Crisis Communications
We Protect Reputation Under Pressure
A crisis rarely announces itself. It arrives as a journalist’s call on a Friday afternoon, a post that will not stop spreading, an internal matter that reaches the outside, or a client who decides to go public.
What happens in the first hours sets the terms for everything that follows. Organisations with a plan, a trained spokesperson and an agreed chain of decision-making come out of it with their reputation intact. Organisations improvising do not lose the crisis. They lose the years of trust that came before it.
EDC works on both sides of that line: the preparation that makes a crisis manageable, and the response when one is already under way.
The Role of Crisis Communications in Protecting Business Value
Protect What Took Years to Build. Most organisations do not lose reputation because of what happened. They lose it because of how long it took them to respond, and what they said when they did.
Crisis Readiness Audit
We map what can realistically go wrong in your organisation and your sector, assess how exposed each scenario leaves you, and identify where the gaps are in people, process and message. Most companies discover in this exercise that their real vulnerability is not the scenario they feared, but the one nobody had named.
Crisis Communications Plan
A working document, not a binder. Who decides, who speaks, who is informed and in what order. Holding statements drafted in advance for the scenarios that matter. Contact trees, approval chains and escalation thresholds agreed before anyone is under pressure.
Spokesperson and Media Training
Hands-on sessions with real interview conditions, recorded and reviewed. Executives learn to hold a message under adversarial questioning, to handle what they cannot answer, and to avoid the phrases that turn a story into a longer story. Delivered in Portuguese or English.
Crisis Simulation
A live exercise against the clock, built on a scenario specific to your business. Your team faces incoming media calls, social media escalation and internal pressure in real time. It is the only reliable way to find out whether a plan works before it has to.
Active Crisis Response
When a crisis is already running, we move in with you: situation assessment, message development, media handling, stakeholder communication and continuous monitoring, for as long as it takes. All according to your Crisis Manual.
Post-Crisis Recovery
The work that most organisations skip. Measuring what the crisis actually did to perception, rebuilding the narrative, and closing the gaps the crisis exposed so that the same thing does not happen twice.
Why Preparation Costs Less Than Response
The organisations that handle crises well are almost never the ones with the best crisis response. They are the ones with the most trust in the bank before it started.
This is not an impression, it is measurable. The 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer, based on 34,000 respondents across 28 countries, found that seven in ten people are unwilling or hesitant to trust others. The 2025 edition showed how that plays out under pressure: among people with a high sense of grievance, companies are perceived as 81 points less ethical. The same facts, read through a different lens, produce a different verdict.
The practical consequence is straightforward. An organisation with a reputation surplus is given the benefit of the doubt for the hours it needs to establish the facts. An organisation without one is judged immediately, and every subsequent statement is read as damage control.
You cannot build that surplus during a crisis. You can only spend it.
Let's Make Sure You Are Ready Before You Need To Be
Most companies call a crisis agency on the day they need one. By then the choice is narrow, the fees are higher and there is no time to learn how each other works.
The organisations that come through best are the ones that did the audit, wrote the plan and ran the simulation in a quiet quarter, and already had a number to call.
If you want to know how exposed your organisation is today, that is where we start.
How We Work in a Crisis
Speed With Judgement
Fast is not the same as first. We help you say something early enough to hold the narrative, and accurate enough that you do not have to correct it later.
One Version, Every Audience
Media, employees, clients, regulators and partners receive messages built from the same set of facts. Contradiction between channels is what turns an incident into a story about credibility.
Global Standards, Local Judgement
As the Edelman affiliate in Portugal, we bring international crisis methodology and access to global research, applied by people who know the Portuguese and Spanish media landscape and the journalists who will be calling.
Case Studies
A client dealt with a situation that received significant coverage on national television. A former employee accused the company of unfair dismissal and alleged discrimination. EDC monitored the entire process, liaising with the company’s Crisis Committee. EDC was responsible for:
- Initial assessment of the situation
- Twice-daily reporting with an incident log
- Preparation of a response statement
- Management of journalist enquiries
- Preparation of spokespersons for contact with the press
- Post-crisis recovery strategy
EDC managed a client in the healthcare sector whose supplier was involved in a road traffic accident whilst transporting hospital supplies. EDC’s crisis team was activated to carry out an initial assessment and monitor the situation, with daily reporting. A communication strategy for crisis management was prepared, involving the drafting of response statements with meetings held every two days and close coordination with the client’s team.
Following the storm and floods of 2025 in central Portugal, a client providing home healthcare services activated EDC’s crisis management communications team to assess potential media exposure for the company. EDC was responsible for managing this for over 30 days without interruption, with the following scope of work:
- Initial assessment of the situation
- Activation of a media monitoring platform to identify and classify news stories
- Twice-daily reporting with a log of incidents
- Meetings every two days with the client’s Crisis Committee (online)
- Preparation of a response statement
- Management of journalist enquiries
- Preparation of spokespersons for contact with the press
- Post-crisis recovery strategy
What We Offer
EDC offers a comprehensive portfolio of crisis management services. Our modular approach allows us to tailor our services to the client’s specific needs.
- Initial assessment of the situation and definition of a communication strategy with external stakeholders
- Preparation of the organisation’s spokespersons, including training on how to speak to the press
- Definition of a communication strategy, including key messages and dos and don’ts
- Reporting at intervals agreed with the client, with news classification (tone of voice, level of exposure, urgency assessment, amongst others)
- Preparation of proactive or reactive statements (in line with the defined strategy) and management of relations with journalists
- Final report on crisis management and definition of a recovery plan
- Training in crisis communication, including practical crisis simulation exercises and media training sessions
Our services
Explore our range of services designed to meet every aspect of your marketing needs.
Find out how we can help
The cost of crisis management is based on the number of hours the team allocates to each project. Please get in touch with us to find out how we can help. Don’t let poor communication management destroy what has taken years to build.
FAQs
What is crisis communications?
Crisis communications is the discipline of protecting an organisation’s reputation and operational continuity when an event threatens both. It covers the preparation done in advance, the response during the event and the recovery afterwards. It is distinct from crisis management, which addresses the operational problem itself.
When should a company put a crisis plan in place?
Before it needs one. A plan written under pressure is a statement, not a plan. Organisations typically run a readiness audit and build a plan in a quiet period, then refresh both annually or whenever leadership, structure or risk profile changes.
What does crisis media training involve?
Recorded practice interviews under adversarial conditions, tailored to scenarios your organisation could realistically face. Spokespeople work on holding a message, handling questions they cannot answer, and managing tone and body language under pressure. Sessions run in Portuguese, English or Spanish.
Can EDC help if a crisis is already under way?
Yes. We take on active crisis response, including situation assessment, message development, media handling,stakeholder communication and reporting, and can mobilise at short notice.
Do you work with companies outside Portugal?
Yes. We work with international organisations operating in Portugal and Spain, and as the Edelman affiliate in Portugal we can coordinate with the Edelman network on multi-market situations.