Brand Resilience: Managing Risk and Recovery in a High‐speed World

Citation

Bishop, D. (2012), "Brand Resilience: Managing Risk and Recovery in a High‐speed World", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 21 No. 7, pp. 559-560. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610421211276295

Brand Resilience introduces readers to the impact of social media on brands, especially in the context of brand sabotage. Managers responsible for brands need to know about this because firstly, like it or not, we now live in a very tangled worldwide web of communications between consumers and producers. Secondly, building the resilience of brands is becoming increasingly important.

Even well established brands can be severely damaged by the actions of people both outside and within an organisation and the extent and speed of these is increased by use of social media. Mr Copulsky argues that many brands are vulnerable to “insurgents”, people or groups of people who, for whatever reason, set out to sabotage brands that are simply not prepared to deal with such attacks. Brand Resilience gives some insights as to how brands might be defended.

First, readers are asked “Why is your brand at more risk than you thought in a high speed world”. A brand is rarely more than a collection of impressions in the mind of a consumer and, above all, a brand has value that is hard to tangibilise. Numerous examples are given, such as the Tiger Woods “brand,” having been damaged as a result of not only his actions but the way impressions of the brand were changed as his doings were reported through the “new” media. When trust in a brand is lost it can be a serious loss to the organisation that owns that brand. Brands are “Seven times more likely to be purchased [than competitors] and consumers were 10 times more likely to have formed a strong bond with these brands versus other brands in general” (p. 23) The key is trust, which is based on perceptions of a brand; any breaches of trust can be fatal.

What might cause such breaches of trust? Chapter Two introduces the concept of insurgency. Recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought this to the fore. But the word “insurgency” implies that damage is done from the outside. The dangers of brand sabotage from within an organisation as well as from competitors and the general environment may not be realised by managers. The book makes frequent, maybe too many, references to an American armed forces publication, The Counterinsurgency Field Manual, which was prepared for the US Army and Marines but is freely available to anyone who cares to read it. The essence of the advice contained in this manual is distilled by Copulsky into forms that non‐military managers could apply to their business situations. Managers of brands need to have effective counterinsurgency programs in place. Management from the highest levels down needs to be involved and committed to it.

Some insights into why the risk of attack or a real attack needs to be recognised are given in Chapter Three. Military analogies used in the book will remind some readers of the message “Air Raid Pearl Harbor, this is no drill”. Getting prepared to deal with attacks is one thing, handling them when they come may be a different matter. The culprits in attacks on brands might be competitors, disgruntled customers, employees or simply mischief makers. Knowing where attacks might come from, or be coming from, relies on good brand risk intelligence. Managers who might be at a loss to understand why anybody, other than a determined competitor, would want to damage a brand, need to know what is going on. The factor that has changed most is that “social media make the entire world a potential stage.” (p. 70)

Chapter Four gives advice on how to assess brand risks and emphasises the need to act quickly. If something goes wrong, “competitors are increasingly quick to capitalize when you stumble” (p. 87). “When it comes to building a resilient brand, the winner is the one who learns most quickly” (p. 91). The need to get people inside the organisation to understand why the brand is so important to the organisation is emphasised in Chapter Five. Recent developments where senior managers have taken huge bonuses while floor workers lose their jobs make it even more likely that disgruntled people might become brand saboteurs. About a third of people recently interviewed planned to look for a new job when the economy gets better as trust in their present employers and managers has diminished. (p. 98). Want to know some ways to overcome this growing discontent? Read the book.

Some managers are taken by surprise when their brand is attacked. Chapter Six suggests early warning systems that might be employed. Here again it is the developments in social media that have forged a major change. Managers traditionally looked out at the world, now many millions of people are doing it for them and the information is available on social media. A problem for managers is the sheer weight of the information that people are putting out there, and it is “amazing what you can learn just by listening.” But, “Not everything you learn from listening matters – and nothing you learn from listening matters if you don't have a process for taking action” (p. 127).

When sabotage, or any unexpected attack for that matter, hits it often comes as a shock. An adverse event happens, an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for example. Nobody wanted it, but did they plan what to do if it did happen? The real damage is done when there is an aftershock, either because there is no reaction or the reaction is badly handled. Should the organisation deny everything, try to allocate blame elsewhere or maybe start by simply saying sorry? The ways in which organisations have responded to brand shocks (the Tylenol case and Toyota's problematic brakes are quoted in Chapter Seven as examples), could have long‐term effects on people's perceptions of brands and their trust in them.

Chapter Eight looks at such crises as opportunities: “Never waste a crisis” (p. 150). In other words, resist the “natural temptation to simply respond, fix, and move on” (p. 164). Chapter Nine encourages readers to measure and track brand resilience: the extent to which a brand can emerge from a crisis with minimal damage. Rather than being defensive, managers need to know what risks are and be ready to respond to them. Examples of how brands such as Del Monte and Google build their brand resilience are given. Chapter Ten discusses how to generate popular support for a brand resilience campaign and asks the question “How will you influence the influencers?” Examples of how to create and nurture “brand advocates” are given but it is noted that this can be hard work.

In summary, this book is worth reading, especially by somebody who may not be fully up to speed with developments in social media. Brands are about people's perceptions of products, the organisations that produce them, and the people behind them. Brands are in a constant state of warfare, and this book is a useful guide to defence. What Copulsky does not appear to mention is that it can also be a useful handbook for those wishing to mount such attacks in the same way that The Counterinsurgency Field Manual can be used by attackers as well as defenders: On page 163 it is reported that copies of the manual have been found in Taliban training camps!