FleishmanHillard extends global crisis practice with focus on social-media speed

ASIA-PACIFIC - FleishmanHillard has expanded its global crisis practice with agency-certified global experts who will apply a new, proprietary methodology to crises driven "at the speed of social media".

by Sophie Chen | 07/15/2013

The crisis practice is led by a trio of the agency’s senior crisis experts, drawing on the experiences of FleishmanHillard’s International Advisory Board (IAB) and partnerships.

The practice in Asia-Pacific will be led by Brian West, with a team of 20 counsellors. West was appointed as managing director and partner, reputation management, Asia Pacific in February 2012. Prior to that he ran Burson-Marsteller Australia for more than four years.

Tim Beecher leads the practice in the Americas, while Harald Simons heads the practice in EMEA.

“Companies in Asia-Pacific don’t have social media in the heart of their crisis plan,” West told Campaign Asia-Pacific. “They usually have slow response to crisis, use traditional methods, and rely on in-house resources.”

Social media must be a primary crisis response tool because a company response must be delivered at the same speed as the audience response, he said.

The practice, according to FleishmanHillard, helps clients protect their reputations through the company's proprietary A.R.C. (assess, resolve, control) methodology and FH2020 (a collection of detection, monitoring, insights and reporting tools in 190 languages). There is also a training and certification process for all practice members.

| crisis management , fleishmanhillard