ASSESSMENT
Our Responsible Business Assessment provides you with an evaluation of your current messaging so you can communicate with confidence while minimizing risk of controversy.
Two people can look at the same language and hear totally
different messages.
The closer you are to your own language, the harder it is to see it through someone else’s eyes. We help you take a step back. We have decades of data testing messages across opposing audiences and can help spot the triggers and dog-whistle words.
Whether you have publicly available messaging, or language that’s still in process, we work with you to identify the most important messaging to review.
This may include the most critical pages of your ESG report, the ESG section of your website, draft messaging, or strategies that are in development.
We deliver an objective assessment with actionable intelligence about potential vulnerabilities and clear recommendations for how to address them.
WHAT YOU GET
SCORE
Are you coming off as a cutthroat capitalist? A “woke” evangelist? Or has your message been properly calibrated to resonate across audiences? We rate the coded language in your messages to help you see how others are likely to see you.
One of the single greatest business risks is the power of negative narratives. There are certain stories we see critics tell about companies again and again and again. Almost always, those narratives are rooted in the same handful of values: “That company has too much power.” “The company isn’t being honest.” “That company doesn’t care.”
As a result, certain messages make it easy for people to paint you as a villain. We look at your language with a critical eye and identify your three to five greatest reputational vulnerabilities.
We evaluate your messaging against our REAL. BRAND. VALUE. Principles and our database of quantitative and qualitative language research, to identify the top 10 opportunities for improvement to get you more credit for the effort you’re making while helping avoid potential controversy. Sometimes it’s as simple as swapping out a word. Sometimes it’s as subtle as adjusting a frame. If there’s a way to make your responsible business story stronger, we’ll find it and lay it out for you in simple, actionable instructions.