Comments on: AIG Hires Burson Marsteller…for….?

By: Michele Nix

Michele Nix — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:10:20 +0000

Great post and discussion, Mark. I agree, Anca. Perception is key. The stumble for AIG, and I would add, many other institutions embroiled in this economic crisis, was in lingering too long behind the curtain.

Yes, it’s not easy out there, but better there, than give the appearance of hiding. Being out front, daily, with transparent information flow and immediate accountability when retreat stories surfaced, etc. – that would have gone a long way in easing public panic and ire. When there’s a message vacuum, other people gladly will fill it for you, but generally not with information that’s credible and accurate.

But again, this is not an AIG problem. As we’ve seen, it reaches beyond one institution, one financial sector, and one country. So we focus on recovery and hope that, in future, the leadership of our financial and government institutions will ensure that crisis comms plans will be written, drilled, retooled and ready, long before a crisis occurs.

By: Jen Zingsheim

Jen Zingsheim — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:21:20 +0000

Just a thought here from someone who worked at a firm during a crisis: they’ve likely hired a PR firm to answer the crush of calls primarily from journalists, and maybe a bit from the employees/customers. It makes sense to have your internal PR team (which might consist of all of four or five people) handle the bulk of questions from customers, have HR handle most of the questions from employees, and hand the journalists/media off to the PR firm, along with any overflow.

As to the particular selection of B/M I cannot comment, other than to say I love the image of 10 German Shepherds guarding a lollipop on the floor. Excellent use of imagery, Mark!

Jen

By: Joe O

Joe O — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:51:40 +0000

I guess I took in this information differently. When I read the story in PR Week I viewed it as neutral. Folks should understand that this is not a company operating under normal circumstances so criticism should be given with that in mind. This is a HUGE company at possibly its lowest point. So yes, in dealing with their own crisis they dropped the ball in not responding properly to the executive retreat story, which then gained big interest from the media. The way I see, AIG is putting its reputation first by hiring BM. And since the insurer is in the spotlight it’s only necessary to hire a firm that can handle the high-level pr needs.

I also didn’t see the statement as disingenuous. Their message about needing to respond to the huge volume of requests for information is probably very true! I didn’t read it as ‘AIG hired BM to answer phones/emails’ but that they need strategic pr counsel on how to handle many different areas of communication. I guess I just don’t see it in a public company like AIG’s best interest to be specific about its own pr inefficiencies in an announcement such as this.

By: Becky Richardson

Becky Richardson — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:35:29 +0000

“Once a company accepts tax dollars, there are different rules. These are taxpayers who did not voluntarily make an investment in these companies. In many ways it was a forced investment.” Andrew Cuomo, New York State Attorney General.

In my opinion, Shilpika is right: “Tax payers are angry — and are not feeling very philanthropic at the moment.” Personally, I would much rather see the earned incentive for AIG’s top performers come in the form of equity, which is currently trading at $1.80/share. Perhaps that might motivate the top performers to keep at–invest themselves into the future of their company (work hard, build your future). Too, it might even send a strong PR message about the direction of AIG (without the expensive guidance from Burson Marstellar)…”sweat equity” vs. vacations, golf and spa treatments. Just a thought…

By: Nikiforos Gkrestas

Nikiforos Gkrestas — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:15:44 +0000

Morally, it’s an absolute hypocrisy that AIG hired a PR company to change the minds of desperate people. Especially when they use that ridiculous rhetoric of responding to a “high volume of questions”