By Vanessa Assis
The image of the company is something as important as sensitive, and representing it means being the “guardian” of its good reputation, a task that may not be so simple, especially when we are dealing with the press, or, in worst hypothesis, when we have to deal with an image crisis.
The spokespeople of companies have the technical and practical knowledge about the operation and values of the company, but, unfortunately, at times, they have no experience to deal with pressure of speaking before an audience. So that they can transmit such information in the best possible way, there is the media training.
An example of how important is a media training is Barrila case. In 2013, the president of the company (that is, someone with massive technical experience about the organization) stated to a radio that a gay family would never star one of the brands campaigns for the company favored the “traditional family”. The repercussion generated a crisis that involved boycott to the products and a word of apology. The damage could have been avoided, though.
Besides avoiding that a crisis is generated by an inadequate speech, knowing how to behave before the press becomes even more essential in cases of an already existing crisis, when the image of the company is compromised. It is part of having a strategy to mitigate the impacts, and it can be crucial to restructure the company’s reputation. The media training suggests the spokespeople that the clarifications must be handled clearly, without exaltations and with the presentation of clear data, as the incorrect interpretation of information may generate a still bigger crisis.
The press training aims to capacitate the representatives of a company as spokespeople, which assumes improvements in several aspects, as losing the fear of speaking or avoiding vices of the language, what must and must not be said and what is the correct posture. But the main goal here is keeping the image built by the organization and maintaining a good relationship with the press.
