Well the world’s greatest golfer has been burned by the publicity surrounding his car crash and his admission that he has let his family down, but more importantly for businesses this affair (no, not Tiger’s) has an important public relations lesson.
That lesson is, if you leave an information vacuum, rumour and speculation will fill it.
That’s what happened in Tiger’s case. He said nothing following the crash, so naturally people started putting two and two together and came up with answers that were amazingly close to four.
Had he or his representative said something straight away ‘It was a silly argument and I drove away in a huff and wasn’t paying attention to my driving. Luckily my wife acted swiftly and bravely to get me out’ or something along those lines, then it would not have killed the story but it certainly would not have dragged on as long as it has.
Silence is not golden in PR terms. It is a lead weight, dragging down those who employ it as a tactic.
If you have a problem in your business, say something. Listen to your PR adviser, and if you haven’t got one, then find one quickly. It is not difficult to put together a statement which will satisfy the media to some extent, and then continue to manage the process. But please, don’t retreat into the black hole of saying nothing. Otherwise, like Tiger, you will find yourself in the deep rough.