Dave Kellogg
On how communications teams should respond to rumors about their company
Our takeOpinion
Corporate communications teams that answer some rumors and stay silent on others end up signalling more than they intend, which matters to marketing leaders who sit in on those calls. The piece walks through how a run of truthful denials turns a later refusal to comment into a tacit yes, and uses a well-known securities case to show that denying talks which are actually happening carries legal risk. A reader can take from it that the useful moment to set a uniform response is before a rumor arrives that cannot be denied, and that every spokesperson, including sales and customer-facing teams, needs to follow it. It applies most directly to public companies, or private ones heading toward a sale or financing, where an acquisition or layoff rumor can shape customer and employee trust. The legal reasoning rests on one American securities case, so it transfers poorly to other jurisdictions, and a company with no pending deal or listed stock faces a milder version of the problem.
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