Defend your brand against sabotage

NEW YORK, US: As true and false information spreads rapidly across the vast social media landscape by disgruntled customers, competing companies and employees, even the most venerable brands can be levelled in a flash.

Brand Resilience: Managing Risk and Recovery in a High Speed World, the new book from Deloitte's Jonathan Copulsky, shows why brands are more fragile and exposed than ever, outlining seven key steps organisations should take to defend their brands against the risks of acts of sabotage.

For more than 30 years, Copulsky, a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP, has helped organisations build their brands as a chief marketing officer and strategic marketing advisor. In this book, he argues that companies often invest heavily in building their brands, but fail to establish detailed brand defences. By neglecting to play an aggressive defensive game - a Risk Intelligent™ approach to brand management - organisations leave themselves vulnerable to attack and rapid brand value erosion.

It's like a war

"Protecting a brand today is like fighting an insurgency: enemies are hard to identify, weapons are improvised and the threat of friendly fire looms," says Copulsky. "Brand stewards need to learn to think like counterinsurgents, constantly developing and adapting their brand defences to stay one step ahead of brand saboteurs. Brand risk has always been a threat; but, the Internet, social media and search engines now memorialise brand damages forever, just one or two clicks away."

Written for marketing and sales executives, risk managers, executives and board members across industries, "Brand Resilience: Managing Risk and Recovery in a High Speed World" consists of 11 chapters filled with dozens of case studies of well known and not-so-well known brands and the actions their organisations are employing to detect, manage, prevent and mitigate brand sabotage.

Copulsky's seven key steps to manage and avert brand damage

1. Assess your brand risks: Identify the factors that can threaten a brand, including understanding source and potential impact.
2. Galvanise your brand troops: Educate employees - as well as vendors, business partners and other external parties that represent the brand - so that they are actively engaged in detecting, preventing and responding to brand risks.
3. Establish your brand risk early warning systems: Build sensing capabilities by identifying patterns in risk, so if there are early warning signs of problems they can be dealt with as early as possible.
4. Repel the attacks on your brand: Formulate and execute an action-oriented response plan in the event that a brand is compromised.
5. Learn and adapt your brand defences: Step back and identify lessons learned, making sure they are embedded in training and processes going forward.
6. Measure and track your brand performance: On an ongoing basis, evaluate progress in managing your brand risk and building brand resilience.
7. Expand popular support for your brand: Broaden your internal and external bases of support, including your "volunteer army."
Additional information, as well as excerpts from the book are available on www.deloitte.com/us/brandresilience.