Brands blamed for over three quarters of PR disasters
Brands have been singled out for blame in over three quarters of PR disasters under a new survey compiled by media monitoring platform Visibrain.
The international study found that 78 per cent of 100 large-scale PR disasters and social media crises were deemed to be "the brand’s fault", through either flawed product design, wayward communications strategies or ill-conceived marketing and could not be scapegoated onto any external disruptions or cyber-attacks.
Even more concerning for brands, the report also revealed that they are now 13 per cent more likely to suffer a marketing or PR crisis than they were just three years ago.
Nicolas Huguenin, chief executive of Visibrain said, “While it’s worrying to see so many businesses struggling to manage their communications approach, the fact that PR crises are being caused internally is not necessarily the worst news for big name brands.
“If such disasters were typically being caused by external factors, marketers would have far fewer opportunities to preemptively manage and address them. Instead, brands simply need to take greater care in considering all possible outcomes to their communications approach.”
Dovetailing with Visibrain’s new best practice guide for media monitoring the survey was drawn up in partnership with Nicolas Vanderbiest, a crisis communications expert at the University of Leven.