A Covid Smokescreen Protected Organisations In 2021

Wellington PR company Blackland PR is warning that this year’s continued struggle with Covid19 could allow significant issues and organisational failures to again go undetected.

The company identified the COVID-19 traffic light system as the nation’s toughest PR gig in 2021, due to its high complexity and emotion. COVID-19 challenges accounted for half of the top 10 toughest PR challenges for 2021. Vaccines and the Delta lockdowns were the second and third highest ranking challenges.

It says the scale of the Covid crisis has overwhelmed consumers, media and public discourse, providing a smokescreen for incidents and events that would have previously caused significant reputational damage to organisations.

“This was an especially challenging year for people tasked with communicating the government’s pandemic response. Communicating the traffic light system, vaccines and delta lockdowns were some of the toughest PR challenges imaginable - you wouldn’t wish them on your enemy,” Blackland PR Director Nick Gowland said.

“The emotional intensity of people’s reactions to COVID-19 developments and the volume of decisions communicated by Government will this year again mean other issues will escape deep scrutiny.

“Some organisations will use Covid as a smokescreen – an excuse for things that go wrong. Others will know that it is likely that scrutiny will stop as soon as the next Covid issue arises.”

Gowland said big events last year were quashed by the Covid response.

“In a normal year the March Waikato DHB cyberattack would rank first on our annual list. It was of huge public interest over the many weeks it crippled medical services in the region. But it quickly faded from people’s attention as even bigger Covid news replaced it.

“In 2021 Covid-19 was to blame for lockdowns, business closures, and stranded Kiwis. It became a viable, and sometimes accurate reason for organisations to be absolved of responsibility for events they would previously have taken serious blame for – because people were more prepared to understand and forgive. This was probably largely due to Covid sapping the energy and attention of most of us.

“Government decisions on Covid-19 squashed what would have normally been notable issues to a lower level of public focus. Timber shortages, cyberattacks and power blackouts – issues that would have normally required extensive communications – were overshadowed by Government decisions on Covid-19 which wore out the public gaze and offered a smokescreen for organisations which might ordinarily have experienced more heat.”

Gowland said the Covid crisis deserved attention, with each event scoring a near, or close to, perfect storm score for public profile, emotional reaction, impact and complexity.

“The thorniness of these challenges mirror the fact that most of the Government’s pandemic responses broke new ground. That means anticipating five million different reactions and finding ways to persuade every person to understand and implement the traffic light system, take the vaccine, or adhere to lockdowns.”

Mr Gowland said Blackland had developed the PR Challenges list to illustrate how issues were rarely black and white matters.

“While we’re happy to see an end to the blame-game, we worry that the ability to escape responsibility could leave voters, consumers and the public very frustrated.”

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