AttentionMax

As you may know, I’m the chair of the marketing track for the OMMA conference in New York on September 24-25. I’m assembling a last-minute panel on defensive branding and am seeking an agency exec, client-side marketer and consumer advocate to join me. Specifically, I’m interested in people with hands-on experience in consumer-generated media, brand strategy and issues management — people who can talk openly with authority. If you fit the bill, or would like to recommend someone who does, please respond in the comment section below, or email me at maxkalehoff (at) gmail (dot) com. Here’s the panel description:

Consumer-Generated Media: The Age Of Defensive Branding

In this age of transparency and real-time communications, it’s harder than ever for brands to defend themselves. The time available to respond to a crisis, rumor, problem, or embarrassing gaffe is a fraction of what it was in other years. For most brands, speed is the enemy, and this is one unmistakable reality in the age of consumer-generated media. In today’s world, a CEO can go to bed and awake under the rubble of hostile buzz on Wikipedia, YouTube, blogs, and Google search results. Still, all is not lost for brands, and there are a host of steps that can be taken to defend and protect – and perhaps even grab the offensive – in a major crisis. Tools like websites, paid search, customer service, stakeholder management, and of course real-time monitoring figure into the equation.