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Kristy Fair

Media Relations & crisis management

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Crisis Communications and Issues Management

From reporting on to managing them, there’s no crisis I haven’t seen – from business continuity to weather/natural disasters to community. Here

Here’s a sample:

  • product recalls with the FTC – exploding batteries
  • product quality issues with field corrective actions
  • supplier disruptions with fires at manufacturing facilities
  • fair labor conditions for factory workers
  • cybersecurity and JIRA ticketing system breach by hackers
  • large scale layoffs
  • tariffs
  • environmental practices
  • school violence, threats and death
  • racial disparities across systems
  • train derailment and chemical plant explosion forcing evacuations
  • hurricanes and inclement weather

Superfish

The Superfish software crisis hit Lenovo at an inopportune time – during the start of the Mobile World Congress, an important tradeshow and product launch for the company. I triaged corporate communications strategy and support from Barcelona along with leadership in RTP so our message on the ground was consistent with response at our headquarters. Our response to what was being conveyed as “third party spyware” software loaded onto Lenovo PCs consisted of several media statements with immediate action to remove the preinstalled software with automatic fixes/free McAfee virus monitoring and long term development of a security review board within the company to scrutinize any third party applications. We monitored media coverage and social sentiment online. Our apology, humility, and “taking it on the chin” was the right response, and our commitment to doubling down on security going forward helped shorten the media cycle and the depth of criticism. We made sure our customer letter from our SVPs echoed the same key messages in our media statements.

Wayne County Schools

During my time as Public Information Officer (PIO) for Wayne County Schools, NC, I encountered so many crisis and issues management situations. At the time, advanced text message deployment services were expensive and out of reach for many school districts, so I relied on email and printed letters sent home in student backpacks. I served as spokesperson for the local media, providing written statements and giving interviews. I managed many acute situations including:

  • Teacher misconduct
  • Student contagious illness in the classroom
  • Threats of gang violence at a high school football game
  • A hit list found at a middle school and copycat situation at the neighboring high school
  • Student drowning on a field trip
  • Racial imbalance of student population

Relaunching Yoga with the Silhouettes

Situation: The Consumer Electronics Show was a major venue for launching Lenovo’s new products every year. We often would announce products months before they were commercially available. My team secured loads of coverage on our IdeaPad Yoga 11S convertible laptops, but now we needed to relaunch the product several months later, and generate more coverage.

Task: Relaunch a product that’s already been announced and received tech trade and international media coverage. There’s no new news other than the product is hitting the market.

Results: In addition to owned and earned content, we generated a long term partnership that allowed us to test our products in the field and leverage this organization for continued endorsement and communications activities.

Action: My team found a creative way to relaunching the laptop, emphasizing its unique bendable design by partnering with a group as unique as our laptop – The Silhouette, who had recently been near winners on America’s Got Talent. We created a video that told the Yoga story and helped contribute to the group’s dancers college funds.

I had so much fun filming this with the dance team at their studio in Denver, CO. The money we paid them for producing this video went to fund the dancer’s college education, so it was a win-win for us all. I even tried it myself. The one that won – The Yoga 11S. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We rewarded the winner with Lenovo swag.

Result: The video generated more than 100,000 views organically and teams across the company used in in a variety of channels, from tradeshows to kickoff events. We ran a contest on social media, asking our fans to suggest names for the video.

Launching Lenovo’s Commercial Internet of Things

Situation: One of my responsibilities at Lenovo focused on communications for the newly established Commercial Internet of Things (CIoT) group. This incubator group was tasked with creating solutions that combined Lenovo and other technologies into workflow solutions for industries.

Task: Launch the group’s first commercial offering for retail.

Action: I developed a multi-pronged external and internal communications plan consisting of:

Watch the video.

Result: We achieved the goal of securing media coverage across the tech trades and generating awareness across the rest of the company’s 60,000 employees about the purpose and mission of this group.

Storm Chasers Use ThinkPads

Situation: While Lenovo dominated media coverage in traditional tech trades, we needed to expand the type of people who were talking about us – not just individual influencers, but credible organizations with authority.

Task: We identified and developed a relationship with the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR) in Boulder, Colorado. These researchers were profiled on the Discovery Channel’s TV show Storm Chasers.

Action: What an incredible opportunity to get Lenovo products placed (no guarantee) on the show without having to pay for product placement. Spoiler alert – yes, they were included in one of the seasons. We donated and outfitted CSWR’s trucks and research center with laptops, desktops, monitors, and hard drives – the full gamut.

Results: Following a PESO approach, we captured photos and video for our owned content channels – our newsroom, Facebook, LinkedIn, X and others. We seeded upcoming products with them and got them to field test them. Then we created videos showcasing the durability of our latest and greatest.

And we even brought the DOW (doppler on wheels) to CES and did interviews with the team and journalists at the show. What an incredible partnership.

On the owned side, we facilitated dozens of media interviews and ride alongs.

We conducted a satellite media tour with local TV stations across the U.S. at the start of tornado season. This gave us a great news hook, and with coaching, our spokesperson, Joshua Worman from CSWR, naturally worked in mention of Lenovo ThinkPads.

With shared, our Storm Chaser friends amplified our story through their channels and connections.

And with paid, we promoted the heck out of the relationship through testimonials and digital ads.

I was fortunate enough to spend several days in Colorado with the team, waiting, and waiting for storms to pop up across tornado alley. While I struck out (not even an F0), I learned a ton and captured some incredible moments.

What’s a Desktop Got to Do with the World’s Largest Furniture Fair?

Situation: On first blush, not much. But, if you take a good look at Lenovo’s Horizon PC (dubbed the coffee table PC), you can start to see the connection. My challenge as the PR lead for product communications at Lenovo was to relaunch a desktop that we previously announced at the Consumer Electronics Show

Task: I needed something more coverage-wise than stories saying, “hey, Horizon is now on sale.” So I challenged my PR agency to be creative, and together, we came up with an unexpected, disruptive campaign involving social media, influencers and media relations.

Action: The furniture bake off:

  • We put three furniture designers to the test after an open submission process. We gave them $5,000 each to create a unique piece of furniture that represented their take on the Horizon.
  • All three would exhibit at the International Furniture Fair in NYC – an unexpected place for a PC company to show up
  • And they would get PR and social amplification from Lenovo for their creations

Result: We got three phenomenal pieces of furniture to use at future events, media coverage with a new news hook, and rich video content to use online.

Here’s a behind the scenes video we filmed with Input Creative.

And our behind the scenes with Straight Line Designs.

And our behind the scenes with Francois Chambourd.

View the gallery of the top three winners who exhibited with us at ICFF.

A Sweet Way to Reannounce SMB laptops

Situation: Already announced at the Consumer Electronics Showe, we needed a second round of press coverage for the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge line for small to medium businesses when the laptops went on sale. Departing from ThinkPad’s signature black, these laptops came in red or silver, in addition to classic black.

Action: Beyond the press release announcing availability, and to get another swipe at media coverage, I partnered with a small business doing novel things in NYC – the city’s first cupcake food truck.

Task: We told the story of how Lev Ekster relied on his Lenovo Edge laptop to run his business, and we paired it with a special promotion for ThinkPad cupcakes the day of the filming. I interviewed Lev and spent time in the truck while we may different stops in the city and filmed. The most popular flavor of cupcake? Red velvet. We even had a cupcake giveaway if you said the magic word – ThinkPad. I remember this one vividly because in addition to Lev being a really cool guy, I flew up and back to NYC in a day – a long, productive day.

Results: We achieved a second round of media coverage that advanced and humanized the story featuring Lev. Here’s a sample:

Watch our customer story.