Sandra Stahl is founder of jacobstahl.
We were just about to launch a bold, differentiating campaign for a new client, a consumer healthcare brand in a “Wild West-type” competitive space, when the customer hotline team reported a call about a fatality from a rare but deadly infection linked to an unnamed product in the category.
While there was no confirmation that the fatality was linked to the product we were working on, this infection, while very rare, is known in the published medical literature and a potential outcome of improper use. Further, there had been a case reported in the recent past that was widely covered in traditional and social media.
While all was in place for a multiplatform, splashy campaign introduction, the client was now on the back foot. At that point, there was only this one phone call to the customer service hotline. However, the risk of the infection being linked to the brand, even if it wasn’t our product that had been used, was high enough to be concerning. And, given what we knew about this infection, this wasn’t the last time it would come up. The client turned to comms for the solve.
Communications is the natural discipline to solve for issues and crises. But being ready for risks is a proactive communications process that begins well before an issue has already raised its head, as it did in this instance. Risk readiness is almost akin to reputation — it requires foundational work and materials, focused, up-to-date awareness of the brand and the brand context, and ongoing nurturing.
This is different from scenario planning, which is analytical and entails the exploration of a variety of “what ifs” that can impact a company or brand. While a standard part of the playbook, one corporate comms leader I know finds scenario planning can be a distraction, taking teams down rabbit holes, and spending time and resources on “left-field scenarios.”
Readiness is focused and operational. This process identifies and monitors specific triggers, in the case of the client above, the risk of a rare infection, and trigger warnings, the call to the hotline. It also involves steps that are executed across the business in advance of an active issue.
Here are five ways to test your risk readiness
- Have you identified the triggers that can derail your brand, campaign or company? Trying to predict for every scenario that can befall a brand can be like throwing spaghetti against the wall. It is a considered standard operating procedure, but the result can sometimes be broad but thin. An alternative is to focus on specific triggers and their related warning signs. Planning for triggers — situations, contrarian voices, competitors, adverse events, misuse, just to name a few — is a different readiness execution that can build faster muscle memory to respond to the effect, regardless of the cause.
- Do you have the information tools in place that will help you monitor and track the triggers and the warnings? Media monitoring, social listening and off-the-shelf LLM platforms are a first step, though the volumes of information can be like “boiling the ocean.” AI-enabled tools designed for readiness offer a combination of data and synthesis that yield the qualitative signals that reveal the presence and absence of certain information, deliver the information you need and can act on.
- Are those on the company frontlines organizationally ready to handle risks? In addition to statements for the selected company spokespersons, the readiness process includes identifying leaders in customer service and sales for risk communications training during a calm period, when you and they are not in the throes of a crisis. Additionally, if key triggers are identified, working statements can be developed in advance and third-party voices and organizations identified and cultivated. There are few worse things than a blank screen, and few external subject-matter experts, as was the case when we were called on to support the consumer healthcare brand during the rare event risk, during a crisis.
- Do your messages connect? Readiness ensures the messages developed, whether for a new campaign, everyday marketing, or a crisis, align. This also ensures language in a bold, new campaign is conceived with the known triggers in mind.
- Is there clear, accurate information about your brand or company already in place and easy to find in a search? AI search and AI chat are consequential environments where reputations are assembled, options are narrowed and decisions begin. Readiness means recognizing that showing up well is not a vanity metric or part of a crisis plan; it is a function that ensures stakeholders, the public and anyone in the world who may search your company or brand can understand you accurately.
“Fortune favors the bold” is one of my favorite phrases. In the case of risk, readiness helps ensure the underlying evidence environment is solid, and strategic control in the event of an issue or crisis is more accessible. It also helps teams across a company or brand ecosystem feel aware as well as psychologically and organizationally prepared. A feeling everyone wants to have during an issue, a crisis and everyday.
