3 PR lessons from the run up to the Tokyo Olympics
The media efforts and crisis comms around the big sports event reveal how the pandemic still drives important messages, even if parts of the globe are starting to make a return.
When faced with a crisis, the clarity, consistency, accuracy, and speed of your messaging is paramount. When applied on a massive scale, like an international, globally-televised sporting event, in the midst of the all-consuming Covid-19 pandemic and its news cycle, that is even more true.
The International Olympics Committee (IOC) and the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizers have unfortunately demonstrated how not to manage a highly-publicized crisis in the 14 months leading up to the Games. As a Bloomberg reporter with an up-close view of the chaos noted, the Tokyo 2020 Olympics team has repeatedly “bungled their messaging time and again.” Its struggles were largely attributed to navigating the ever-shifting guidelines to safely host such a large event, including when and how the games would be held, who could be in attendance, and which safety policies would be required or not.
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