Are British PR agencies helping Zelensky? Here are crisis management lessons we can learn from Ukraine
By Jim James, Founder EASTWEST PR and Host of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur.
“Let’s remember Zelensky is an actor. He’s a comic and an actor. And he’s being given lines to read. The people providing those lines to Mr. Zelensky are two public relations (PR) firms in London who are working with Ukrainians to craft the message coming from Zelensky, which is largely directed to the West. And, again, this is war propaganda ran out of London and Washington to create an effect.”
This is what Dennis Small said on a Middle Eastern TV show. It was taken from Twitter, where I found it was posted by someone called Navsteva.
I wanted to share this in the latest episode of The UnNoticed Entrepreneur because we’re so full of the war propaganda. Certainly, here in the West, we’re seeing more of Zelensky on every media — TV, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram among others. He’s dominating the airwaves with the messages that we in the West believe in accordance with our values.
But what Dennis is saying is that all this is actually being crafted and scripted out of London. For those of us who might have been thinking and admiring the level of preparation that the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has been putting out (for example, using infographics), here’s a piece of news that, maybe, the home of PR which is Britain is helping in some way or another.
Dennis is the Ibero-American Editor of the Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), a Washington-based magazine founded by Lyndon LaRouche who’s an economist and a financier. What they and Dennis are saying is that actor and comedian Zelensky’s war propaganda script is written by two PR firms in London. I took a look to see if this is true.
Ukraine’s Communications Support
It turns out that all the way back from the 28th of February, the global PR industry has been quite public about pledging communications support for Ukraine. And the Ukrainian MFA said that they’ve been “overwhelmed” by these offers of communications support.
Image from Unsplash
This is according to a report on Provoke Media, which is a UK-based worldwide PR news platform. In this story, it says that associates from London and from the PRCA (which is the professional body here in the UK for the agency world) have had over 150 offers of help.
This doesn’t surprise me, really, because I’ve also been trying to reach out to people who I know in Russia and people who are Ukrainian to see how we can communicate to share information coming from Ukraine to other social networks — how we can daisy-chain the content supply.
In the report, PRCA Director General Francis Ingham was quoted saying, “We’ve been privileged to help co-ordinate efforts to support the Ukrainian Government in the last few days. Let’s be under no illusion, Russia is a pariah state. Its actions in Ukraine are an attack on humanity. Every corner of business and society must send the strongest possible message to Moscow.”
He further said: “As an industry, we have a collective duty to fight Russian disinformation and support Ukraine.”
And what’s happened is that the MFA has created a dedicated website. I thought it’s quite interesting that they’ve done that and there are some lessons in this for anybody who’s running a company that has a crisis management strategy.
Dennis is absolutely right that Zelensky and the team are getting help. Are Western PR firms writing the script? I’m not sure. I can’t find a record of anyone doing that. But the consistency in speed and the way that the messages have been crafted for local audiences — whether it’s references to Winston Churchill when he’s addressing the UK parliament or to Theodore Roosevelt when he’s talking to America during World War II — plainly show that Zelensky is being supported in ways that make this look like the world’s greatest PR campaign.
By contrast, we know that Putin feels impenetrable and doesn’t really care. His own PR campaign seems to rely on people like Nevsteva who are basically doing their best to put down any comments or to raise up comments like that of Dennis’.
A Website Dedicated to the War
On the website that the MFA created, it says, “Russia Invaded Ukraine. Why.” It has a map of Russia all in red and then it has Ukraine in yellow. Ukraine obviously looks not even 1/20th of the size of Russia. At the time of writing, it’s the 43rd day of the attack, as stated on the website. It’s a very simple yet effective graphic.
It also has “How Can You Help” and there are three options: “Support Ukraine,” “Donate to Ukraine,” and “Join the Foreign Legion.”
Screengrab from war.ukraine.ua
On the left-hand side it has a news feed to show the situation in Ukraine. This is being updated about every 15 minutes to an hour. However, it doesn’t say where it’s from. It’s like a Twitter feed but it doesn’t seem to be powered by Twitter per se.
Then, there’s also “30 Days of War.” There, we’ve got a picture of a firefighter helping an old lady out of a burning building. There’s also “The country of ultimate freedom,” which is a film.
Screengrab from war.ukraine.ua
The website also has a section called “Ukraine War in Pictures.” It features a photo of a six-year-old boy at his mother’s grave. It’s pretty heartbreaking. There’s also a photo captioned “Farewell with Ukrainian photojournalist Max Levin in Kyiv. He disappeared on March 13 and was found killed because of two shots from Russian occupiers.”
Screengrab from war.ukraine.ua
Halfway down the website, there’s a section for the media. It says: “As a media professional, find here verified information on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and use our media kit for the global united voice. Media requests to mfa.ukraine@gmail.com.” There’s also a statement that goes “Share the truth about Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
Underneath that, you can find “What Russia says and what it actually means.” It’s information about the disinformation that’s coming out of Russia. For example, “Russian occupants say: Limited military occupation. It means: All-out attack. Missile strikes, air and land invasion, civilian targets, cities and infrastructure included.” These are in Instagram-size format.
What they’re doing very easily and very well is creating content for anyone who wants to share it. You can simply download the image and share it.
Screengrab from war.ukraine.ua
Below that is “Defenders of Freedom” where they got three columns of human heroes — a 15-year-old girl from Mariupol who spent two weeks filming events in her hometown; a journalist and PR specialist named Margaryta who joined the ranks of the territorial defense forces; and a Time magazine cover featuring a mother and daughter who managed to get in touch with their rescuer.
Screengrab from war.ukraine.ua
Below that, it says, “141 countries support Ukraine.” There’s a map of the world depicting the countries supporting Ukraine in blue, Ukraine in yellow, and Russia and the rest in white.
Underneath that is a call to action, “Follow Us.” There are buttons for Facebook and Instagram. There’s also one for Spotify. There’s also a button you can click on to see Ukraine before the war.
Screengrab from war.ukraine.ua
What’s nice is that they even have an accessibility menu powered by UserWay. You can adjust contrast, pause animation, or make the website dyslexia-friendly. You can also adjust the text alignment among many other things. They’ve really managed to make the website very user-friendly.
Screengrab from war.ukraine.ua
And what I’m also interested about, from a PR point of view, is that if you go to the part where it says you can use their media kit, the button goes straight to a Google Drive. In there, they’ve got different folders — World’s support, Visuals, Videos, Useful information, Press releases, International Legion of Defense, and Editorials.
Screengrab from Google Drive
If you click on Editorials, there’s a document named “Why is Russia invading Ukraine.” If you look at the Visuals folder, you’ll find six visuals. In the Videos folder, there’s a big stack of video including “30 Days of Full-scale War.” It has lots of short videos and video clips that you can use.
Screengrab from Google Drive
What they’ve got on this Stand with Ukraine kit is verified information. Inside the Useful Information folder, there are these documents — Call war a war, Correct wording, Donate to Ukraine, Support Ukraine, and Verified and official sources of information. If you open the “Correct wording” document, for instance, you can see that it has texts in red, green, and black.
Screengrab from Google Docs
The document explains wordings such as “Annexation of Crimea,” “Reunification of Crimea with Russia.” It also states that “such Russian clichés like ‘referendum in Crimea’ or ‘will of the people of Crimea’ are absolutely unacceptable.”
What they’re doing is that they’re translating Russian content and they’re putting the English-language translation for those people who might want to use it.
A Case Study on Crisis Management
For me, the reason that the website is interesting is that it’s a great example of crisis management.
For those of us who might be facing a situation where there could be a crisis in our own companies or where we’re asked to give advice to people, this idea of having a dedicated crisis management website is really amazing. It’s loaded with assets that are easy to share in multiple formats and across multiple platforms. It’s also kept updated through a dynamic news tracker. Though I noticed that they don’t have a Twitter button for some reason, they do have Spotify. It shows that you can even find the MFA on Spotify.
What we’re seeing from the MFA in Ukraine is a very sophisticated program.
Interestingly enough, their Facebook page only has 199,000 followers at the time of writing. Zelensky on Twitter has 5.9 million followers. Now, if we go to their Facebook, it has a rather sad picture of a dog staying with its owner killed by the Russian invaders. The person was obviously shot and is dead on the sidewalk with his bicycle underneath him. The dog is still attached to the man and it’s lying there waiting for him.
It’s very tragic, of course, but what the Ukrainians are doing is bringing the war to us in real-time. And one of the abiding memories of this war will be how the Ukrainians are professionally running their communications program.
Wrapping Up
If Dennis is correct and British PR firms are helping Zelensky, then what I may be inclined to say is that everyone has a role to play. It doesn’t matter if you can carry a gun or shoot a weapon. There are many other weapons out there. And as we’ve seen, the war for hearts and minds around the world is one of them — and public relations is playing a big role.
Image from Unsplash
If you’re running a company, regardless of your position on the war, you and we can all learn from what’s happening from a PR and social media perspective — in terms of having a dedicated, real-time, and multi-platform campaign, which helps other people to share the news.
Really, what the Ukrainians have done so well is that they have enabled other people who are interested in sharing about the war. And they do so by providing all the assets in real-time and in formats that are easy to share.
In my SPEAK|PR program, I talk about amplification. It’s about using technology and creating compelling content that is easy for people to understand and share. And the Ukrainians are winning that war.
In your own business, if you’re to learn anything from the Ukraine war, this could be one of the lessons. But more importantly, what I’ve shared through this podcast could be something that you can also use to share the horrors of the war with your community. Perhaps, together, we can all help turn the tide more quickly.
Personally, I’m finding it quite hard to stay focused on my normal job. The sort of preoccupation with this war and its horrors is difficult to overcome. My podcast is about getting noticed. And in the context of what we’re all living through at the moment, I also need to show some respect and give some love and energy to these people and see if there’s any way that this podcast and I — who am standing here in the safety and security of Somerset in my garden shed — can help. I’m sure you also feel the same.
This article is based on a transcript from my podcast The UnNoticed Entrepreneur, you can listen here.
Cover image by Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash