Volkswagen: The toughest PR job of 2015

2015 has thrown up some new entries in the 'hardest PR gig' top of the pops

VW admitted to fitting 11 million cars worldwide with a so-called 'defeat device' to fool emissions test (Getty)

Who has the toughest job in PR going into 2016? It is tempting to go for the usual culprits, such as the long-suffering Steve Atkins, head of communications at Chelsea FC (whose main charge Jose Mourinho departed on Thursday), or Guy Esnouf at NPower (which was fined £26m on Friday for the way it treats customers). Organisations like these seem to lurch from crisis to crisis, rarely giving their hard-working PRs much time to build a long-term reputation.

But the past year has thrown up some new entries in the “hardest PR gig” top of the pops. These include Ben Ayers, head of consumer communications at TalkTalk, which, in October, experienced a cyber attack putting the personal details of 157,000 UK customers in jeopardy.

And then there is Thomas Cook. The firm had a torrid year after the new CEO Peter Fankhauser made a late apology in May to the bereaved parents of two children poisoned while on holiday in Corfu in 2006. Last month, Cook parachuted in Alice Macandrew, the former corporate communications director at News Corporation, to start rebuilding the long-term trust lost.

Alton Towers suffered its own crisis in June when a devastating accident hit the Smiler rollercoaster, injuring 16 people. Two victims had to have a leg amputated. Although the park’s owner, Merlin, was praised for the way it reacted and compensated, the doubts about safety have been sown and visitor numbers have not yet recovered.

But at the top of this chart going into the New Year is… pretty much any senior comms executive at Volkswagen. After the car-maker admitted, in November, fitting 11 million cars worldwide with a so-called “defeat device” to fool emissions tests, the CEO resigned and more than a third of its share value was wiped off the stock market. It will take some sterling PR work to restore VW’s lustre as “the people’s car”.