A Recent journalistic research highlighted a very interesting issue for the healthcare sector, that of the relationship between Patient associations and Pharmaceutical companies.
And like any thorough journalistic investigation, it gave the opportunity to all involved stakeholders to share their side of the story.
In this blog, we are certainly not concerned with the essence of the issue under discussion and the conclusions of the excellent story.
From the point of view of communication management, however, a series of very interesting issues arise, mainly on the question of visibility. That is, whether you should be visible or not when you are asked questions that may be “difficult”.
Obviously there is no one-size-fits-all way to answer the question as each case is unique. However, as a general rule, it always stands that every organization, institution or individual must be visible when the matter concerns them. Is a story that might put you in the spot generally better when published with your opinion included or without it and with the note “they didn’t respond to our questions”?
“Silence” is usually – and not always unreasonably – associated with the view that you want to keep something quiet or hidden. And this, when talking about corporate reputation, is definitely negative. On the contrary, whoever is properly prepared in terms of key messages, is visible and presents a documented case will definitely benefit.
Be that as it may, from our point of view, this report is an excellent case study for the communication management of an issue with the corporate reputation at stake.
