Choosing a crisis communicator: who can help in an acute crisis?

What kind of relief do you need in an acute situation?

In an acute situation, most companies need operational relief, and they need it immediately. The typical start: the press enquiry has arrived, the newsroom has given you a deadline of a few hours, and management is in negotiations or away at an external meeting. That is exactly how most crisis engagements begin: with a deadline that falls due today. The strategy comes later.

Typical triggers include:

• An urgent press enquiry with a tight deadline, often with publication looming
• A critical TV investigation that demands a statement before broadcast
• A social media storm gathering momentum
• An ongoing conflict, for example with local politicians, NGOs or investors

What is needed then is two things at once: strategic advice, i.e. whether and how you comment, and hands-on media work, i.e. approaching journalists, supplying further facts and agreeing on wording. Both require experience and time. In my own practice, this is by far the most common reason clients hire me: management simply lacks the time to run communications alongside day-to-day business. The knowledge of what ought to be done is often already there.

A second question determines the approach: has an enquiry already come in? If so, a “no comment” does damage; it is often read as an admission of guilt.¹

If a newsroom is researching without a list of questions, without a deadline and without a known broadcast date, restraint is often the better choice. Communicating at that point creates the story yourself and hands the newsroom confirmation. The yardstick for every measure is: does it reduce the expected damage, or does it create attention that would not otherwise exist? This trade-off belongs on the table with every new development, for example when a broadcast date becomes known or competitors respond publicly.

What belongs in the first briefing?

The crisis communications adviser can only deliver as quickly as you give them the picture. The first briefing determines whether the initial assessment is ready the same day or only after further queries. The agency selection guide from the GPRA (the association of German PR agencies) recommends clarifying requirements in advance, i.e. communication needs, responsibilities and decision-making powers, timeline and scope of services, and states explicitly for crisis situations: then the rule is to respond quickly, a considered selection is hardly possible, and you have to rely on recommendations.²

For the initial briefing in an acute situation, this means in practice: hand over everything needed for a sound initial assessment. This includes:

• The facts: What has happened, what is proven, what is unclear
• The open allegations: Who is making them, where, since when, with what reach
• The deadline: Which newsroom expects a response, and by when
• The decision-makers: Who can make binding decisions, who signs off
• Existing media contacts: Which newsrooms you already know, and who the contacts are

Two points are best raised directly, before the adviser notices them: potential conflicts of interest, for example if the adviser, lawyer or PR lead serve the same market, and confidentiality. Specify which documents may be passed on and which may not. A reputable adviser will ask anyway. One who doesn’t ask isn’t planning properly.

How should your company present itself in a crisis?

In a crisis, credibility belongs to those who come across as competent and trustworthy. Daniel Diermeier, a reputation researcher and long-standing professor at the Kellogg School of Management, describes four factors for this: transparency, expertise, commitment and empathy.³ A good crisis communications adviser aligns how you present yourself with these factors. Five rules follow from this:

• Respond quickly: Whoever says early on what is known and what is still being examined shapes how the story is framed. Whoever responds late is left commenting on someone else’s version.
• Take responsibility: Say what the company is doing to establish the facts and put things right. Justifications and pointing to third parties cost trust.
• Be on the ground: Being present where the problem arose shows commitment more strongly than any statement.
• Management speaks in person: In a serious crisis, the statement belongs with top leadership. Sending a spokesperson out in front signals that the issue is secondary.
• Show compassion: Those affected first need to hear that the company takes their concerns seriously.

Two points from practice belong here too. Taking responsibility means committing to clarification and remedy. It explicitly does not mean admitting guilt over unverified allegations: every sentence has to hold up even when a newsroom cuts it out, and it has to survive legal review. And whether management goes in front of the camera or responds in writing depends on the situation. Both routes are prepared; the decision is made as soon as the enquiry and the format are known.

Who actually works on your case?

The person working on your case should be the one you negotiated the engagement with. The typical mistake: you hire a well-known name and, in the acute situation, find yourself dealing with someone you have never spoken to. This happens frequently and therefore belongs among the selection criteria. The GPRA agency selection guide advises creating efficient structures for the project through clearly defined responsibilities and decision-making powers.² Applied to a crisis, this means: the commitment applies to a named individual with defined tasks.

So ask about the person. Specifically:

• Who is my personal point of contact, and who is authorised to deputise?
• Who takes on which operational tasks: approaching newsrooms, drafting statements, coordination?
• How can the adviser be reached, and on which days not?
• What response time is promised, and how is it evidenced?

The same applies to agency teams: clarify which person will actually work on your case and what their role in it is. An experienced team leader who led the pitch is not automatically the person who writes your draft statements in the evening. Get the division of work in writing. A promised response time that nobody has signed up to is no promise at all.

What experience fits your situation?

References demonstrate the adviser’s own role. They do not guarantee an outcome for your case. So check them against two criteria: has the adviser personally carried out the task you need now? And was the situation comparable, i.e. a similar trigger, similar stakeholders, similar time pressure? A brand name on a reference list tells you nothing about this.

An example from my time before founding BAMBERG Reputation: an international food group came under pressure over one of its product lines. Investigations by two media outlets abroad questioned whether the processing methods used were compatible with the way the products were labelled. An NGO filed a criminal complaint, a parliamentary inquiry was launched, and the coverage continued for months. For more than a year, I supported the media work for the German market. An NGO campaign with ongoing proceedings follows a dramatic arc: we played through the possible next steps, from further complaints and test purchases to new publications, and prepared responses before they had to be produced under time pressure. The case took place abroad and concerned different products from those sold in Germany. This distinction was lost several times in the coverage. I contacted the newsrooms, supplied the missing facts and placed the company’s position, including with Germany’s highest-circulation newspaper. The result: German coverage became more precise, and the company’s position was represented in the key titles. For every reference, make clear whether it comes from an in-house role or a client engagement. You should demand this distinction from every adviser too.

A second example from a BAMBERG Reputation engagement, anonymised: a mid-sized raw materials extraction company was locked in a continuous conflict with local politicians during an approval process lasting around six years, involving false claims about environmental impact and calls for boycotts. We approached the local newspaper and set out the company’s perspective. The result: the company’s position, perspective and value to the region appeared in the newspaper articles. At the same time, information about the conduct of the local politicians became public, which allowed for balanced coverage. Also prepared were a legally reviewed FAQ on the website and agreed lines for every foreseeable reaction from the other side.

What to look for when checking experience:

• Own newsroom experience: Does the adviser know how newsrooms work from their own practice, or only from pitching to them? Anyone who has cut and edited pieces themselves knows which sentences end up isolated in a report.
• Comparable task: Did the responsibility lie with the media work itself or with coordinating others?
• Role in the reference: Was the person responsible for delivery or involved in a supporting role?
• Handling weak points: Can the adviser deal openly with real, uncomfortable facts and build them into the preparation?

A good yardstick: does the adviser know the journalists who write about your subject, and the weak points of your company? And can they explain from their own work how those newsrooms make decisions?

How do you separate preparation and activation?

Set out in writing what is produced before the event and who triggers activation. Many engagements fail because of unclear expectations. The client assumes that in a crisis the adviser will automatically approach the media. The adviser waits for an explicit instruction. This gap can be closed with a written agreement.

In my work, the engagement is therefore split into two phases that can be commissioned separately. Preparation up to the event delivers ready-to-use materials:

• A situation assessment with scenarios for how the story could develop
• A one-page core narrative
• A Q&A covering the hard questions and the real weak points
• A holding statement, i.e. a fully approved statement for the day of publication, and a press release in two tones
• Publication-ready homepage copy for the crisis
• A prioritised media list
• Monitoring up to the event

Activation, i.e. actually approaching newsrooms and supporting the communications, happens only on the client’s explicit instruction. If the event does not occur, it is not charged. Record exactly this separation in writing: what is produced before the event, what happens only in the acute situation, and who triggers activation? That way, both sides know what has been agreed before the first call from a newsroom.

One standard applies to all prepared texts: quote-proofing. A sentence is quote-proof if it still holds up when a newsroom cuts it out and broadcasts it on its own. That means: short rather than long-winded, no subordinate clause that works against the company in isolation, no hedging in the conditional, no admission of guilt between the lines.

Which costs and responsibilities need to be clarified?

Responsibilities and the line of communication must be in place before the first enquiry arrives. Otherwise communications, the lawyer and management will each say something different. Clarify four points before you commission anyone:

• Scope and duration: Which tasks are included, and over what period?
• Roles: The crisis communications adviser, media lawyer and crisis manager are delineated in advance; the Q&A and statements go through legal review before sign-off. If an NGO sues and sends press enquiries at the same time, every answer has to be aligned with the proceedings
• Sign-off: Who gives binding approval of the final text? This needs a single, unambiguous answer. In a crisis, the sign-off path is the bottleneck: every additional reviewer lengthens it, and management is often the least available
• Appearance: Both an on-camera appearance by the CEO and a written statement are prepared

On fees: the range is wide because it depends on the scale of the crisis, the expected damage, the scope and the duration. Independent advisers are generally less expensive than consultancies and agencies. With me, smaller assignments can stay well below five figures; extensive engagements covering preparation and activation are in the five-figure range. Many large consultancies and agencies will not even take on clients with a budget below five figures. For two-phase engagements, I charge a fixed fee per phase; activation is only charged if you call on it. Be wary of two things: a blanket promise in the initial consultation, and open-ended hourly billing with no agreed scope.

Additional services are agreed separately. Search ads on your own brand terms with a dedicated landing page bring searchers to the company’s website without generating any additional reach; scope and budget are agreed separately. On top of this comes a prepared social media response in case of a major social media storm. The same applies to industry research to establish whether other companies are affected. Neither should be tacitly folded into a basic engagement.

Match the effort to the response you can expect. In one client setting, fewer than five calls came in over the entire year following a critical TV report, despite considerable internal effort. A broad counter-campaign is therefore rarely the first choice.

When is personal support from Florian Bamberg the right fit?

The answer depends on your situation, your role and your needs. If, as a communications lead, you need operational relief because management has no time and the contact with newsrooms has to happen today, then personal accountability counts for more than team size.

My field in issues and crisis communications covers urgent press enquiries, critical TV investigations, NGO campaigns, social media storms and longer-running conflicts with political stakeholders. I handle engagements personally, from strategic assessment to hands-on media relations, with short decision paths. At Nestlé Deutschland, I was responsible for issues and crisis management; at FTI Consulting, I guided clients through critical situations. Before that, I spent twelve years as a journalist at Dow Jones, at the FAZ publishing group (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) and in the dpa group (Germany’s national news agency), and in 2018 I was named Specialist Journalist of the Year. In total, I bring advisory experience from more than 30 crises. I know where newsrooms dig in, because I have done it myself. If an article contains errors, I first call the author myself and make the case with arguments. If that doesn’t help, I bring in the media lawyer, with whom I also deal with newsrooms jointly. On an engagement, I am reachable around the clock and respond within 15 minutes. Preparation and activation can be commissioned separately, as described above.

If this fits your situation, the page on issues and crisis communications sets out the areas of work, the preparation package and availability in detail. There you can arrange an initial consultation to clarify in person which scope of engagement suits your situation. In an acute situation, you can reach me directly on +49 163 480 63 45. In an acute crisis, every hour counts. If you know in advance whom to call and what that person will take on, you win back the time that matters most.