PR Crisis or Brand Shock?

A PR crisis involves more than just a negative news cycle. Many brands which are frequently in the news suffer from occasional damaging headlines.  Often these cause sleepless nights for the PR team but amount to nothing as the media spotlight shifts elsewhere. Sometimes, though, they gather pace and have real economic consequences, devaluing the brand, impacting consumer consideration, reducing sales revenue and even affecting market value.

The question is, in the heat of a negative news cycle, with the press office fielding relentless journalist enquiries and pressure from the boardroom to ‘set the record straight’, how can you differentiate between a PR crisis which will quickly blow over and a deeper brand shock that might inflict lasting damage?

The answer is not traditional media monitoring. This only picks up what the media is interested in. Measuring the volume and sentiment of articles is a very poor indicator of how consumers and other stakeholders will respond. News is a catalyst for a crisis or brand shock, but it is far from the full story. In a negative news cycle, we need reliable and immediate data to understand:

1. The news that was published

2. The news that people saw and engaged with

3. How this changed perceptions and behaviour (if at all).

A lack of robust data means companies are often flying blind as they try to navigate damaging media headlines. Metricomm’s audience-centric evaluation provides near real-time insight into the themes and issues in media coverage that are prompting more people to engage with the news. When the size of audience engaging with a damaging topic increases exponentially, we know we are dealing with a real crisis. From that point, we provide alerts and regular updates to help internal teams manage the situation in a way that doesn’t add fuel to the flames. We can also combine our media data with other data that evidences consumer perceptions and behaviour, supporting you to mitigate possible commercial downside.

Want to know more about the Metricomm Headline Risk Framework? Complete the form below or drop us a line at hello@metricomm.com and request a copy of our white paper.