Communicating Risks: The Power of Admitting Uncertainty.

Every communicator dreads the moment when alarms sound, questions pile up, and the facts remain incomplete. In this episode – based on the Wag The Dog newsletter and hosted by Philippe Borremans – we explore why saying “we don’t know everything yet” often builds more trust than pretending to have all the answers.

Through real-world cases and a simple three-pillar model – what we know, what we don’t, and what we’re doing to find out – you’ll learn how to turn uncertainty into credibility. From pandemics to data breaches, speed, clarity, and transparency prove more powerful than false certainty.

Discover how embracing uncertainty not only protects your reputation in the moment but also strengthens long-term resilience.

This podcast episode was created with NotebookLM.

Imagine that a third of your company’s value depends not on market conditions, but on the level of trust.

In 2025, this is already a fact – according to Echo Research, reputation accounts for nearly 30% of the market capitalisation of companies in the UK and the US.

The UK Reputation Valuation Report 2025 shows that for the FTSE 350, this equals £730 billion.

In this episode, we discuss how reputation value is measured, which factors add billions (long-term potential, product quality, governance), why ESG is regaining influence, who the industry leaders are, and how the UK and US approaches differ.

This podcast episode was created using the AI tool NotebookLM.

В цьому випуску йдеться про misinformation та дезінформацію, які вважаються значним глобальним ризиком, що впливає на суспільство та довіру.

Приводом для цього випуску подкасту є посібник "Tackling Mis/Disinformation 2025" від Міжнародної організації комунікаційних консультантів (ICCO).

Він є першим результатом діяльності експертів робочої групи Media Information and Education Pledge, яку підтримала Рада Європи у 2023 році.

Цей посібник — практичний посібник про те, як запобігати та боротися з дезінформацією у вашій щоденній роботі. Він містить інсайти, ресурси та інструменти, які можна використовувати у повсякденній роботі.

Ви дізнаєтеся:

– Як розуміння суспільства (психологічних, соціальних факторів, упереджень, емоційних тригерів) допомагає пом'якшувати поширення місінформації/дезінформації.

– Про релевантність медіаграмотності для критичної оцінки інформації та важливу роль PR-агенцій у її просуванні, включаючи роботу з різними типами медіа (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned).

– Про ризики та можливості ШІ у контексті дезінформації – від створення реалістичного фейкового контенту до використання ШІ для виявлення маніпуляцій та підтримки фактчекінгу.

– Про важливість традиційного та генеративного пошуку як ключових інструментів (і потенційних вразливостей) у фактчекінгу та управлінні інформацією, а також як оптимізувати контент для пошукових систем, щоб достовірна інформація була легкодоступною.

– Про значення міжнародної співпраці та колективної відповідальності всіх учасників інформаційної екосистеми у спільній боротьбі проти дизінформації.

Цей аудіоподкаст створено за допомогою ШІ-інструменту: аудіопереказу NotebookLM

Approximately 80% of clients make decisions about a purchase or a service after researching a company's information and its reviews on the Internet. 69% of applicants refuse an employer with a bad reputation and many negative reviews.

According to Convergys Corp research, one negative online review causes an average loss of 30 clients per year.

I think big companies can easily get 1 or 2 negative reviews per month even without real problems with the product or service they provide. Potentially, it adds up to 24 negative reviews a year, which means losing 720 potential clients a year due to negative reviews.

In times of reposts and copy-paste sometimes it's helpful to give a ready-made solution to get a desired one.

High school seniors need to understand that creating an excellent digital footprint is one of their responsibilities as young adults.

Looking for information about a person on the Internet has become a normal practice in business and educational fields. Higher Education consultants know that institutions are checking for potential students’ activities and interests online. They become a valuable tool in the decision-making process about the student’s college acceptance.

Your family reputation is no less important and requires all family members to understand the rules about sharing private information or appearing in someone else’s content.

Before you get hired for a new job, get considered for a promotion or land a big contract, an Internet background check will easily reveal your children’s posts on social media, determine your favourite vacation spots or place of your residence, the number of friends you have, and add that information to your resume.

Unpleasant? Yes, but this is our current reality, and we must consider it when building our reputation.

Very often, the headquarters of the largest international companies are geographically far from their units, and their perception of problems differs.

On the one hand, the company's CEO and board of directors require each unit to fulfill the set KPIs. On the other hand, they are responsible for reputational risks, which lead to financial losses, among other things.

The CEO and the board of directors will not manage to maintain neutrality or ignore the situation; they need to choose one of the strategies for further communication both within the company and with external stakeholders.

Step-by-step instruction on how to successfully resolve a critical situation without damaging your reputation. In essence, a crisis is a situation that doesn't fit into a person's or a company's previous experience. So often, getting over a crisis is very tough if we rely on common skills or verified knowledge. 

There's no time to really think it through- you are riding a bicycle, the bicycle is on fire, you are on fire, everything is on fire, and you are in hell… However, skilled communicators have their protocol when dealing with a crisis, akin to the actions of algorithms for catastrophe doctors. 

It's designed to minimize fussing, mobilize resources, and get the most non-standard situation under control. The ten steps will keep you out of a stupor (or vice versa: not burning out at high speeds of a steep bend).

About Sergii Bidenko:
* Reputation and Crisis Advisor
*  Bestselling author of the book «Reputation antistress» (in Ukrainian)  with a foreword of Dr. Charles J. Fombrun is the Founder and Chairman  Emeritus of 
The RepTrak Company
* Best Crisis Communications Leader 2022, Davos Communications Awards
* ICCO Global Award 2022 for Best Crisis Response Winner
* Co-founder and Chairman of 
The United PR Association of Ukraine
* ICCO Board member
* Cancel culture expert and researcher