Crisis Simulation Game

“Management Control-Simulation in the Physical World and the Social Media” | ADandPRLab | Panteion University

In the frame of our course “Advertisement and Public Relations VI: Management Control-Simulation in the Physical World and the Social Media” that took place at Panteion University under the supervision of Professors Betty Tsakarestou and M. Xenou, we were given the opportunity to be part of a crisis simulation game that developed in 4 days and act like the real Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs that deals with a complicated situation.

Here is the story that was given the first day:

“Due to the importance of Brexit matter, an English committee is visiting Athens in order to discuss the burning issue. Head of the committee is the minister of foreign affairs of the UK, Mr. Paul Jones. The committee stayed in ASTY hotel, located in Athens, and because of their busy schedule, they spent the whole day in the hotel, discussing with the Greek ministry. The organization responsible for the hotel’s catering is UBIS CATERING HELLAS. On 16th of January, the Ministry in charge is informed by Mr. John Malcom, member of the English committee, that Mrs. Beth Carbon, spokesperson of the committee, is feeling sick, having stomach disorder and being feverish since last night. The doctor of the hotel believes that this comes from food poisoning, but the results of medical exams will not come out until tomorrow. It seems that the committee had dinner at 8pm in hotel’s restaurant. “

So, this was the beginning of our story. We had to handle the situation as immediate as possible and communicate with every person and organization that played a role in this case, included the UBIS CATERING HELLAS and journalists by newspaper Kathimerini. Our primary goal was to reassure that the integrity and the public image of Greece wouldn’t be stained in the European political world. At the same time, we had to reassure Greek citizens that the issue is being under control and so answers will be given. In the whole procedure, the newspaper Kathimerini did not help in our attempt to solve the problem quietly but, on the contrary, they enforced the fear of an unsupervised country and promoted the idea that the Greek Government takes no action in order to solve the issue that has occurred.

Our story unraveled in the next days as we, as Foreign Minister, had to make all the necessary steps to examine the causes of Mrs. Beth Carbon’s illness, struggling at the same time so as to calm the social media that also characterized the incident as an intimidating action. Greek Foreign Minister tried to be politically correct in handling the situation by checking through national entity the food served that night, by constantly mollifying and informing the public about the results of its surveys and its next actions and by explaining the security measures that had been taken so there could be no possibility of intimidating action. The crisis simulation game ended with a live debate between the three entities, UBIS Catering, Foreign Minister and the media.

In our perspective, it was a great experience, as we had to face a real time crisis and come up with solid states about the issue. We tried to think thoroughly on how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would actually react in such a situation and we made progress, following everything that we have learnt from Mrs. Xenou’s lesson. We responded to this challenge by being focused and acting professionally, as we made official states in time, once receiving and analyzing the new data. Our actions included daily press releases, a personalized video by the spokesperson of the Ministry and a given interview to journalists. In order to successfully complete the task, we interacted with our colleges through a group page in Facebook, that was created for the purpose of our Crisis Management course.

[Η ΚΑΘΗΜΕΡΙΝΗ (Crisis Management/Panteion University)]

We would like to thank Mrs. Betty Tsakarestou and M. Xenou for giving us the chance to live this vivid experience which helped us realize the difficulties of the real scenery in crisis management and the difficulty in making critical decisions when facing a critical situation like the aforementioned. We found this crisis simulation game really interesting and most of all, we certainly had a good time in these 4 days.

Our Team:

Korina Simeonidou Marilyn Koutonias Dimitra Giannakopoulou Eleni Protopapa Liana Kollia Marios Joseph Aimilia Kapanou