The smoke signal strategy that prevents PR fires before they ignite
Internal communications research can help stave off disaster.

Svetlana Gershman is VP of marketing research at Method Communications.
A technology giant unveils its revolutionary AI healthcare solution with bold promises for the oncology industry. Months later, medical professionals publicly criticize the solution’s flawed data and insufficient results. Headlines deem this experiment a “spectacular failure” and “wrongheaded decision making.” The company’s value plummets, and the PR team scrambles to put out numerous fires.
This isn’t an action movie or a fiction – it was IBM Watson’s Health’s reality.
In today’s digital ecosystem, PR crises don’t just simmer – they explode, leaving devastation in their wake. After two decades conducting marketing research for the technology industry, I’ve seen countless times where research serves as the early warning sign, separating survivors from casualties.
When assumptions become disasters: Tales from the tech graveyard
What caused IBM Watson Health’s failure? The vision was compelling, but the execution ignored crucial realities. IBM prioritized marketing hype over technological capabilities, making promises their system couldn’t fulfill. They failed to secure buy-in from essential medical stakeholders and account for industry nuances.
Another example is Microsoft’s Kin phone. The device, aimed at capturing the youth market, was cancelled several weeks after its launch. The Kin, dubbed “Microsoft’s worst failure,” damaged both the reputation and the finances of the company. Why did Kin flop?
Leadership’s assumptions about teen behavior clashed with reality. The device aimed to target a social media-focused audience, but because it wasn’t a true smartphone, it lacked an app store and key features that people expected, even back in 2010. Additionally, Verizon priced the Kin with smartphone-level data plans, which created a poor value proposition, especially for the budget-conscious teens and young adults it was supposed to attract.
Breaking the echo chamber: Internal communications research
Imagine your engineering team rates your new product’s capability as 6 out of 10 while marketing scores it as 10 out of 10, but this knowledge stays within these siloed teams. This unknown gap means marketing will inevitably overpromise what engineering can deliver – a ticking time bomb waiting to explode in public.
Discovering this perception gap before launch can defuse the bomb before it explodes. To measure it, survey stakeholders across various departments and ask identical questions about your product’s audience, strengths, and vulnerabilities. The resulting metrics uncover gaps before they escalate into external crises.
Consider a tech company that conducted internal alignment surveys before a major product launch, where the research revealed a significant perception gap between what developers believed the product could deliver and what the marketing team planned to promise. Leadership adjusted messaging to set realistic customer expectations. When minor issues emerged after the launch, they were viewed as expected refinements rather than failures, preserving customer trust.
Message content and tone negligence can be devastating. In 2019, Peloton’s holiday commercial showed a husband gifting his already-fit wife an exercise bike. What executives intended was an “inspirational transformation,” but viewers interpreted it as “implicit body shaming.” How would the situation change if Peloton surveyed not only their target market, but also included influential and diverse groups who might interpret their message differently?
When prevention fails: Research as a recovery medicine
Even with perfect prevention strategies, crises still happen. When they do, research becomes a recovery roadmap, guiding you from damage control to rebuilding your reputation.
Thought leadership research can transform your organization from a defensive posture to a credible authority. By developing expertise that benefits the entire industry, you rewrite the narrative from “problem company” to “solution provider.”
In 2016, Samsung’s reputation went up in flames when Galaxy Note 7 batteries literally caught fire. The company invested heavily in research-driven thought leadership to transform its reputation. Part of this investment was consumer perception research to understand how the crisis affected trust in their brand.
Samsung published the findings in thought leadership pieces about consumer trust in technology. This investment in research-driven thought leadership helped Samsung establish itself as a company that understood consumer trust at a deeper level than competitors and, ultimately, recover its reputation.
From reactive to proactive: Building a research-driven culture
To revolutionize crisis prevention, organizations need five fundamental shifts:
- Embed research as a core cultural value in the organization’s decision-making DNA.
- Implement continuous monitoring systems that track reputation indicators in real-time.
- Integrate research checkpoints into all stages of product development and messaging.
- Establish data validation as a prerequisite for major announcements.
- Deploy research as a strategic weapon, informing the entire organization’s direction.
PR has evolved beyond crafting clever responses to inevitable fires. The real competitive advantage lies in spotting smoke signals before the flames appear. Is your research detection system ready? Or, are you still waiting for the first spark to ignite?