Weber Shandwick

Helping Clients Lead Through Risk

How an organisation responds to a crisis or issue may have a more substantial impact on stakeholders’ perceptions than the situation itself.

Our multi-disciplinary, global team of crisis communications experts advises clients at the intersection of business, public policy, geopolitical risk and cultural transformation.

We work with legal counsel, senior executives, boards of directors and company communications professionals to help clients mitigate vulnerabilities, develop and validate communications strategies, and provide real-time counsel to help them navigate risk and reward in a complex and ever-changing world.

Informed by AI-driven technology and human analysis, we make sense of millions of signals and narratives to provide context and perspective, predict trends, and deliver incisive strategic recommendations.

What we're known for:

• Brand Safety: We work with creatives to enable bold thinking while refining campaigns to prepare for and mitigate risks.
• Crisis Analytics & Issues Forecasting: Using data intelligence platforms and proprietary tools, we identify key issues and emerging threats. We help clients build protective plans, proactively address cultural issues and effectively manage any issues.
• Culture: We dig deep with executives to lead their organisations through an increasingly risk-fraught terrain, helping to strengthen their cultures through change programs, DEI initiatives and values articulation.
• Crisis Simulation Drills: Through Firebell, Weber Shandwick’s proprietary, award-winning crisis simulation platform and training offering, we test organisations' ability to respond to a crisis. Participants actively engage in managing the communications around a real-time online attack of their brand or organization – all in a secure, controlled environment.
• Cyber/Data Security: We advise clients on incidents across the spectrum from phishing and malware to ransomware and denial of service, developing preparedness strategies and using proprietary tools to anticipate, manage and recover from cyberattacks.
• Labour Relations: We bring deep insights and cross-sector experience to help clients navigate today’s resurgent labour movement that is operating at the intersection of grassroots organizing, social media and public policy.
• Litigation: Our team has successfully protected our clients’ finances, operations and reputations by working seamlessly with counsel on high-stakes litigation, from intellectual property disputes, class actions, whistleblower suits and product recalls to employment issues, fraud, regulatory investigations, international disputes, and more. We bring to bear a multidisciplined group of experts that includes former attorneys, regulators, political advisers and lifelong communications specialists, as well as experts from other fields, such as former journalists, NGO leaders, research scientists, and software engineers, among others.
• Misinformation Defense: Boosted by an exclusive partnership with Blackbird.AI, our team identifies narrative threats and signals, designs advanced campaigns to build and protect reputation, and evolves preparedness efforts for the threat of misinformation.
• Planning & Preparedness: We develop structures and plans that create issues and crisis resilience, predict and manage risk, and protect reputation.
• Social Issues Navigation: We lead the C-Suite through an increasingly partisan, risk-fraught terrain so their hard-earned reputations stay intact with the stakeholders that matter.