Group Risk

SCENARIO: Bank of America

The internet can pose a sizable risk to your business and how the brand is perceived by the public. In October 2011, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement picked up momentum, much of it fueled by internet chatter and groups. People all over the country gathered to voice their concerns about the devastating effects of the financial sector on their day-to-day lives.

The movement began as a general coming together of lower and middle-class Americans who sought to exact change in what they believed to be a flawed system. Over time, the conversation became increasingly vitriolic and people began to lay blame with several particular companies, including BoA.

With the recent announcement of increased checking account fees, coupled with a record number of home foreclosures and evictions, people focused their frustrations directly on Bank of America. Protests were organized against corporate greed at BoA locations across America.

The BoA case is a prime example of how iClipse Global can be leveraged to diffuse pressures that unforeseen events can have on overall brand perception. Our tools can deflate negative media attention around your brand and inject only the media coverage that you feel clearly represents you.

These types of gatherings can often attract masses that can quickly become unmanageable, even turn violent. It is of the utmost importance that events like these be mitigated with a proactive approach to crowd control and security management. iClipse can not only help to prevent them, but can help if the situation has spiraled out of control. The safety of employees and customers is the number one priority of your brand.

Oftentimes, these events are driven by the internet through the use of tools such as Facebook and Twitter. In an effort to prevent violence and injury, these types of conversations should be monitored once they start. Our technologies could have offered BoA security specialists insight into social media chatter and might have helped prevent a number of the violent events that occurred throughout the ordeal. Chiefly, our tools would have successfully deflated the traffic around any links encouraging citizens to gather at specified locations in protest of Bank of America.