Bank of America prepares for worst as Wikileaks threatens damaging document release

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) is preparing for the worst as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has stated that he has the bank firmly in his sights. Assange plans to release documents that are reported to be devastating to Bank of America’s reputation.

Nobody knows what is in the documents but Bank of America, to its credit, is trying to prepare. One of the things they are doing is buying up all the domain names involving their bank and their CEO Brian Moynihan in an effort to keep individuals from creating websites with obscene names or that are damaging to BOA.

In full disclosure Bank of America is a client of mine and I have worked with them on media training but I am not working with them currently. Buying domain names is a good first step but I certainly hope that their crisis communication strategy is more involved than just that.

Here is what needs to happen once the documents are released. Within the hour Bank Of Americas needs to come out with a statement from their CEO. It can’t just be a standard press release, it needs to be a live video streamed on their website. Moynihan needs to start with the facts, then offer the BOA perspective on what was released, address any improprieties, state how BOA is investigating the charges and finally, how they are going to communicate with the public to provide updates.

The worst thing that Bank of America can do is to be defensive. In the long run that will hurt them more than it will help them. When this story hits it will come with massive scrutiny from regulators, the media, lawmakers and investors. Unless this is a giant smoke screen by Wikileaks, the world will be focused on Bank of America.

My recommendation to BOA is to have your team in place to read these documents in order to process the information into a clear, clean and comprehensive message that tells people what your three keys points are on the issues raised.

Bank of America should focus on what the facts are and explain what they are going to do about the issues raised in the documents. In order to get out in front of this story they need to be proactive, accessible and most important, they need to take questions.

If they are successfully able to do this Bank of America could end up not being punished as harshly by investors, regulators and the public. They may even be able to escape with an enhanced reputation.