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Football was an integral part of my childhood. Growing up, my grandfather, brother, father, and I would glue ourselves to the TV whenever Manchester United took to the field. I still remember the words of the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson:
“Attack wins you games, defence wins you titles.”
These words were forever imprinted in my mind and I always felt that they applied to whatever it is you do in life. 15 years later, I found myself working in PR, a field where quick thinking and instincts can be the difference between glory and despair; just like football.
In football, defences that win titles are normally based on five crucial points:
These five points can guarantee you a winning team. But how can it be applied to PR?
A good public relations agency is responsible for making their clients seem as solid, successful, and reliable as possible. Though an agency is at the forefront of protecting and building reputations through the media outlets at their disposal, in this day and age, where the potential of anything going viral within a matter of a few hours, it is very important to have a firm that is ready to tackle any crisis aggressively and head-on, not unlike Maldini and Nesta of AC Milan fame.
But how does all of the above relate to PR?
The basis of football is to outscore your opponent, but the defence is not just limited to the competency of the defenders. Defence in football is simply how a team, as a whole unit, prevents the ball from going into their goal, not unlike how a good agency will respond to any Public Relations crisis using whatever tools and means necessary.
One of the most crucial rules of crisis management in PR is to avoid knee-jerk reactions. Companies are usually emotionally invested, which may lead to frenzied responses that further deteriorate an already bad situation. In football, should your team concede an early goal, the steps to take are similar to the ones you would during a PR situation:
Former Chelsea and Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho is world-renowned as quite possibly the best defensive coach to have ever graced the game. His teams won many titles over the years and his mantra to success was based on a major principle:
Similarly, a good PR agency needs to make sure it can work on the communication plan of its client and eradicate all the unnecessary errors, while building a strategy to publish positive news about a represented company. Of course, there will always be instances where these two parallels won’t go hand in hand, but, more often than not, a good defence and a PR firm with the same adjective can be the difference between winning and losing.
Adnan Wahidi is Account Executive Intern at Cicero & Bernay Public Relations, an independent PR agency headquartered in Dubai offering new-age public relations consultancy to the UAE and across the MENA region. | www.cbpr.me