By Charles Lee Mathews. There’s a product recall. The CEO is caught in a compromising situation. The numbers are dire. What’s the role of media agencies in a time of crisis? MarkLives MEDIA investigates.
While public relations is widely regarded as the lead discipline during a crisis, there is less consensus on the role paid media should play. “PR will always lead in crisis and paid media will only get involved if there is a specific, carefully curated announcement (broadcast) message to be made,” says Marvin Kgasoane, chief client officer at Connect, part of the Up&Up Group.
Chris Botha, group managing director of Park Advertising, sees it differently. “A brand crisis is often only seen as a PR problem — where the reality is that it is an overall communication problem too,” he says.
The worst of times
“The worst thing you can do is carry on as if nothing has happened. Every campaign, channel and message needs to be reassessed against the reality of the moment. We have to ask, how do we protect brand equity while giving the business space to respond appropriately?” Botha advises.
“The biggest mistake people make is to tackle the problem individually, or in isolation. Media should never operate in isolation from PR, legal, and executive leadership. One coordinated plan will always outperform a series of knee-jerk reactions,” he says.
“The first step is to separate emotion from decision-making. Assemble the key decision-makers quickly, assess the facts, review all live campaigns and decide whether your current media activity supports or undermines the response,” says Botha.
A brand’s bottom line issue
The commercial stakes of a brand crisis are now measurable. The Reputation Capital Scorecard 2026, produced by Sandpiper Research & Insights with Earned First and the Page Society, surveyed more than 3,000 C-suite executives across 27 markets.
It found that 78% of chief executives reported reputational weakness affecting trading over the previous year. Reputation, in other words, has migrated from the soft column of the balance sheet to the hard one, showing up as lost revenue, valuation pressure, and slower recovery from the crisis. The fallout and negative perception can also make it harder for brands to attract talent.
What the study exposes is a gap in the room where the decisions get made. Fewer than half of the organisations surveyed believe they are meeting stakeholder expectations, and only 40% consider themselves prepared for the reputational consequences of artificial intelligence.
Taking it personally
More tellingly, chief executives are close to twice as likely as their communications chiefs to feel personally accountable for reputation, and they consistently score their organisations higher on strength, agility and alignment than the communications leaders sitting alongside them.
Whether that reflects confidence at the top or distance from the operational reality is the question the research leaves open, and it is precisely the gap Botha describes when a crisis breaks and the plan turns out to exist only in fragments.
“If a campaign looks tone-deaf against what’s happening, pause it immediately. But disappearing completely isn’t always the right move either. Often the smarter approach is to stop promotional messaging while maintaining essential customer communication,” says Botha.
Deliver value, not marketing
He offers an example. During COVID, many local brands shifted from sales messaging to practical updates around trading hours, deliveries and customer support instead of simply switching everything off.
Kgasoane says that at the worst of times, it is moreover the role of media to take a back seat. “My experience has been that an immediate stop in spending is best, otherwise the brand is exposed to the risk of not ‘reading the room’. We have worked on FMCG clients where there is a product defect and a recall is needed. There is obviously a degree of panic in the market, and brand building/promotion comms will have negative implications in that environment,” he says.
But if media needs to be pulled, what about financial obligations? “It depends on the contracts, the media owners and how close you are to campaign delivery. Digital platforms generally offer more flexibility than traditional media, while TV, radio and print often involve committed bookings. This is where strong agency relationships really matter — good agencies can often negotiate solutions that aren’t obvious from the contract,” says Botha.
Where the buck stops
When asked if his media agency can freeze media commitments instantly without incurring financial penalties, Kgasoane says: “Not technically, but media owners do normally understand the extreme circumstances and will allow, at the very least, postponement. They normally understand that it’s a long-term relationship and helping in crisis will be remembered,” he says.
Botha cautions about the use of advertising: “Paid media doesn’t fix a trust problem, it amplifies whatever message you’re putting into the market. If the business has accepted responsibility and is communicating honestly, paid media can help rebuild confidence. If the underlying issue hasn’t been addressed, spending more simply gives more people a reason to criticise you,” he says.
“A crisis exposes whether marketing is focused on short-term sales or long-term brand health. The brands that recover best aren’t necessarily those with the biggest budgets—they’re the ones that respond with honesty, consistency and good judgement. Media is a powerful amplifier, but it can’t compensate for poor leadership or a weak crisis response,” Botha says.
The recall, the compromised chief executive, the dire set of numbers: none of these is, at root, a media problem. What a crisis does is force a reckoning with decisions taken long before it, about which channels were bought, which promises were made and whether anyone in the building had agreed who owned the answer.
Media cannot write that answer. It can only carry it, at volume, to an audience that is already watching.
Charles Lee Mathews is a senior editor to MarkLives MEDIA and a senior writer to MarkLives.com, as well as co-founder of The Writers, a writing consultancy.
