America’s Chief Executives Caught Unprepared For Events of September 11th & Their Aftermath.

A surprising 81% of U.S. Chief Executive Officers say their existing crisis management plans were inadequate to handle
the myriad issues arising from the September 11th tragedy, according to the third annual PR Week/Burson-Marsteller CEO Survey 2001. In addition, 63% of the CEOs surveyed report they have readdressed their plans since the attacks.

The findings of the third annual PR Week/Burson-Marsteller CEO Survey suggest that an effective crisis management strategy is not only important, but that it is vital in the eyes of America’s corporate leaders. In addition, the survey found that CEOs recognize the value of their role in a time of crisis, with 85% of them saying that it’s “very important” or “absolutely vital” that they serve as company spokesperson in a disaster.

“This survey once again underscores the CEO’s vital leadership role in a time of crisis, and the value he or she places on crisis preparedness moving forward,” said Christopher Komisarjevsky, Worldwide President and Chief Executive Officer, Burson-Marsteller. “While the events of September 11th were extraordinary by any measure, we were still surprised by the lack of preparedness,” said Jonah Bloom, editor-in-chief, PR Week magazine. For this year’s survey, chief executive officers from nearly two hundred companies voiced their opinions on a range of PR-related issues, from assessing a CEO’s internal and external communications role in a crisis to finding out plans for promoting products and managing public perception in a soft economy.

Validating the importance of a CEO’s role as a company spokesperson in a time of crisis, a shocking 91% of CEOs surveyed said that it was “very important” or “important” to communicate with “all employees” in the aftermath a tragedy. 74% of CEOs favored “face to face meetings” with employees as “absolutely vital” or “very important” to communicating after tragedy. The second most favored way to communicate with employees was via e-mail (62%).

The PR Week/Burson-Marsteller CEO Survey 2001 also measured how Chief executives would make cutbacks if forced to reassess use of direct mail, advertising, sales promotions or public relations services in a recession. 67% of CEOs stated that if forced to make cutbacks, they would cut direct mail first, while 60% would first reduce advertising. Good news for public relations and corporate communications as the vast majority of CEOs (75%) believed that, if forced to make cutbacks, they would cut PR and corporate communications last.

As a testament to the increasing value of communications, an astonishing 95% of CEOs surveyed stated that they do not expect to reduce communications staff within the next 12 months. When asked which media outlets deliver the greatest impact, CEOs found the top five publications were: the Wall Street Journal (89%), Business Week (61%), Forbes (52%), New York Times (51%) and Fortune (47%).

The survey results can be found on the Web at:

http://www.prweekus.com/us.features/ceo.htm

Note I: Burson-Marsteller (http://www.bm.com) provided partial funding for the study. The PRWeek survey results and
accompanying editorial, however, do not reflect the opinions of Burson-Marsteller or any of its executives. The PR Week Survey is just one of a number of research initiatives which Burson-Marsteller has undertaken in the area of CEO and corporate reputation, including Burson-Marsteller’s own proprietary research studies on CEO Reputation.

Note II: The CEO Survey was conducted in October by Impulse Research. Written questionnaires were sent to CEOs at all Fortune 1000 companies and their subsidiaries. Of those polled, 67% were from companies or business units with revenues less than $1 billion and 33% were from companies with revenues in excess of $1 billion. The sample of 206 CEOs has an accuracy of +/- 6% at a 95% level of confidence.