How to Use Brand Story for Crisis Management

A Storyteller Always Prepares

If the worst were to happen, are you prepared to act swiftly and protect yourself and your brand?
By understanding your message deeply and thoroughly, you can prepare for certain unpleasant situations. But more importantly, cultivating a corporate crisis management culture will help keep your story consistent and compelling.
Melissa Agnes is passionate about brand crisis management and prevention. She strongly encourages any organization to take the time to delve deep into their core values to learn how to best articulate and follow them. She also suggests a few simple questions to ask before ever launching a campaign or advertisement that might help avoid a crisis altogether.
Melissa takes us on a journey through her career, touching on what led her to this particular niche. She shares why it’s so important to deeply understand what your brand stands for, how speed and accuracy are paramount, and how owning your story and communicating directly will often save the day.

In This Episode

• Why crafting the right story ahead of time can help defend your brand when crisis hits
• How to ask the right questions that will help prevent issues with your consumers
• Why responding to a crisis quickly and honestly goes a long way to keeping consumer trust
• How to follow up with an official response after an initial recognition
• Why it’s key to understand your stakeholders and what they expect from you
• How to cultivate a culture that continually protects your brand from a public crisis

Quotes From This Episode

“I find so many organizations try to resist the realities of today, and they just have to embrace them.” —@melissa_agnes
“I really believe in being niche-focused.” —@melissa_agnes
“We don’t stop to think about what might go wrong because we’re so excited about what’s going to go right.” —@melissa_agnes
“It’s so important to get your story out there as quick as possible, but not to spin.” —@melissa_agnes
“The longer you wait to tell your story in a crisis, the more you lose control of the story and the more in crisis you become.” —@melissa_agnes

“Stakeholders today—consumers—we expect that we’re going to hear from the organization. We expect that those communications from the organization are going to be forthright and transparent. We expect that they are consistent, that they are going to be compassionate, that they are going to put us and whatever issue that they are dealing with above the bottom line. Because it all plays into the bottom line. Put your concerns in the right place and show that you’re taking the right actions and your bottom line won’t suffer as much. It all goes hand in hand.” —@melissa_agnes

“A big part of being crisis ready is building that trust with those key stakeholders way before a crisis ever strikes giving your organization the benefit of the doubt in those first moments of the crisis.” —@melissa_agnes
“There’s this balance between timeliness and accuracy.” —@melissa_agnes

Resources

• Melissa Agnes
• Melissa Agnes on Twitter, @melissa_agnes
• Agnes + Day Inc.
• How I Built This: NPR
• Don’t Panic Management
• “We Are Legion”
• Sara Blakely
• “The Hero’s Journey,” by Joseph Campbell
• “Your DIY Guide to Crafting and Telling Compelling Brand Stories that Sell,” by Park Howell
• BusinessofStory.com
• Park@BusinessOfStory.com