Join CVM’s Tori Schubert as she takes us through a crash course in crisis communications and breaks down the essentials every business leader needs to know about maintaining a positive reputation in the market. From defining what Crisis PR truly means to sharing battle-tested strategies and real-life examples, this video is your quick guide to staying one step ahead of any potential crisis.
Visit our Crisis PR Agency page to learn more about how Channel V Media helps companies correct and counteract negative narratives in the market.
What Is Crisis PR?
Crisis PR refers to the work a communications team does to manage and shape the public perception and reputation of a company either before a crisis, when they’re in the midst of a crisis or after a crisis. When there is negative sentiment around a company, we want to rebuild trust and make sure that the public knows that the issue will not be a recurring problem.
If it sounds like something only large corporations need to think about, the numbers say otherwise. PwC’s Global Crisis Survey found that 95% of business leaders expect crisis incidents to increase or stay the same in the coming years, and surveys cited by Northwestern’s Medill school show 69% of brands have already weathered a crisis in the past five years. Yet 70% of businesses still have no crisis communications plan, and 29% have no staff assigned to crisis planning at all. Effective crisis communication is the difference between an event that threatens your reputation for a news cycle and one that defines your organization’s reputation for years.
What Is Negative Press?
Negative press could be anything from a faulty product, a lawsuit coming to light, or a comment made by an executive. It could also be aggressive competitor tactics. It can appear in an article in the media or it can ordinate on social media.
How Quickly Can Negative Press Spread?
Negative Press can spread really quickly, especially if it originates on social media. If the negative sentiment gets a lot of attention on social media, publications will typically pick up on it. If it begins as an article, that also can spiral pretty quickly depending on the nature of the article. When this happens, it’s important for companies to mitigate the attention and make sure that it doesn’t go too far out of control. This is where crisis communication and crisis PR comes in.
When Should Companies Prepare a PR Crisis Plan?
It’s important to have a crisis plan in place before a crisis occurs. Once it happens, you need to move as quickly as possible, but your messaging and course of action should be already planned out. You want the message to convey what your company wants to say to the public, which is why it’s so important to develop key messages beforehand. It’s also important to identify where your vulnerabilities are. This will help you predetermine and plan how to respond to existing negative sentiment or potential weak spots.
What Goes Into a Crisis Management Plan?
A crisis management plan is a working document, not a binder that sits on a shelf. The strongest crisis plans we see share four elements:
- A response team and a spokesperson. Decide in advance who assesses the situation, who approves statements and who speaks for the company. One consistent, media-trained voice prevents the conflicting messages that make a crisis worse.
- Key messages and holding statements, drafted early. Pre-drafted press releases and holding statements you customize in the moment keep your response fast and consistent when there is no time for multiple drafts.
- Real-time monitoring. Track social media, news coverage and review sites for shifts in public sentiment, and set thresholds that trigger action — a sudden spike in mention volume or drop in sentiment is your early-warning system.
- A post-crisis review. After the dust settles, document what happened, what worked and what needs to change. This is how effective crisis management compounds: every incident makes the next response better.
For a step-by-step breakdown of what to do once a crisis actually hits, see our companion post: How to Handle a PR Crisis: A Tactical Guide.
Crisis PR in Action: Real-World Examples
When Bud Light’s 2023 partnership with Dylan Mulvaney set off a national backlash, CVM’s Gretel Going sat down with Yahoo! Finance to break down where the brand’s response went wrong — most notably, trying to satisfy everyone and ending up alienating both sides. We turned that analysis into Seven Tips That Would Have Helped Bud Light, a practical look at what a prepared crisis response would have looked like.
The broader case studies tell the same story. United Airlines’ defensive first response to its 2017 passenger-removal video amplified the outrage until the company acknowledged wrongdoing and changed its policies. Apple’s proactive response to the AirTag stalking controversy — software updates, clearer privacy warnings, law-enforcement partnerships — contained criticism while keeping the product viable. And Delta’s 2024 system failure showed the cost of letting a crisis compound: roughly 7,000 cancelled flights and an estimated $550 million loss. (None of these are CVM clients — they’re the industry’s reference points for how response speed and posture shape long-term outcomes.)
Crisis PR in the AI Search Era
There’s a newer reason crisis PR matters more than it used to: AI engines. When someone asks ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity about your company, the answer is assembled largely from earned media coverage — Channel V Media’s 2026 Attention Economy PR Report found that traditional media sources make up roughly 43% of the information feeding AI training. A crisis that dominates your coverage — especially one handled badly — can become part of how AI engines describe your company long after the news cycle ends, repeated in real time to every prospect, investor and job candidate who asks.
This changes what recovery means, and marketers already feel it: 52% say PR directly influences how AI engines present their company. Rebuilding trust is no longer just about the next news cycle; it’s about generating enough authoritative, positive coverage that the AI-engine narrative reflects the recovery rather than the crisis. It’s a core part of how we approach reputation restoration at Channel V Media.
Frequently Asked Questions About Crisis PR
How quickly should a company respond to a PR crisis?
Within hours, not days. The first public acknowledgment doesn’t need every answer — it needs to show the company is aware, taking the situation seriously and actively working on it. Waiting for a complete internal picture before saying anything lets other people define the narrative first, and that early framing is very hard to undo.
What is the difference between proactive and reactive crisis PR?
Proactive crisis PR happens before anything goes wrong: identifying vulnerabilities, developing key messages, pre-drafting holding statements, media-training spokespeople and setting up real-time monitoring. Reactive crisis PR is the response once a crisis occurs: rapid assessment, coordinated statements, media relations and ongoing monitoring of public sentiment. Companies that invest in the proactive side consistently recover faster.
Does a PR crisis affect how AI tools like ChatGPT describe a company?
Yes. AI engines build their answers largely from earned media coverage — Channel V Media’s 2026 Attention Economy PR Report found traditional media sources make up roughly 43% of the information feeding AI training, and 52% of marketers say PR directly influences how AI engines present their company. A badly handled crisis can become part of how these tools describe a company long after the news cycle ends, so modern reputation recovery includes generating enough authoritative positive coverage that AI engines present the recovery, not just the crisis.
Do small companies and startups need crisis PR?
Yes. Smaller companies are often more exposed, not less: a single negative story or viral social media post can represent most of what the public — and AI engines — can find about them. Startups rarely need a standing crisis team, but every company benefits from a basic crisis communications plan: known vulnerabilities, key messages developed in advance and a designated spokesperson.