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Crisis Management Political & Corporate Communications Social Media & Reputation March 7, 2025

Narrative, Manipulation and Control: What Brands Can Learn from the Latest Geopolitical Reality Show Part 2

Writen by Uge Ferradás

Co-Founder & Brand Communication Expert

Narrative Manipulation Tactics — and How Brands Can Defend Themselves (or Use Them Ethically)

Introduction: The Information War as a Strategic Tool

In Part 1, we explored how the global narrative has become a battleground. Now, we turn our focus to the tactics used to control or divert the public conversation. Governments, corporations, and public figures have spent decades perfecting techniques designed to flood the media, confuse audiences, and ensure their version of events dominates the agenda.

Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, and other political strategists have shown that winning the narrative does not come from shouting the loudest version of the truth, but from controlling which topics fill the public space. The same logic applies to corporate communication and crisis management.

Let’s explore some of the most widely used tactics for controlling a narrative — and how brands can either defend themselves against them or apply them ethically to manage their reputation.


1. Information Overload as a Distraction Strategy

How It Works

One of the most effective ways to control a narrative is not to deny or debate it, but to flood the media environment with irrelevant or confusing information, making it nearly impossible for the audience to focus on what truly matters.

Trump has deployed this tactic countless times — issuing contradictory statements, creating constant new controversies to prevent any one story from dominating the news cycle, and turning every criticism into a media battle, where the sheer noise drowns out the core issue.

This technique mirrors the “document dump” legal strategy, where lawyers bury the opposing side under thousands of irrelevant documents, wasting their time and energy, and ensuring the key information is lost in the chaos.


Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica Scandal: Shifting the Narrative Focus to Minimise Damage

In 2018, The Guardian and The New York Times revealed one of the biggest electoral manipulation scandals of the digital age: Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal data of more than 87 million Facebook users without their explicit consent. These data profiles were used to create hyper-targeted political messaging, influencing both the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum.

Facebook’s initial response was defensive and reactive, adopting a technical tone that downplayed the severity of the issue. However, as the scandal grew, the company rolled out a broader, more calculated narrative strategy:

  1. Flooding the debate with announcements of internal policy changes.
    Every time the scandal made headlines, Facebook countered with updates on new privacy tools, stricter terms of service, and enhanced data security — all designed to shift the focus away from the past and towards a supposedly more responsible future.
  2. Adopting a narrative of evolution and learning.
    Facebook repositioned itself not as a guilty party, but as a platform that had grown and evolved in response to the incident, aiming to be a key player in the fight against disinformation.
  3. Launching proactive advertising campaigns.
    The company invested heavily in paid campaigns across digital and traditional media, promoting its commitment to user privacy and data protection, helping to gradually displace the scandal narrative with one of corporate responsibility and change.

📌 Source: Channel 4 – Data, Democracy and Dirty Tricks


Lesson for Brands

When a narrative crisis is inevitable, companies must take the initiative to shape the conversation, demonstrating commitment to change and adapting the message before others dictate the narrative for them.

In severe reputation crises, narrative control isn’t just about defence — it’s about offering such a compelling vision of the future that the original controversy is gradually overwritten.


2. Steve Bannon and the Marketing of Chaos

The Narrative Flood Strategy

The now infamous phrase “Flood the zone with shit”, coined by Steve Bannon, is not hyperbole — it’s a deliberate methodology. It’s based on creating a constant flood of information, blending half-truths, conspiracy theories, contradictory messages, and emotionally charged alarms.

The goal isn’t to inform — it’s to create a noise-filled environment so overwhelming that audiences abandon the idea of fact-checking and surrender emotionally to the simplest, most visceral narrative.


Brexit: A Case Study

Bannon didn’t just deploy this tactic for Trump’s campaign — he also worked closely with the pro-Brexit campaign, collaborating with Leave.EU and other key players.

Some of the specific techniques used during the Brexit campaign included:

  1. Flooding social media with emotionally charged, simplified messages.
    Slogans like Take Back Control or We Send the EU £350 million a week (a widely debunked claim) dominated the digital space, while complex discussions about economics or international relations were drowned out.
  2. A constant injection of fake news and exaggerations.
    From claims of mass immigration to the collapse of the NHS, the Brexit narrative was designed to flood public perception with existential threats.
  3. Psychographic micro-targeting.
    Borrowing techniques from Cambridge Analytica, the Brexit campaign tailored messages to individual fears, values, and aspirations, adapting the narrative to each audience segment’s emotional triggers.

📌 Source: The Guardian – Bannon’s Influence on Brexit


Lesson for Brands

Brands don’t need — and shouldn’t — adopt extreme manipulation tactics. However, they must recognise that in an information-saturated, emotionally polarised environment, clarity, transparency and narrative consistency are more valuable than ever.

At Polaris, we help brands build resilient narratives, capable of standing strong in the face of external manipulation attempts.

In short: when the information environment becomes too chaotic, people stop trying to make sense of it and cling to the loudest, simplest story. Confusion itself becomes a tool of control — and in a world where everything seems relative, the truth often loses to whoever shouts the loudest.

Brands looking to maintain credibility in the age of disinformation must invest in clear, verifiable, direct communication — before someone else defines their story for them.


3. How to Respond When Your Brand is Under Attack

If a company comes under attack or finds itself at the centre of a toxic narrative, responding without strategy can make matters worse. Some essential steps:

Narrative monitoring: Go beyond analysing what’s being said — identify who’s saying it, how it’s spreading, and the potential tipping points that could shift public perception.
Solid key messages: Prepare clear, brief, hard-to-twist responses.
Avoid unnecessary confrontations: Not every criticism deserves a response. The real skill lies in knowing when and how to intervene.


How Polaris Can Help Protect Your Narrative

Brands today don’t just need to communicate — they need narrative protection strategies in a world where manipulation is a tool of power.

Real-time narrative monitoring to detect risks before they escalate.
Strategic response plans to avoid reactive, damaging improvisations.
Fact-checking advertising campaigns to ensure the truth reaches as far as the lie.
Crisis communication protocols tailored to your sector and business context.

📩 Is your brand ready to manage its narrative during a crisis? Let’s talk.