Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

...Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway has drawn the ire of local residents and even the premier for what has been described as a slow, largely unilingual, and even tone-deaf response to the tragedy.Ed Burkhardt, the president and CEO of the railway's parent company, Rail World, Inc., arrived on the scene Wednesday, nearly five days after the derailment incinerated the town centre.

He commented to a TVA television reporter beforehand that "I hope that I don't get shot at. I won't have a bullet proof vest on."Quebec Premier Pauline Marois said she understood Burkhardt didn't speak French, but felt he could have arrived on the scene earlier."It's a completely deplorable attitude from the company," Marois said in Quebec City....

Marketing communication has the potential to work effectively as issues management because it is a proactive, ‘friendly’ mode of communication.

and may not necessarily raise suspicious hackles from stakeholders.

Certainly, the marketing communication dimension of business communication, in the context of issues management, may have been glossed over quite significantly.

Marketing communication is an unusual discipline, if indeed it is a discipline. I tend to think of it as a set of tactical mechanisms that fall under both marketing and public relations.