
Crisp Blog
Topic: Brands at Risk

Time’s up: Five consequences of identifying a risk too late
When a brand crisis hits, time is not on your side. As our Corporate Leaders Risk Survey reveals, CEOs know all too well the high price of identifying and responding to a risk too late. They also recognize the role that digital chatter plays in accelerating risks. When the race is on to prevent a brand crisis, it’s better to be the hare than the tortoise.

CEOs train their attention on the risks that actors and groups pose via social media
CEOs are wrestling with a new form of risk outside their organization’s regular register. Agenda-driven actors and groups, intent on doing harm to brands via social media, are now commanding CEOs’ attention for the first time. How did these groups become top of mind with CEOs and what’s really at stake?

Risk readiness now requires an actor-based intelligence approach
When the World Economic Forum (WEF) came out with their Global Risks Report 2021 earlier this year, it highlighted the need for a greater focus on improving risk readiness as a way for organizations to build resilience. In their view, many organizations’ approaches to risk mitigation looked “increasingly outdated,” adding that “in a world of accelerating challenges, static annual documents need to make room for continuous horizon-scanning for early indicators of change and associated timelines for action.”

Risk and resilience: The duality of digital chatter
Like two sides of the same coin, digital chatter is a vehicle for certain groups to intentionally or unintentionally harm a brand, and also a vital source of intelligence for communications leaders to stay ahead of issues and mitigate crises.

Today’s risk forecast: Uncertainty with a chance of resiliency
Don’t like the weather? In some places they’ll tell you to wait five minutes and it’ll change. The risk landscape isn’t all that different. It changes constantly and the rising frequency of unknown risks makes it difficult to predict when a storm will hit.

Harmful content takes its toll on brands' social media teams
Harmful content has always been a necessary evil when engaging directly with consumers. For most brands, it used to be like cosmic radiation from the sun; always there, spiking periodically, but not terribly hazardous at low doses. Then 2020 exploded, releasing Chernobyl-type levels of contamination that have decimated the growth strategies of social media managers.

Protect against short squeezes and other coordinated efforts
In a move that has now made U.S. national news and gotten the attention of Congress, WallStreetBets, an online agenda-driven group, coordinated purchases that drove up the price of GameStop stock, some 2,000% in less than 30 days. They didn’t stop there, though. They also short squeezed AMC, BlackBerry, and Tootsie Roll, among others.

Avoid fumbling opportunities and score with Super Bowl social media
The blueprint for a modern-day Super Bowl winner is a quick-thinking, opportunistic offense and a dominant, adaptable defense. Brands planning their own scenario for social media activities during the Big Game would be wise to embrace the same scheme this year to overcome unprecedented uncertainty.

The new social media audit is evolving to a risk-aware approach
In any other year, you may have just completed the annual social media audit or are preparing to have one done to assess the effectiveness of efforts on your social channels and identify opportunities for improvement. But if we’ve learned anything from the past year, it’s that we still have to plan for a future where the visibility ahead is limited by a dense fog of uncertainty.

Top brands in corporate responsibility and mastering emerging risks
For 400 American companies, the new year is starting off with a welcome accolade: they have been named to the Newsweek 2021 list of America’s Most Responsible Companies.

Direct threats against brands add new component in reputational risk
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Or...will they?

Early-warning Risk Intelligence allows brands to fully embrace TikTok
TikTok, the addictively simple video-sharing social media platform, was officially the most downloaded app of 2020. They beat out Facebook for the most downloads last year, which represents a three-spot jump for TikTok from 2019.
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