When Your Reputation Is Blindsided

An old adage asks, if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

The viral-era digital and social media counterpoint to this philosophical question might well be, in the event of adverse circumstances or bad behavior, is it even remotely possible to keep those misdeeds out of view to avoid a public feeding frenzy?

A recent situation which demonstrates the impossibility today of avoiding unwanted attention involves Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford. During the team’s Super Bowl LXI victory rally at the Coliseum earlier this year, event photographer Kelly Smiley stepped backward, falling off the stage, fracturing her spine and breaking two cameras. Stafford, who was standing nearby, is captured on video turning away in seeming indifference and then sipping from a bottle of water, even as his wife reacts in horror to the fall.

Within hours the accident had gone viral, overshadowing news coverage of the parade and rally celebrating the team’s NFL championship. By the following morning, Stafford was taking hits as brutal as the ones inflicted by the fiercest pass rushers. The footage even became a meme connoting apathy and disinterest.

The outcry put Stafford and the Rams organization on defense. To defuse the overwhelmingly negative response, they jointly announced that they would pay Smiley’s medical expenses and replace her equipment. Thanks to Stafford’s image as good guy, the strength of the Rams’ own corporate citizenship since returning to Los Angeles, and of course the excitement about them winning the Super Bowl on their home field, the story ebbed in subsequent news cycles. But cynics on sports programs and social media continued to ask if cameras hadn’t caught Stafford’s indifference to the accident, would he and the team have stepped up?

The Stafford gaffe and subsequent response offer a teachable moment for companies and their leadership on how to minimize viral media reverberations if and when that proverbial tree falls in their forest. Keeping the ABCs of reputation management top of mind can safeguard corporate image and brand if an adverse event does occur, mitigate collateral damage, and enable a faster recovery. These include:

Assess where your company is most vulnerable. Assemble a working group among your leadership team that includes representation from the C-Suite as well as senior personnel from legal and compliance, marketing/PR and operations teams. They should conduct a 360-degree evaluation of prospective critical situations, and how they could unfold and reverberate through traditional and social media.  

As a veteran of nearly 30 years managing critical communications spanning manmade disasters, product recalls, food-borne illness, massive financial fraud and many more, I can say with certainty that, in nearly every situation, what ultimately emerges is a crisis scenario that was never considered. 

There are no crystal balls. But planning and considering what might occur, putting a response framework in place, and revisiting it regularly, are disciplined steps that are beneficial if adversity does strike.

Do the right thing before the bad (or wrong) thing happens. Look to the Rams and Stafford as examples. The Rams have established themselves as a voice for social justice locally. The team’s website features a community page that speaks to this commitment: “Social justice is at the heart of the Los Angeles Rams community outreach efforts. To us, it’s about fighting for equality, driving equity and providing access.” They outline the ways the organization is addressing such issues as poverty, education inequity, food insecurity and homelessness. 

Professional athletes and sports teams – as well as actors and performing artists – have vast platforms from which to advance causes, and in recent years they have begun vocally speaking out. For enterprise of all sizes, this can be a model for a similarly forceful stance on issues of corporate social responsibility.

Counsel your employees. Millennials and Gen Z – and sometimes their parents and grandparents – seemingly live their lives through social platforms. Most act responsibly. But too often there’s the drunken post, political rant, or “employee gone wild” photo on a beach in Tulum. Private lives should be exactly that, except when they affect places of employment and pose reputation risk. 

Establish clear-cut policies and communicate during onboarding and in employee handbooks, not after a problem arises. To maintain awareness, host all-hand meetings where expectations are clearly spelled out. Require employees to include disclaimers in their personal feeds that state these opinions are their own, and they are not speaking for their employer. (But even this is no substitute for moderation and good judgment.)

Warren Buffett – borrowing from a famous quote by Will Rogers – stated, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”  When it comes to viral media, it may not even take that long. Tread cautiously!

Gerald Freisleben is president of FoleyFreisleben LLC, an Encino communications consultancy specializing in reputation and issues management including crisis and litigation matters, investor and financial relations and business-to-business marketing.