When Apple shares were plunging amid a broad market rout yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook penned a short email to Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” to provide reassurance about Apple’s business in China. The shares promptly rallied. It’s not always that easy to quell a panic, but there are a few important lessons […]
With news about a newly discovered earth-like planet and out-of-this-world comments from Donald Trump, we hardly noticed when a little article on Bridgewater Associates passed through our orbit last week. It was a rare galactic phenomenon: the non-clarification.
Vanity Fair magazine nearly melted the Internet last week with its cover story on Caitlyn Jenner. But lost in the tidal wave of coverage was a revealing comment by VF Editor Graydon Carter describing how news is made today. He uttered a truth that many editors might privately acknowledge but few would dare repeat in public.
Organizations today must be more imaginative about strategies for engaging their audiences. Long gone are the days when a press release or a print advertisement alone would get results. New digital tools abound, but it’s easy to get lost in the buzzwords. We speak to one of our partner firms to make sense of a shifting […]
Dick Fuld was never that skilled with the media when he was CEO of Lehman Brothers. Nearly seven years later, he still isn’t.
Meeting with opinion-makers is often a good communication strategy. It has risks, but they usually can be managed. Unless, that is, you’re Janet Yellen, in which case such meetings are best avoided. With an investigation underway about a leak of confidential information, the Fed is learning that lesson the hard way.
Vanguard and Blackrock, two of the world’s largest fund managers, recently warned corporate boards to expect tougher scrutiny on governance issues during this year’s proxy balloting. Growling like this can be an effective communication strategy, up to a point.
Lumber Liquidators is getting nailed. An investigative report on 60 Minutes accused the company of selling unsafe laminated flooring. A predictable fall in the company’s share price ensued. But rather than mount a defense, Lumber Liquidators has been mostly silent. That’s making a bad situation worse.
Reeling from press reports about his personal financial maneuvers, HSBC chief Stuart Gulliver offered a few plain words of explanation. He may have revealed more than he intended. His remarks show the bank is even more deeply flawed than the headlines suggest.
Say “risk communications,” and people usually think of crisis management: what to say when bad things happen. That’s one part of it. But there’s another side to risk communications that involves taking risk with intelligence and purpose. President Obama’s State of the Union address offers a great example.