As an emergency manager, I see brands and businesses most often in the worst of times when things have gone so tragically wrong that they have no option other than to seek outside help.

I help businesses and brands overcome their immediate problems which come from disasters, emergencies and other crises too make sure they can return to normality and protect their brands.

One of the key concepts a lot of companies miss is the concept of branding. They often forget that all the hard work and money they put into their business gives them an image or brand which they must promote and most importantly support.

Disasters and emergencies are unfortunately a fact of life. Sure you can plan for, engineer out or otherwise minimise many different type of crises, disasters or other emergencies but the sad truth is that disasters happen and everyone including brands are vulnerable to them.

Branding is about simplifying choice

Choice is everywhere and people make choices depending on the way they perceive things. Branding is about increasing the awareness of your brand, so people will buy your product or service over the other similar ones that are available.

Think about it, when you buy something do you buy things from companies you trust and have heard of or do you just hand over your money and buy anything? Most people buy from companies, people and brands they trust.

It takes a lot of time and money to curate a brand image but it does not take a lot to damage it, especially in todays connected world. It’s easy to remember brands who have done things the wrong way and have become prominent for all the wrong reasons. Think oil companies, car manufacturers and banking. Do you remember the good reasons or the bad?

Raising awareness of your brand by doing the wrong things may seem then like a good idea due to having a lot of free publicity, but in the wake of the widespread crises from a recent oil spill a lot of consumers became more aware of whose petrol they put in their cars and this was not really a good thing for the company whose stock reached an all-time low.

Branding does matter and it matters for everyone. Everyone has their own brand and its something they must build and support as they move through life, even if they do not realise they are doing it.

When a person applies for a job, a business creates a television advert or a large corporation makes a large donation to charity, it’s all about branding and positioning them as being better than their competitors.

This blog is not so much about branding, there are millions of those, and I’m not an expert but it’s about the crossover of branding and crisis management. I hope to give some advice on protecting your brand, what you can do to protect your brand during crises and how to watch your brand to make sure you can engage your customers and critics before simple things turn into crises.

Protect your brand in the good times and your brand will be resilient in the bad times.