Lost in the euphoria of this month’s Chile mine rescue -- indeed, the most unreported part of the entire story -- was the unprecedented public relations risk that Chilean President Sebastian Pinera took in exposing the ongoing, untested rescue to live, wall-to-wall, worldwide, immediate TV coverage.
President Pinera’s public relations strategy was not only breath-taking but counter to any experienced public relations crisis wisdom.
Specifically, the first rule in any crisis is to assume the worst case, consider the downside and “downplay expectations,” so that the public’s hopes -- and your own credibility -- are not crushed by unexpected problems or tragic consequences.
In the case of the Chile mine, seasoned public relations counsel would have advised the president to set up a time and space barrier between the media and the miners ascending to the earth’s surface after a 700-meter capsule ride through damaged earth.
Such public relations counsel made eminent sense.
- What if the capsule had conked out or malfunctioned with a miner inside as the world watched?
- What if a miner took ill, passed out or worse on the televised ride up the shaft?
- What if, god forbid, a miner arrived unconscious when the hatch opened at televised arrival?
- Shouldn’t we take whatever preemptive action necessary to prevent the world from witnessing, in live, gory detail, an out-of-control, spiralling human catastrophe?
But President Pinera threw such cautious counsel to the wind, rejecting it out-of-hand and letting the world -- and 1,600 on-scene reporters -- witness the rescue in real time. As a consequence, President Pinera, little known to anyone outside Chile only a week ago, is today hailed as the essence of a competent and courageous world leader.
Such was the success of his stunning, counter-intuitive public relations victory.
