How does Five Blocks approach a brand in the middle of an M&A process?

M&A work runs on a different cadence than standard reputation engagements, because the deal timeline sets the pace for everything. Five Blocks structures each engagement across four phases that track how deal communications actually unfold.

1. Pre-announcement: confidential audit

   Before anything is public, Five Blocks runs a diligence-grade assessment of the target’s digital footprint. This covers the Wikipedia article state, the Wikidata entity record, the AI narrative profile across major engines, and any contested or legacy content that could surface during the deal window or complicate post-close positioning. The work is scoped and delivered under confidentiality.

2. Deal window: daily AIQ monitoring

   Once the deal is active, AIQ™ runs daily monitoring on the target, the acquirer, and the emerging combined-entity narrative. AI engines often begin producing combined-entity descriptions before the communications strategy has settled on what those descriptions should say. During this phase, knowing in real time what each engine is saying, and why, is an operational need rather than a nice-to-have.

   

3. Day of close: Wikipedia and Wikidata update

   Wikipedia and Wikidata edits are prepared in advance so the structural updates land cleanly the day the transaction closes, rather than trickling in over the following weeks, when the public record would still contradict the new corporate reality.

4. Post-close: entity integration

   After close, work shifts to integrating the entity infrastructure under the new corporate structure and correcting any residual narrative drift across AI engines, so the combined entity is described consistently and as it intends.