Will your association associate with you in a crisis?

by Richard S. Levick

A leading trade magazine has just run a story headlined, "Anybody & Associates Charged with Deceptive Marketing Practices."

Unfortunately, you're a somebody at Anybody & Associates.

While you can effectively rebut the charge, the potential damage to your reputation is significant, especially since the general press habitually relies on this trade publication to cover your industry. The story quotes a consumer watchdog saying his group has had its eye on the whole industry and foresees a wider investigation.

If the crisis is likely to be pandemic, your trade association is a natural refuge. The association will fight the battle for you.

Alas, Anybody & Associates might be in for a bitter disappointment. Companies -- especially those without the internal crisis-management resources of the Fortune 500 -- must know the limits of what trade associations can accomplish in a crisis.

Conflicting Interest

Even small associations have members with differing interests and sensitivities regarding any issue.

As a result, a complex issue such as deceptive marketing will elicit a Babel of conflicting responses. It's often impossible for the association to respond on Anybody's behalf with anything but the blandest statements.

To exculpate itself in the court of public opinion, Anybody needs to be vigorous in its own defense and comment aggressively on specifics the association simply can't address.

Some trade associations have thousands of members, exponentially increasing the unlikelihood of a consensus for any sort of position or initiative that will help an individual member facing specific allegations.

Even trade associations for highly embattled industries tend to avoid risk. In fact, the more embattled the industry, the more careful the association tends to be. The threat of a broader challenge could encourage the association to be more conservative.

In the worst case, the association might seek to disassociate itself and its members from Anybody, at least until the charges are resolved. The association might be obliged to isolate the deceptive marketing issue as the problem of a single company, as with the recent spinach recall in which one farm was found to be the source of contamination.

Expect that in a crisis the long-term goals of the association's larger members will drive any crisis-response agenda.

Finally, remember that the association's membership includes your competitors. How eager will they be to help? How sad will they be to see you mired in a public imbroglio?

Chess versus Speed Chess

Crisis managers are all about speed. Trade associations are all about maintaining long-term perceptions and generating trends that serve the common interests of their members. Anybody & Associates must respond at once to negative coverage.

Second, crisis managers are all about calculated risk. They make their living assessing the dangers of action versus the dangers of alternative action --and inaction. Trade associations are risk-averse, as they ought to be.

Third, crisis managers are wholly dedicated. They might draw on industrywide data and "message points," but they do so to serve a single company. Additional benefits for the industry are welcome but not the reason they get hired. By contrast, trade groups will never, and should never, go to bat for a company unless doing so helps the industry as a whole.

And fourth, crisis managers have fungible skills. They need to know something about Anybody's industry, but they do not need to be industry insiders. Often, what they must know to manage an immediate crisis can be learned in a day or so.

Crisis managers play speed chess. Trade associations play regular chess, which brings us to the benefits they do provide.

Some associations provide crisis resources on a relatively timely basis simply because issues arise over and over. They can draw on lessons from chronic lawsuits and crises, creating a repository of references, research and facts.

For companies that are trying to decide when to rely on their trade association in a crisis the answer is either "before," in anticipation of crises, or "later," after the fever of the original crisis has broken.

As part of its association's longer-term efforts to shape public perception and clarify concerns about issues such as deceptive marketing, Anybody & Associates can play a role very much in its own direct interest.

Having been charged publicly as part of the problem, Anybody can now distinguish itself as part of the solution. It does not concede culpability, but it does work to advance industry standards that exceed what's required by law.

As part of the solution, Anybody reaps the benefit of well-earned industry marketing. The implicit message is: "Here is where industry safeguards were perceived to break down and here is where we -- as a company once embroiled in that public discussion -- can and will help the industry permanently clarify and enforce sound business practice."

Richard Levick is President and CEO of Levick Strategic Communications, which protects brands and reputations during crises and litigation. Web site: www.levick.com