We worked to ensure that the restructuring of a UK credit card business, including a 40 per cent reduction of their workforce, was fully understood and limited to factual reports
The challenge
We needed to advise and give practical media and stakeholder support to our client's UK senior leadership team, which was particularly challenging given the state of the UK economy and concerns over the credit crunch.
Our response
We were able to minimise various speculative press enquiries to allow the announcement to go out on the preferred day.
We ran an 'enquiry bunker' on site, manning all outbound and inbound media calls. Messages, timelines leading up to and including the day, statements and Q&As had all been drafted and rehearsed with the senior team in advance.
Given the economic context, we advised actively contacting senior political contacts and key regional officials so that the government, Council, and local MPs were fully briefed in advance of any media comment.
We provided local media with factual, individual briefings, whilst nationals were responded to, as and when they called us.
Results
The media coverage was largely limited to regional media and wires with some national newspapers covering the announcement factually from the news feeds.
Key messages around the scale, and reasons for the decision were clearly communicated, with local media using third-party quotes from our preferred sources.
Feedback from national stakeholders was extremely useful and helped to build more useful foundations for ongoing engagement.
