respond and protect your image is to straight out deny it, “Wasn’t our fault. Wasn’t my responsibility.” I don’t think PwC had that option in this case.

Russ Rhea:    
Right.

Jeff Hahn:     
Second option though is called evading responsibility. When you evade responsibility, you can do a number of different things. In fact, there’s four options on how you evade responsibility. One of them is just to express, “Hey, we had good intentions. We tried to do the right thing. It just didn’t work out.”

A second option is, “It’s just an accident,” almost like a collision, a car accident, nobody’s fault. Tough for them to claim those two, but inside of evading responsibility, there’s also a technique called defeasibility, and I’m going to talk a little more about that when we come back and recap what PwC has done. Defeasibility is the word.

Third big option, you can try to reduce offensiveness, reducing your responsibility. You can do that through minimization, “Hey, it’s not that big a deal,” or you can transcend. You can say something like, “There are a lot more important things for us to focus on tonight.” Including for Moonlight, the fact that it was an all African American cast and directors. It was a really amazing moment. There are more important things for us to focus on. That could’ve been one of the ways that we transcend the issue. Inside of reducing offensiveness, there’s five different techniques. Those are just a couple.

You can also then use corrective action. “Here is our plan to fix this.” Now what can we do in a live TV moment in terms of corrective action? There’s not much. You have to move very fast to try to maneuver through the circumstance.

That brings us to final action that you can take inside of the Image Repair Model, it’s called mortification. Mortification is simply this, “I’m sorry.” Almost like, “I’m mortified that this has happened. I’m so sorry.” In fact, this is where PricewaterhouseCoopers has hung its hat in the early stages of the aftermath of the debacle that happened on stage.

Russ Rhea:    
Yeah, within a few hours or certainly the next morning, they were doing a lot of that.

Jeff Hahn:     
Exactly right. Now I have analyzed some of the articles that have come out in the aftermath of the situation and I’ve seen PricewaterhouseCoopers use five image repair techniques. Let me walk you down through them.

The first is they’ve talked about their 83 years with the Oscars. Now, this is a technique called bolstering. It’s part of the reducing offensiveness. Really, the idea is, “Hey, we’ve been friends for so long.”

Russ Rhea:    
Yeah, one mistake in 83 years, you can forgives us, right.

Jeff Hahn:     
That’s right. This notion of bolstering is really important and it allows in the image repair typology for some reduction of responsibility. That’s the first one.

The second thing that they’ve done is in the messaging or in the statements I’ve read that, “Our staff didn’t follow protocol.” Now, this means that the two people that were responsible, a guy named Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz who was on the other side of the stage apparently didn’t act quickly enough according to PwC’s method of operation.

Russ Rhea:    
By the time they went out and stopped La La Land making their acceptance speech-

Jeff Hahn:     
Exactly.

Russ Rhea:    
There’s at least a couple of minutes.

Jeff Hahn:     
Weren’t there like two speeches already finished?

Russ Rhea:    
Yeah.

Jeff Hahn:     
Yeah. Didn’t act quickly enough. They violated the protocol. You know this technique, it’s part of the denial strategy, but it’s a little bit of scapegoating and scapegoating is the key inside of the denial strategy. You can use that and by saying that the protocol wasn’t followed, you get the opportunity to say, “These two people aren’t PricewaterhouseCoopers, they didn’t follow PricewaterhouseCoopers protocol. The company is fine. We did the right thing, but two people didn’t.” We see that technique used quite often. In fact, you might remember Volkswagen?

Russ Rhea:    
Yes.

Jeff Hahn:     
Yeah, in the emission scandal?

Russ Rhea:    
Right.

Jeff Hahn:     
Very quickly while the chairman resigned, tried to take responsibility, very quickly the investigation turned to a group of engineers who were not the company. They were not following the company procedures. That’s scapegoating. PricewaterhouseCoopers used just a little bit of that when they carried that phrase out.

Russ Rhea:    
Yeah, it was one guy, human error.

Jeff Hahn:     
Human error, that’s right and didn’t follow the protocol. That was the thing. Now, let’s get down to the third thing. Did you see in some of the covers that they were talking about, “Oh, there was so much commotion backstage. There’s all kinds of things going on.” This is a strategy under the evade responsibility category called defeasibility. Defeasibility is there were so many other things going on. It’s even you and I could use it, “Gosh, I’m sorry late. I got caught in traffic. Not something I could control.” That’s the key. Defeasibility allows you to somehow or another reduce the offensiveness of all things because some other things were going on. That was a strategy or technique that came out in PwC’s messaging as well.

The predominant strategy and technique that they used though is mortification. They’ve said things like, “We sincerely apologize. We deeply regret.” In fact, I even saw one piece of news coverage where it said, “Last night, we failed.” That’s a big deal and using those words of mortification are accepting blame right away in the hopes that those watching and those that were in the moment can forgive pretty quickly.

Like we were talking about earlier, it’s human error and some of these other things of it’s not my fault, etc., etc., can be a part of the mortification process. If you do that quickly, sometimes it can really defuse the situation. You know what, there’s a few other things that I think will help. There’s one, by the way, you know, who the happiest guy of Oscar’s night was?

Russ Rhea:    
Jimmy Kimmel?

Jeff Hahn:     
Jimmy Kimmel did a pretty good job and this is why. The happiest guy that night was Steve Harvey because-

Russ Rhea:    
Right. It can happen to anybody.

Jeff Hahn:     
That’s exactly right.

Russ Rhea:    
Yeah.

Jeff Hahn:     
Kimmel came out and said, “I blame Steve Harvey,” and all of a sudden, Steve Harvey’s Miss Universe gaff is now no longer the number one goof.

Russ Rhea:    
Yeah. That seems pretty minor compared to this one.

Jeff Hahn:     
Exactly.

Russ Rhea:    
This has been an interesting analysis, Jeff. Thank you. The Image Repair Theory is a really effective way to do message analysis and response in crisis situations. If you have more interest in this, we have a very interesting white paper that is available here on the Predictive Media Network website. Jeff did an analysis on a recent CBS News investigation to the Wounded Warrior Project and how the Image Repair Theory can be applied. That’s available here. Jeff, thanks a lot.

Jeff Hahn:     
Thanks, Russ.

Russ Rhea:    
Thank you for watching.