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

M&A work has a different cadence than standard reputation engagements because the deal timeline drives everything. Five Blocks structures each engagement across four phases, aligned to 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, Wikidata entity record, 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 official communications strategy has settled on what those descriptions should say, making real-time visibility into what each engine is saying (and why) a practical operational need during this phase.

   

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 accumulating slowly in the weeks after, during which the public record would be inconsistent with the new corporate reality.

4. Post-close: Entity integration

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