Zombie Apocalypse Survival Skills for PR Professionals

Do you have any zom­bie apo­ca­lypse sur­viv­al skills?

I’ve been binge-watch­ing the hit tele­vi­sion show Man vs Wild, fea­tur­ing the cha­ris­mat­ic sur­viv­al expert Bear Grylls.

It makes me wonder:

What role could a PR pro­fes­sion­al play in a zom­bie apocalypse?

Let’s find out:

When the Shit Hits the Fan

Bear Grylls shows us what it takes to eat insects, go under­wa­ter spear hunt­ing, scale down moun­tains, and explore vast gla­ci­er cre­vasses. He can make fire by rub­bing sticks against each oth­er, build­ing shel­ters, and tying crazy knots. 

These are all excel­lent skills to have when our civil­isa­tion goes under. 

But how will your aver­age PR pro­fes­sion­al con­trib­ute when the shit hits the fan? It makes me pon­der this simple question:

When civil­isa­tion fails and the zom­bie apo­ca­lypse comes upon us, will any­one need spin doctors?

Internal Comms for the Zombie Apocalypse

Which skills could a PR pro­fes­sion­al bring to the under­ground bunker briefing?

When brain mat­ter starts hit­ting the pan­ic room vent­il­a­tion and the zom­bies attack, you must stick togeth­er in close-knit teams to survive. 

As a pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­al, you’re used to work­ing in small units con­sist­ing of oddball spe­cial­ists while push­ing them to get the desired results.

Survival PR Skill: Leadership

It’s always bet­ter if the group appoints you as their lead­er rather than rely­ing on self-pro­mo­tion or force.

Excellent com­mu­nic­a­tion skills are the trade­mark of great lead­ers so you may opt for a lead­er­ship role. 

When the advert­isers are done shoot­ing at every­one and everything, per­haps you can take action to secure the group’s approv­al using psy­cho­logy — without a single shot fired. 

Survival PR Skill: Motivation

People rarely know what’s best for them — and a pan­dem­ic vir­us out­break will prob­ably not make any­one behave more rationally. 

You’ll have to find innov­at­ive ways to per­suade the group not to give up, day in and day out. But as a pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­al, you know how to cre­ate incent­ives and win-wins — out of thin air, if need be. 

A work­shop on mis­sion-vis­ion-val­ues around the camp­fire should do the trick.

Survival PR Skill: Listening

So, lots of people are going to per­ish. Lots of people are going to be scared. An exist­en­tial crisis on a glob­al scale will have people ask­ing questions: 

“How could this hap­pen to me?”
“Why did it hap­pen to me?”
“What do I do now?” 

In a world where every­one wants to be heard, a PR pro­fes­sion­al under­stands the inher­ent power of act­ive listen­ing. If people are des­per­ately look­ing for answers, then let them come. 

Sort of like inbound, right?

Strategic Operations for the Zombie Apocalypse

As the dust settles, there has to be some divi­sion of labour. As a stu­dent of human beha­viour, the pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­al can help people under­stand their roles in this brave new and dis­rup­ted world. 

As all PR pro­fes­sion­als know — there’s always a big­ger picture.

Survival PR Skill: Recognisance

Monitoring and ana­lyt­ics are in your blood. The more inform­a­tion you have, the more you can exchange for shar­ing what you know. 

You could take charge of col­lect­ing data and gath­er­ing intel­li­gence to ensure that you con­trol the know­ledge on which decisions are being made. 

After all, inform­a­tion is power.

Survival PR Skill: Strategy

Whether it’s about sur­viv­ing a nuc­le­ar holo­caust or launch­ing a B2B app star­tup in Europe, it’s all about strategy. 

With many dif­fer­ent frac­tions of sur­viv­ors fight­ing dirty and com­pet­ing for lim­ited resources, it’s not per­son­al — it’s PR as usual. 

And if you can get journ­al­ists excited about an app with no users and no rev­en­ue, you’ll fig­ure out the best way to raid a phar­macy store.

Survival PR skill: Organisation

In a post-apo­ca­lyptic world, what would be bet­ter than hav­ing the sur­viv­al skills of Bear Grylls? 

That would be if you had sev­er­al Bear Grylls work­ing for you. 

As with employ­er brand­ing, you must attract the best of the best to your band of sur­viv­ors and provide them with some­thing mean­ing­ful to do. 

Agency exper­i­ence will surely come in handy.

Psychological Warfare for the Zombie Apocalypse

Conflict gets everyone’s atten­tion, and you know this. 

As a pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­al, you’ll likely seek non­vi­ol­ent solu­tions to most prob­lems, but you can still play the aggress­ive game if needed. 

You know from your PR exper­i­ence that it’s either ‘eat’ or ‘be eaten.’

Survival PR Skill: Propaganda

As your groups grow more power­ful, oth­er com­pet­ing loot­ers will try to take you down. 

It might not come nat­ur­ally for a dent­ist or a preschool teach­er to gear up and go to war on fel­low human beings. Questions of mor­al­ity might bog them down. 

Party mem­bers with exist­en­tial angst will need to hear that they’re good and the oth­ers are bad.

A few talk­ing points should suffice.

Survival PR Skill: Disinformation

Having more inform­a­tion than your enemies is good, but hav­ing them rely on false inform­a­tion would be even better. 

Fact-check­ing and double con­firm­a­tions are prob­ably not high on anyone’s to-do list when there’s insuf­fi­cient drink­ing water. 

Maybe you slip your enemies some altern­at­ive facts?

Survival PR Skill: Negotiation

Even if the fin­an­cial sys­tem has col­lapsed, you can rest assured that some cur­rency will be in play. A deep under­stand­ing of people’s needs will make you an asset to the group. 

As a pub­lic rela­tions pro­fes­sion­al, you can nego­ti­ate a retain­er budget in your sleep. A zom­bie apo­ca­lypse is noth­ing by comparison.

Cease-fire agree­ment.
Trade for water.
Hostage exchange.
Making sure Hodor holds the door. 

Don’t worry. We got it.

PR Resource: Communicative Leadership

The Checklist for Communicative Leadership

Being a great lead­er can be daunt­ing. However, with effort (and atten­tion to detail), all lead­ers can prac­tice express­ive and pre­cise communication.

“The single biggest prob­lem in com­mu­nic­a­tion is the illu­sion that it has taken place.”
— George Bernard Shaw

How can you ensure your lead­er­ship is express­ive and pre­cise in prac­tic­al situations? 

As a rule of thumb:

It’s gen­er­ally bet­ter to “over-com­mu­nic­ate” (tol­er­able added effort) than “under-com­mu­nic­ate” (sub­stan­tial added risk).

Make sure to pass these com­mu­nic­at­ive lead­er­ship checks:

“Expressive and pre­cise com­mu­nic­a­tion styles have a stronger link to lead­er out­comes than per­son­al­ity traits extra­ver­sion and con­scien­tious­ness.”
Source: Human Performance ¹Bakker-Pieper, A., & Vries, R. (2013). The Incremental Validity of Communication Styles Over Personality Traits for Leader Outcomes. Human Performance, 26, 1 — … Continue read­ing

Communicative Leadership (Infographic)

Learn more: The Checklist for Communicative Leadership