Fishburn Hedges

11.03.2011

I was quietly rather pleased to read about the revival of Reader’s Digest in this week’s edition of PR Week; apparently, it’s had its first rise in circulation for 17 years.  And the reason I was pleased was not because I have a secret affinity for the magazine - although it has come a long way from being the dusty tome that most of us still associate with dentists' waiting rooms. Rather, it was because this time last year I was part of the team helping to manage the communications as the business went into receivership. I then worked with it again when it was brought into new private equity ownership.

There is nothing like crisis management for being at the sharp end of communications.  The stakes are invariably high from a business point of view, but the true intensity is because of the real, immediate difference it can make to individuals. When you are working with a management team to help them craft the messages that will tell their employees that the Administrators have been called in, and the FAQs cover issues such as “will I still get paid this month?”, you care passionately about getting it right and trying to make the outcome as positive as possible.

Reader’s Digest was a great example of why it was so important to get it right.  The business was basically a good one; the problem was the all-too-familiar one of the cost of the pension scheme.  If the business could get through the Administration without too much collateral damage in terms of lost employees, customers or suppliers, then its ability to bounce back would be greatly enhanced.  So the objective of our work was twofold – help the business stay in good shape during the period of uncertainty, while making it as attractive as possible to future bidders. 

In the hurly-burly of a crisis management, you sometimes can’t be sure whether you are really delivering for the long term or not.  So to see something as tangible as the positive story about Reader’s Digest’s this week is a great reminder of why all those late nights in the office were worth it.

Posted by Fiona Thorne