Typically, I don’t comment on crisis or issues communications programmes I’m not involved in. For me, it seems unfair when you provide an ‘expert opinion’ in the absence of all the facts and the internal back-and-forth that led to decisions and responses.
This makes sense. In practice, good advisers exist to support organisations through their most difficult moments, guided by the pursuit of the best possible outcome.
It really is the truth that doing the right thing is always the right thing to do, and as an outsider, it’s easy to forget that decisions are made in real time and without the benefit of hindsight.
But it does beg the question: does this no longer apply when you are no longer the ‘outsider’ providing a view, but rather you are the consumer experiencing the real and felt consequences of these actions and communications?
It raises two fundamental reality checks for reputation managers; first, that we should always be mindful of the felt impact of comms well beyond the words; and secondly, that companies should not shy away from suspending their agendas in the appreciation that any communications action is always entirely contextual to its audience.
One truth in all of this stands tall: you behave yourself into the reputation you have or want, you don’t communicate yourself there. Behaviour is the only stakeholder truth.
Category reputational litmus test
Enter Discovery Health. Don’t get me wrong, I can sense the pervasive eye roll as I write this. However, in Discovery, we find an organisation that serves as the reputational litmus test for its entire category.
Beyond this, there are countless examples where its behaviours and its communications have been anything but above board.
Discovery is almost automatically hamstrung by the prevailing view of it as “big bad healthcare”, and in many cases, I can see where it scores repeated home goals in challenging this belief.
Did you know there is a Facebook group (now almost 12,000 strong and climbing) called “How I was messed around by Discovery Health Medical Aid” where disgruntled members share and voice their poor experiences out of nothing other than sheer desperation.
The stories are wild. The emotion is real
The stories are wild, including criticism that CEO Adrian Gore’s multi-million-rand remuneration is tantamount to stealing from the poor.
If you have paid attention to LinkedIn over the last few months, you would also have seen (former) Discovery member Ben Lombard’s rage against what he calls “Discoverygate” and “White-Collar Capture” (with claims that Discovery’s actions are tantamount to white collar crime). The emotion is real.
It’s directly linked to the most personal aspects of members’ lives – their health and their money.
Surprise!
So, imagine my surprise when I (like many other members) received a random slide into my DMs at 8:22 on the evening of 31 December 2025, informing me that I now owe the scheme around R19,000 because of an error on their side.
Yes indeed, an email after 8 pm on the last day of the year.
No supporting documents that show me how this number was arrived at, just a rather trite claim that “You trust us to do the right thing” (even if the timing of the comms was a little dodgy – you know… because behaviour is truth).
My felt experience of the comms tells me everything I need to know about providing a view on the latest clawback.
5 key themes
Five key themes are literally looking reputation managers in the eye:
- The ambush: The comms have so far had little to no basis in consumer reality. Timing (both choice of day and time of day) undermines any level of credibility, especially as consumers are left feeling ambushed.
- The perception: Perception is reality – and how Discovery has managed these comms is not just tone deaf, it’s resulted in the communications themselves becoming the story, and this only serves to reinforce the big bad healthcare narrative.
- The detail: The lack of facts and avoidance in disclosing the actual number of members creates deep suspicion. The result is that comms drives a lack of trust as opposed to radical transparency, which would have the opposite effect. I, for one, would like a detailed statement of each transaction, as I am sure many would.
- The explanation: The unintended consequences of blaming the system or technology are poor framing. These are critical trust drivers, so blaming these actually undermines the longer-term reputation and trust Discovery relies on.
- The relationship: The lack of meaningful two-way engagement creates opposition, never an ideal outcome when it’s the last thing you need in the moment.
Not a comms problem
Discovery can argue the maths, the process and the policy until it is blue in the face, but that’s not where this issue lives. It lives in the moment a member opens a late-night email on the last day of the year and feels ambushed, powerless and dismissed.
That is not a communications problem.
That is a behaviour problem, and behaviour is the only truth stakeholders trust.
The lesson for reputation managers is simple: you can’t spreadsheet your way out of a trust deficit, and you can’t message your way past a felt experience.
If organisations want the benefit of the doubt in moments like this, they have to earn it long before the moment with consistency, transparency and respect when it matters most.
Anything less isn’t just bad comms. It’s bad leadership.
Where this ultimately goes is anyone’s guess, but the reputation takeaway is glaring… do better Discovery.
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