Full Disclosure

Regal Entertainment Group's strategies for reaching investors lie mainly with their website. Questions can be asked with an online form that will be returned with a specific answer or the location to which that information could be found on the site. Then there are the traditional press releases and quarterly conference calls that are common with publicly traded companies. In order to stay connected with the community, Regal has the Regal Foundation. They work with well-established philanthropic groups in the community’s where their theaters are. Like I’ve said in previous posts, this group apparently does a lot working with the important groups like Boys and Girls Clubs, but this involvement is hardly seen on a daily basis. Though they do have a fairly impressive write-up on their website for all the good they do through this effort. They of course have Twitter to communicate with fans, as well, though they could probably do more in terms of customer service.

One of the government bodies they work most closely with is the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA,) which rates films and enforces theaters use of those age guidelines. Also Regal communicates with the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO) and the Inter-Society Digital Cinema Forum to make sure their theaters present a number of open captioned and descriptive video options for hearing and visually impaired viewers. Then there is the Department of Health who deal with the concessions stands in individual cities. The communications with these groups are mandatory so they regulate the interactions. The corporate office is likely the place which meets with such groups.

I think Regal needs to expand their outreach to all individuals. They are a specified company, but in the face of a crisis, being a well-known brand would potentially help gain favor with the public. Keeping up frequent communications with government agencies would be a good first step so that minor infractions wouldn’t occur that might hurt the brand. With the evolving look Regal always utilizes with their new theaters, the best solution for dealing with a crisis would be to take advantage of that constant change. Another approach could be to upgrade the other brands under the Regal label. United Artist Theaters and Edwards Theatres are both owned by Regal. So if a crisis came out for any of the brands, another could increase its exposure to fill the void.

The most important strategy for any crisis is full exposure and immediately addressing issues. If we’ve learned anything with the tons of scandals in the news lately it’s that sitting on a crisis will only make it worse. Fixing the problem followed by immediate efforts to improve the image is essential. Since Regal has their foundation in place, I imagine they would emphasize its existence much more if a question were raised about the company’s character. It almost seems that firing the executives is the general perception of how to handle a crisis. But a lot of time the public and media are just looking for full disclosure and transparency.