Businesses
are facing a new frontier when it comes to online reputation management. One
ill-considered post on the corporate social media page can quickly go viral.
One foot wrong from an executive can quickly become a scandal. One
miscalculated or tone-deaf advertisement can quickly escalate into global
backlash. No doubt we all remember the infamous Pepsi commercial of 2017
featuring Kendall Jenner’s attempts to solve allegations of police violence?
Backlash
or scandal are often short-term outcomes to isolated incidents. In years gone
by, it may have been enough to dispel concerns via a post on social media, or
issue a generic statement, and wait patiently for the whole thing to blow over.
Today’s
media and corporate landscape, however, paints a different picture. Businesses
are faced with a new paradigm of business reputation management, one that
requires a data-driven and strategic approach to achieve business outcomes.
Reputation
isn’t the result of an isolated corporate misjudgement, or indeed, achievement.
Reputation is a long-term and structured conceptual understanding, and requires taking a complete view on what people say, think, and feel about your organisation to make informed decisions impacting business outcomes.
Introducing Reputation Analysis
To
that end, Isentia has expanded its
suite of products and services with new Reputation Analysis, to enhance online
reputation management. It represents the future of brand reputation monitoring
and metrics, blending organic social media conversations and survey data to
provide a more comprehensive and data-driven glimpse of corporate reputation to
a business.
Isentia’s Reputation Analysis uses an integrated framework that examines the three most important drivers of organisational reputation: strategy, culture, and delivery. All three drivers are analysed independently, and the report includes an overall RepID score on a scale of -10 to +10 which integrates the strategy, culture and delivery scores, as well as providing detailed information on performance across each driver.
Reputation isn’t just an intangible concept – it’s a strategic imperative
Perception is everything. In a world where people are increasingly putting their dollars behind brands that mirror their values, a brand’s reputation translates to literal business outcomes by way of engagement, increased revenue, or referral power. Indeed, research shows nearly seven in 10 millennials actively consider company values when making a purchase.
Today’s
empowered and connected consumers also have unequalled access to information,
meaning they can take faster and more decisive action about where and who to
shop or engage with. They also have more choice, meaning the decision to walk
away from one company in favour of another is simpler than ever. And thanks to
social media, their voices when they’re dissatisfied with a product, service,
or company stance are louder and more widely felt.
A brand’s reputation taking a dive, even when played out in the public arena, isn’t always highly visible – and therein lies the imperative for data-driven insights into brand reputation management.
Turning apathy into advocacy
Reputation Analysis actually takes all of this a step further. It gives businesses a framework to spot opportunities to influence or change certain people’s behaviours and beliefs around your brand. Too frequently, reputation management software provides details about people sitting on the extreme – those who are passionate supporters of your brand, or, on the other end of the scale, the vocal critics.
Isentia understands that there’s unique opportunities to capitalise on and influence those in the middle – fence sitters, or those generally apathetic to your brand.
RepID,
in this sense, doesn’t stop at a static understanding of online brand
reputation with no clear way forward. Rather, it is designed to give marketers
and business leaders the right tools to expand their advocacy base and increase
reputation value, which ultimately leads to an uptick in online brand
reputation.
Loren is an experienced marketing professional who translates data and insights using Isentia solutions into trends and research, bringing clients closer to the benefits of audience intelligence. Loren thrives on introducing the groundbreaking ways in which data and insights can help a brand or organisation, enabling them to exceed their strategic objectives and goals.
Content creators should strive to drive virality to emerge from the flood of online content. Viral content is not merely a popular piece, but it garners excessive engagement to outliers.
This paper explores some common factors of viral content.
As communications professionals look toward 2026 planning sessions, one question dominates the conversation - How can we use AI in a safe, scalable, and sustainable way?
Behind this question often lies the hope for an "AI easy button"—a one-click solution for complex measurement challenges. However, as discussed in our recent APAC webinar, the real opportunity lies not in automating old metrics, but in architecting a smarter era of measurement.
Hosted by Russ Horell, Isentia’s Chief Revenue Officer for APAC, the session featured deep dives from two industry leaders who've contributed immensely to research and planning: Ngaire Crawford (Director of Insights, ANZ) and Prashant Saxena (VP of Research and Insights, SEA). Together, they unpacked the transition from using insights and converting them into strategic, measurable storytelling.
Here are the key takeaways from the discussion.
1. From experimentation to transparency
If 2024 and 2025 were the years of "playing in the sandbox," 2026 is set to be the year of transparency.
Ngaire Crawford emphasized that while AI is incredible at summarising data and recognising patterns, it does not automatically generate insight. As we integrate these tools, the focus must shift to methodological integrity—understanding the source data, the structure, and the limitations of the models we use.
"Models are really good pattern finders. But they don't necessarily set what good looks like, or understand the consequences of being wrong. And the antidote to that is always going to be good design." – Ngaire Crawford
2. "More data, better insight" is the misconception
A major misconception remains that feeding AI endless amounts of data will naturally result in better answers. In reality, without the right framework, more data often just creates more noise.
Prashant Saxena warns against the "sameness" that AI can generate. If everyone uses the same models on the same big data sets without specific objectives, they will get similar, generic answers. The role of the insights professional is evolving from descriptive reporting to strategic storytelling—using judgment to break through the "echo chamber" of AI validation.
3. Kill, keep, create: redefining our metrics
The panelists played a game of "keep, kill, create" to determine the future of measurement metrics.
Kill: The panel was unanimous in moving away from vanity metrics. Ngaire called for the end of Cumulative Reach, noting it is a biased metric that offers no context. Prashant agreed, suggesting that AVEs (Advertising Value Equivalents) need to be finally left behind.
Keep:Share of Voice remains useful as a foundational benchmark (a "census" of market presence), provided it is redefined to measure the share of a specific idea or perception rather than just volume
Create: The future lies in Authenticity Metrics. Prashant argued that while reputation is a downstream outcome, authenticity is the upstream outcome that drives it.
"Authenticity is more upstream, as reputation and trust are more downstream... That's an authentic ritual on a day-to-day basis, which leads to reputation." – Prashant Saxena
4. The "home field advantage" for communicators
Despite the technical buzz surrounding AI, the panel argued that communications professionals hold a distinct advantage. "Prompt engineering" is, at its core, a language and communication skill.
The future doesn't necessarily belong to the most technical users, but to the most articulate—those who can clearly define an outcome, ask the right questions, and deconstruct language to get the best result from a model.
Trust your judgment
As we move into 2026, the advice from our experts is to not let AI replace your strategic point of view.
Have an opinion: Don't wait for metrics to be imposed on you. Go into conversations knowing what you want to measure and why.
Pause before you prompt: As Prashant advised, "Paper before a chatbot.". Define your strategy and objectives on paper, using your human experience and judgment, before turning to AI to execute the work.
By combining the speed of AI with the nuance of human strategy, communicators can finally build the sophisticated measurement systems they have always wanted.
Interested in viewing the whole recording? Watch our webinar here.
Alternatively, contact our team to learn more insights into meaningful measurement, KPIs and communicating using the right dataset.
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Blog
Key takeaways from the Future of Measurement webinar
Our recent webinar explores what the future of measurement in 2026 looks like and what brands must do to scale in this AI era.
The media landscape is accelerating. In an era where influence is ephemeral and every angle demands instant comprehension, PR and communications professionals require more than generic technology—they need intelligence engineered for their specific challenges.
Isentia is proud to introduce Lumina, a groundbreaking suite of intelligent AI tools. Lumina has been trained from the ground up on the complex workflows and realities of modern communications and public affairs. It is explicitly designed to shift professionals from passive media monitoring back into the role of strategic leaders and pacesetters.
“The PR, Comms and Public Affairs sectors have been experimenting with AI, but most tools have not been built with their real challenges in mind.” said Joanna Arnold, CEO of Pulsar Group.
“Lumina is different; it is the first intelligence suite designed around how narratives actually form today, combining human credibility signals with machine-level analysis. It helps teams understand how stories evolve, filter out noise and respond with context and confidence to crises and opportunities.”
Setting a new standard for PR intelligence
Lumina is centered on empowering, not replacing, the human element of communications strategy. This suite is purpose-built to help PR, Comms, and Public Affairs professionals significantly improve productivity, enhance message clarity, and facilitate early risk detection.
Lumina enables communicators to:
Understand & Interpret: Move beyond basic alerts to strategically map the trajectory and spread of narrative evolution.
Focus & Personalise: Achieve the clarity necessary to execute strategic action before critical moments pass.
We are launching the Lumina suite by making our first module immediately available: Stories & Perspectives.
In the current fragmented, multi-channel media environment, communications professionals need to be able to instantly perceive not just how a story is growing, but also how it is being perceived across different stakeholder groups.
Stories & Perspectives organizes raw media mentions into clustered, cohesive Stories, and the Perspectives that exist within each, reflecting distinct media, audience, and public affairs angles. This unique functionality allows users to:
Rise above the noise: Instantly identify which high-level topics are gaining momentum or fading from attention.
Get to the detail, fast: Uncover the influential voices, niche communities, and specific channels actively shaping the narrative.
Catch the pivot point: Precisely identify the moment a story shifts—from a strategic opportunity to a reputation risk—or when a new key opinion former begins guiding the conversation.
"Media isn’t a stream of mentions," said Kyle Lindsay, Head of Product at Pulsar Group. "But rather a living system of stories shaped by competing perspectives. When you can see those structures clearly, you gain the ability to understand issues as they form, anticipate how they’ll evolve, and act with precision. That’s what we mean when we talk about AI built for communicators, and that's what an off-the-shelf LLM can't give you."
The Lumina Roadmap: AI tools for the future of comms
The launch of Stories & Perspectives is the first release of many. Over the upcoming months, we will systematically roll out the full Lumina roadmap, introducing a comprehensive set of AI tools engineered to handle every phase of the communications lifecycle.
The full Lumina suite will soon incorporate:
Curated media summaries: AI-driven daily summaries customized specifically to the priorities of senior leadership, highlighting only the most relevant stories.
Reputation analysis: Advanced measurement tracking how critical themes like ethics, innovation, and leadership are statistically shaping corporate perception.
Press release & media relations assistant: Tools designed to accelerate content creation and craft hyper-focused, personalized pitches that reach the precise contacts faster.
Predictive intelligence layer: Technology engineered to track and anticipate story momentum and strategic change before the window of opportunity closes.
Intelligent agents: Background agents continuously scanning all media channels for emerging key spokespeople and previously undetected reputation risks.
Enhanced audio, broadcast & crisis detection: Complete, real-time oversight of all channels—including audio and broadcast—enabling rapid context building and optimal crisis response delivery.
Want to harness the power of Lumina AI for your PR, Comms, or Public Affairs team? .
Complete the form below to register your interest.
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Blog
Announcing Lumina: The purpose-built AI suite for PR, Comms, and Public Affairs
An intelligent suite of AI tools trained on the language, workflows, and realities of modern public relations and communications.
