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Section 2.7 of the AANA Code of Ethics requires advertising to be clearly distinguishable as such. Ad Standards applies it across all media and notes it is particularly relevant where advertising appears alongside organic content. Sponsored articles, branded content and paid commentary are advertising, and the audience has to be able to tell.

The test is practical rather than technical: could a reasonable reader tell this was paid for? A label in small grey type at the bottom of an article does not do the job. Where the arrangement involves free products, hosted travel or event access rather than a payment, the disclosure obligation still applies.

Anyone can complain to Ad Standards about any ad in any medium, and a single complaint is enough to open a case. If the Community Panel finds a breach, the advertiser is expected to modify or remove the material and must respond within five business days. An independent review is available to the advertiser and the original complainants, but requests have to be made within ten business days of the decision notice.

A media release is not exempt from the Australian Consumer Law because a journalist wrote the final story. Claims in it about performance, market position, safety, origin or environmental impact are representations the business made, and the ACCC can ask the business to substantiate them.

Australian defamation law is the other constant in PR work. Statements about competitors, former employees, suppliers or identifiable individuals carry real exposure, and so do statements made by a spokesperson in an interview. Agencies should know when to stop drafting and tell the client to get legal advice.

Two more areas need specialist handling. Anything touching a matter before a court requires care about contempt. Anything that could be market-sensitive for a listed company needs to go through the company's disclosure process before it reaches a journalist, not after.

It starts with something worth reporting. Australian newsrooms are small and under pressure, and a release announcing a new website will not run anywhere. Data the business owns, a genuine local angle, a customer story or a response to something already in the news are the usual routes in.

Then targeting: which journalists, at which outlets, cover this subject, and what have they written in the last month. Agencies that pitch from a purchased media list rather than from actual reading are why journalists ignore most of what they receive.

Delivery is pitch, follow-up, interview preparation and then support while the story runs. Agree in advance who speaks, what the approved messages are, and what happens if a journalist asks something outside them. The answer is never to improvise on the record.

Most reputational incidents at Australian businesses are not scandals. They are a safety incident, a data breach, a distressed customer with a large audience, a regulator's notice or a supplier failure. What turns them into a crisis is delay and inconsistency, not the underlying facts.

Put the basics in place before you need them: who is authorised to speak, who is told first, where the contact list lives, and a holding statement that can go out within the hour while facts are still being confirmed. If a breach of personal information is involved, notification obligations under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme run on their own timetable and are not a communications decision.

Ask a prospective agency what they would do in the first hour, and what they have actually handled. Agencies that have never worked a live incident tend to reach for reassurance rather than for the sequence of steps that gets a business through one.