A lot of PR ink has been spilled about the Marks & Spencer cyber attack. The general consensus is that M&S responded well to a difficult situation.
I won't touch on the particulars of M&S's crisis response. But I want to draw attention to one thing: The majority of the PR response was pushed out under the name of Stuart Machin, M&S's CEO.
In fact, M&S sent an email to all their customers explaining the cyber attack — signed off by Machin himself.
At first glance, this might seem par for the course — but you'd be surprised.
Usually, in the face of a crisis, a business's instinct is to put a statement out under the name of the company or, even worse, a faceless "spokesperson for the firm."
The reasons are obvious enough. Faced with a barrage of criticism, the executive team would rather shield their own reputations from being dragged into the story.
With that in mind, it was quite courageous for Machin to front the response personally.
I know that many people, in light of M&S's share price collapsing off the back of the story, will say that Machin's hand was forced. But I have seen many similar situations where the CEO has, nonetheless, tried to find the nearest stone to hide under.
Why was it important to front the apology? Because what was actually facing M&S was a crisis of trust: A crisis of trust among their customers. A crisis of trust among their team members. And, of course, a crisis of trust among their shareholders.
Machin, alongside his comms team at M&S, recognised this in real time. And they responded accordingly.
They asked themselves: Faced with a crisis of confidence, what's the one thing that would help us build the most trust, most quickly?
There are, of course, many answers to this question, including getting out of the starting blocks quickly to fully explain the situation.
But another important answer was recognising that they needed their most prominent executive to front this — personally. That was the best way to start the process of rebuilding trust.
And, actually, to be fair, it seems to have worked.
M&S’s share price is still down, but it's been much lower at different points over the last three months.
A scandal that could have been a terminal drag on the stock seems to have been avoided — at least for now.
PR has added significant, tangible financial value to the company. Which, of course, brings me back to my core message — something which I have spoken about many times before.
I want us, as a PR industry, to stop saying that we're all about driving sales and leads, and speak much more about creating, generating, and deepening trust with stakeholders, even if that doesn't lead directly to an immediate sale.
M&S shows the value of that in action.