Pressure Test Grid
Pressure-test your brand before the crisis hits
The Pressure Test Grid is a behavioural diagnostic tool developed by Brand Dummy designed to help brands assess how well their identity, messaging, and behaviour hold up under stress. Whether you're facing AI backlash, cultural scrutiny, operational disruption, or economic pressure, this grid helps you anticipate how consumers will interpret your actions—not just what you say, but how it feels. It reframes reputational risk through the lens of fairness, transparency, and emotional resonance, giving teams a structured way to evaluate credibility before a crisis unfolds.
Each quadrant of the grid corresponds to a different type of reputational stressor, allowing you to map your brand’s strengths and vulnerabilities across scenarios. It’s especially useful for cross-functional teams—marketing, PR, legal, and product—who need a shared language to diagnose risk and align on response strategies. By identifying weak signals early, the grid helps you shift from reactive damage control to proactive trust-building.
The Pressure Test Grid is designed to be simple, visual, and actionable. Its format is a 3x3 matrix that allows leaders to quickly map how their brand performs across dimensions and stressors. Each cell represents a diagnostic checkpoint, where resilience can be marked as Resilient (✅), Vulnerable (⚠️), or Exposed (❌). This visual format makes it easy to see patterns: strengths that hold across scenarios, vulnerabilities that cluster in certain areas, and exposures that demand immediate attention.
The grid is not meant to be static. It should be revisited regularly—before major launches, after crises, or during annual brand reviews. By filling in the matrix, teams create a snapshot of resilience that can be tracked over time, turning the grid into both a diagnostic and a monitoring tool.
Here is a sample grid that could apply to your brand:
After completing the Pressure Test Grid, a brand receives a behavioural snapshot of how its identity, messaging, and actions hold up under different types of reputational stress—AI risk, cultural scrutiny, operational disruption, and economic pressure. The scoring highlights areas of strength (e.g., clear accountability, inclusive tone, visible safeguards) and flags vulnerabilities where trust may erode under scrutiny. This diagnostic doesn’t produce a single numeric score, but rather a strategic map showing which stressors expose credibility gaps and where proactive adjustments can build resilience before a crisis hits.
Offered free of charge, the Pressure Test Grid designed by Brand Dummy is your starting point for building brand resilience. It pairs perfectly with the full Crisis Playbook Series, giving you a preview of the strategic depth and practical tools available in each playbook. Download it, pressure-test your brand, and start turning scrutiny into strength.
Frequently asked questions
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It’s a behavioural diagnostic tool that helps brands assess how their identity, messaging, and actions hold up under four types of reputational stress: tech-ethical risk, cultural scrutiny, operational disruption, and economic pressure.
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Instead of a single numeric score, you’ll map strengths and vulnerabilities across each stressor. The grid reveals where trust may erode and where proactive adjustments can build resilience.
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Marketing managers, brand strategists, PR teams, and reputation leads—especially those working cross-functionally with legal, product, or executive teams to align messaging and risk strategy.
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Before launching a campaign, responding to backlash, or making strategic pivots. It’s especially useful during planning, stakeholder alignment, and post-crisis reflection.
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Yes! The Pressure Test Grid is offered free of charge to help teams start diagnosing brand risk. It pairs well with the premium playbooks for deeper guidance on AI and Gen Z volatility, among others.
Praise for the PTG
“The PTG gave our team a shared language to assess brand risk—finally, marketing, legal, and comms are aligned before the crisis hits.”
VP of Brand strategy
“It helped us spot a credibility gap in our AI messaging before launch. That one insight saved us from a major backlash.”
Director of Customer Satisfaction