In the thick of it: How brands can prepare for and respond to disasters

This article thinks about how brands can prepare for crisis, taking as its core case study the Bank of America whose post-2008 crisis acquisitions created a trio of distrusted brands in uncertain times.

In the thick of it: How brands can prepare for and respond to disasters

Anne Field

When the stock market crashed in September 2008, it was the beginning of a long journey back for Bank of America.

The Charlotte-based financial services company had recently bought Countrywide Financial, the teetering mortgage originator that blew up when the housing market collapsed; then, under pressure from the U.S. government, it purchased the floundering Merrill Lynch.

Both acquisitions landed the company smack in the middle of the sub-prime and mortgage securitization fiasco — and considerable consumer and government ire. In December 2009, newly named...

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