So, Your Supply Chain Violates the Geneva Convention

We’re here to help.

Right, so part of your supply chain may or may not rely upon a “brutal regime” that may or may not be using “slave labor” in what some are calling “concentration camps” wherein said regime is alleged to be conducting “ethnic cleansing” slash “cultural eradication” via a supposed combination of “enhanced interrogation” slash “brainwashing” slash “mandatory sterilizations” slash etcetera. Alright. 

We can work with that. 

Supply chains are complex! Your official policy is to rigorously vet all contractors, zero exceptions, exceeding Due Diligence, an industry leader for all the world to see—but of course your oversight can only go so far in these difficult times. Now more than ever! 

You are taking these concerns Extremely Seriously. Upon becoming aware of them you launched a Full Investigation and are cooperating with all appropriate and unspecified authorities. You are wholeheartedly committed to a culture of Safety and Transparency and Not-Torture. Reiterate that your corporate ethos is and has always been unflinchingly Anti-Atrocity.

Is this The Holocaust? This is not The Holocaust. In fact, you may be able to take action against anyone who suggests that this is The Holocaust on grounds of defamation against an upstanding corporate citizen with First Amendment rights of its own. Actually, you should hope that some activist slash Nobel laureate dares to intimate that this is in any way remarkably similar to certain unsavory aspects of The Holocaust, because we can litigate them into a fugue state and their charitable nonprofit into bankruptcy and their whole extended family into temporary housing at which point other potential Threat Actors will think twice about pointing out the multiple parallels between your Situation and several essential elements of The Holocaust. 

Speaking of, under no circumstance should you refer to your Situation as anything other than an Ongoing Matter Currently Under Investigation To Which You Can Speak No Further Due To The Investigation Being Ongoing. 

Is this Rwanda? 

It is not.

Kosovo? 

No sir. 

In times like these, the media trips over itself to lionize “survivors” slash “heroic dissidents” just because their entire families were “disappeared” and/or they had their hands hacked off as punishment for stealing stale bread to feed their starving at-that-point-not-yet-disappeared families. 

Right, onto Deliverables. During ongoing matters like these, we recommend maximum strategic ambiguity. All public statements should be wholly boilerplate slash totally repetitive. Novelty is the enemy. Novelty begets hashtags. Audiences should spend no more than thirty seconds exposed to your Communications Assets before losing interest entirely. We recommend you review all pre-scheduled social media posts and cancel those that in any way reference Corporate Responsibility slash Giving Back slash Bettering Mankind.

Should you decide to retain our services we will be available twentyfourseven threesixtyfive to field inbound inquiries; draft releases, holding statements, and external communications (not to be referred to as “propaganda”); initiate Dialogue with potential Third-Party Allies (not to be named as “yes-men” or “paid sycophants”); pitch sympathetic reporters (these being the very opposite of “state media”); and circulate Zoom links. 

If you absolutely must put a spokesperson in front of a camera ensure that they wear navy or gray and don’t have an accent and are neither too attractive nor too disfigured. Practice your Bridging Mechanisms and Deflection Techniques. Answer the questions that you wish you were asked, not those that have actually been asked. Circulate internal FAQs. Remind your employees of the consequences of violating binding NDAs; consider abruptly firing one of them as a warning to the others. Purge yourself o’ the milk of human kindness. Identify white-glove clients in need of high-touch treatment. Use encrypted DMs. Unsex thyself; stop up the access and passage to remorse, should your gender identity demand it. 

Above all, try and get some rest. 

And of course it goes without saying that should you retain our services we shall direct all correspondence through third-party counsel to qualify it as an Attorney-Client Work Product between yourself and Seventh Circle Strategic Communications. 

Rest assured, this entire conversation has been Privileged and Confidential.

. . . . .

Right, it looks like the next item on the pre-call agenda is the matter of your CEO’s unfortunate company-wide email supposedly containing a large quantity of highly sensitive personal content (henceforth slash forevermore slash ‘till hell freezeth over not to be referred to under any circumstance whatsoever as “dick pics”).