Brett Bruen, President of Global Situation Room, former Obama Advisor on Crisis Communications - Part 1

Check out images, show notes and transcripts of all of our episodes at www.creativeouthouse.com/podcast.

Hey everyone, this is Rudy Fernandez from Creative Outhouse. Thanks for listening. I got a lot out of my conversation with Brett Bruen, President of the Global Situation Room. In fact, we had so much great stuff, we made this two episodes. Brett was the Director of Global Engagement under President Barack Obama. And he's worked as a diplomat in Africa, the Middle East. And he's advised on various topics, including national security. So he knows about crises and had some really brilliant ideas to share. In this first part, we talked about the ever changing world of crisis, or as Brett said, "risk has gone regular". His ideas about how companies can build up a "reservoir of goodwill" and forgiveability are for me, a whole new angle on crisis and risk management. And his idea that you can actually use a crisis as a chance to communicate or even strengthen your brand, man that's just great stuff. Anyway, check it out. Welcome to Marketing Upheaval.

Transcript:

Rudy: Welcome to Marketing Upheaval. My guest is Brett Bruen, President of the Global Situation Room. An international consulting firm in Washington DC and Los Angeles. Brett served as the Director of Global Engagement under President Barack Obama, and also spent 12 years as an American diplomat in Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. He teaches at Georgetown and trains senior officials on crisis management. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Brad, I really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining me. So here's the first thing I want to get your thoughts on. As a society, we seem to be in constant state of crisis these days. Obviously, we have access to more information than ever before. But how do you think that affects people in their day to day?

Brett: Well, I like to say risk has gone regular for private citizens, for organizations and for companies. I think we've seen numerous examples in the last few years of how brands have been challenged by upheaval and uncertainty, have been dragged into political, social, economic debates. And you know, my message to those who manage these brands is you know, the reactive days are over you have to prepare more proactively, you have to identify your vulnerabilities, track them, understand that when those indicators start to take up the appropriate responses not wait and see. Because wait and you will see. Instead it is about focusing on putting in place the kind of infrastructure that your company needs around those vulnerabilities. We call it "reservoirs of goodwill". What are those reservoirs you need to fill in order to have the right relationships, the right partnerships, the right tools, so that when that vulnerability is exploited...And let me just give you you know, an example, if I'm Chipotle it shouldn't be a surprise that this is an area that I have to be ready to respond to. And what was interesting I found was that it took Chipotle months to get to a point where as a consumer, I finally got in the mail certificate for a free burrito. Well, that's something we call a countermeasure. And you could have prepared that campaign ahead of time, you could have put in place all of the pieces, all of the research, the fact sheets, the elements that were required to roll something like that out, even if you don't know where, when or how that vulnerability would be exploited. 

Rudy: I love the term reservoirs of goodwill. I mean, that's fantastic. I think it lets leaders know that you have to constantly work to build your reputation. I love that term.

View the complete transcript at www.creativeouthouse.com/podcast.&

Support the show (http://www.creativeouthouse.com/our-work)