Roundtable
Global Lessons Learned on ReputationLike products, people and property, reputation is a corporate asset that should be deliberately managed. In every action a company takes and every statement it makes, management should be aware that it is earning its reputation — a brand is what a brand does. Appropriate communication can make a company's actions and intentions clearer and, thus, can be a key tool in both strengthening and protecting reputation. In this Roundtable installment, senior Ketchum counselors in North America, South America, Europe and Asia share insights they've learned from years of helping brands and corporations manage reputation. Perspectives posed a single question to each of them: What is the most important lesson you've learned about helping corporations protect or improve their reputations? North AmericaJudy Brennan: Speed and transparency are paramount. Many of our clients are caught in the cross hairs of health care reform, the mortgage meltdown, and the financial crisis. Health insurers, banking institutions and real estate companies are under siege. Their credibility is being challenged on all fronts — from executive compensation to financial performance to investor returns. Clients need to ensure their points of view are heard by key influencers as quickly as possible; their views must help shape the discussion around the steady onslaught of controversial issues impacting the future of their industries and their own reputations. Skeptical constituents are making unprecedented demands for new, detailed information at warp speed. Pulling together this new information in a short time frame is one challenge; conveying it in an understandable, meaningful way for the media, Congress and taxpayers is another. Congressional testimony, on- and off-the-record media interviews, and internal communications all require a factual, credible and compelling positioning that is as tight as possible to withstand criticism and tough questions. This position must be crafted with painstaking attention to detail, delivered by a well-prepared spokesperson fully armed with all the facts — and must often be launched in a matter of days. The goal is simply to maintain our clients' credibility and help them navigate through the prevailing skepticism so they come through this challenging period with their reputations intact. Today that means speed and transparency must be at the core of defensive campaigns. Sean Fitzgerald: First, I think there should be a strong differentiation between "protect" and "improve." When it comes to improving a company's reputation, one of the most important things is to define the "end game" upfront — what reputation is or should the company be striving to achieve? At the same time, it's critical to define the client's current reputation, then work to develop a plan of action that will bridge them from where they are now to where they aspire to be. Ultimately, the more distinctive a reputation is, the more value it has for that company. So, we explore what is going to better position a client as unique in its sector and what will differentiate it from its competition. As for protecting reputation, when a company finds itself in a difficult situation, our counsel today is to communicate as often as possible and as openly and honestly as the company can. A company's reputation can no longer be as tightly controlled as it was five years ago. C-suite leaders that have not been faced with a major, reputation-threatening issue recently may not realize just how much the Internet and social media have changed things. There is no hiding anymore. Sooner or later — more often sooner — customers, stakeholders and detractors are going to get to the bottom of what's happening. Then someone else will be in control of your messaging and perhaps even your market position. When a company doesn't yet have all the answers its stakeholders are seeking, even that fact (along with the facts the company does have) should be communicated honestly. That transparency and honesty may help you at least achieve the benefit of the doubt. Of course, the ideal goal is to bring rapid closure to a reputational challenge, but the Internet makes it harder than ever to bring closure to anything. Months-old news can be instantly revived with a single blog posting. Even if it's years later, a company should always get its perspective included in stories. Not doing so could mean missing an opportunity to correct a misconception. Importantly, protecting a company's reputation is an ongoing exercise — no longer an "as needed" moment in time. Geoffrey Rowan: The lesson that will help organizations protect and enhance their reputations — and a lesson I see reinforced on an almost daily basis — is simple but enormously powerful. It is this: Be the best source of information about the things that matter to you. Be the most credible, the most reliable, the most accessible and the most transparent source. Being the best source ensures that you will always have a voice in any public conversation about matters that can affect your reputation. It requires tremendous discipline and commitment. Nature abhors a vacuum. If you do not speak for yourself, others whose goals are much different than yours will speak on your behalf. They will misrepresent your actions and beliefs. They will ascribe motives to your behavior. In some cases, they will lie. This will happen very quickly and once the negatives are out there, they are much harder to contain and correct. Being the most credible means you cannot deny reality; you cannot spin madly. In today's world it is extremely difficult to get away with misdirection, vagueness or deceit. You will probably be discovered, and your credibility will be shot. You will lose the right to have a meaningful voice in the discussion. Being reliable means you don't disappear. You must maintain reliable communication. Channels have to stay open and they have to work, whether it's a 1-800 phone line in a crisis, or creating clear and consistent connections online, or providing a timely response to a media question, people must believe you will communicate with them or they will move on quickly and find someone else who will. Being the most accessible means not just that people can actually find you. It means that people can understand you. Your language, message and tone must be accessible. People must feel that they have been heard by you. If they don't, their frustration level will boil over into genuine anger. Being transparent means simply being honest. We live in a world of sophisticated consumers, skeptics and cynics. Some people are looking hard for examples of your disingenuousness. If they find one, they will trumpet it, and you will lose the right to have a meaningful voice in a discussion that is important to your reputation. All told, being the best source of information gives you credible standing in the uncontrollable marketplace of ideas. South AmericaGustavo Averbuj: The most important lesson is that we are in the people business. What we do for our clients every day in times of peace helps build the relationship that, in hard times, will allow us to work together to solve a crisis that threatens a company's reputation. There will be a moment of truth where my client will take my hand and we will move forward together, trusting each other for our own survival. There are a few companies that, after building up impeccable reputations, could pull out of a crisis just by remaining silent and issuing a couple of well-crafted press releases. But others can have their reputations shattered by a minor problem that was simply mishandled. Problems can arise anywhere (be it melamine, lead paint, child labor or even a country's president openly criticizing a company, as has happened recently in some Latin American countries), but they will always end up at the CEO's desk. There is a small group of CEOs that by saying what they think have added enormous value and trust to their companies. But there should always be a "go" team of trusted senior advisors (inside and outside the company) ready to put out a fire — anywhere in the world. Global problems require global handling and global solutions. Otherwise, like in a corporate Sudoku game, you will fix one line but disarray the rest. In Latin America, for instance, multinational companies looking to protect their reputations must "talk the talk" (someone should speak the local language because English is still not mandatory) and "walk the walk" (someone should know how things are done locally). The same is true for other parts of the world. Having the right people in the right places can help a company build reputation capital every day, and save it for rainy days. EuropeRod Cartwright: First and foremost, corporate reputation is not an end in itself, but a means to an end — with that end being the mitigation of business risk and the maximization of business opportunity. With this in mind, six things are critical:
 Petra Sammer
Petra Sammer: I've found it is essential to remind clients of their corporate values and to stress the importance of using those values as a basis for reputation management, positioning, and even crisis management. The power of values is often underestimated. Values are not a "soft factor," as they are often described. They have a strong internal effect and are a good source for grounding storytelling within a corporation. For any organization, internal communication is fundamental to both trust and reputation management. Values also tie into an important aspect of reputation that was highlighted during the reputation capital conference in Munich. There are three dimensions of reputation: functional, social and expressive. Functional means a company needs to prove its competence and demonstrate the required success. Functional reputation is measured in a company's growth and profit — its financial performance. Social reputation is about the responsibility a company is willing to take for the needs of society and the environment — how sustainable a company is. However, it is no longer about what we know as "corporate social responsibility." It is much more than that. It's about the whole business model of a company and its willingness to act on its responsibility — its attitude. Expressive reputation is about the capability to demonstrate emotion and passion. It represents an ethical dimension as well as the character of a company. The values of a company inform how it performs in each of these three dimensions. Thus, my further advice to clients is that neglecting either dimension — or failing to live up to the values beneath them — can put an otherwise solid reputation at risk. AsiaSimeon Mellalieu: Traditionally when reputation has been considered, there has been a tendency to look at the company (or its leader) in isolation — a distinct entity separate from the socioeconomic environment surrounding it. However, in today's globalized world, it has become clear that corporate reputation is not isolated, and this is readily apparent when working in non-Western markets. In emerging markets, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), corporate reputation may often be burdened by the baggage of the international reputation of an entire nation. For example, the "Made in China" perception of "hazardous" products has brewed over recent years through successive scandals over milk, pet food and toys. The Chinese government now takes this so seriously that it recently launched an international TV ad campaign to combat these negative attitudes. Conversely, protests in Paris during the 2008 Olympic torch relay had a very negative impact on French companies operating in China, such as Carrefour. So, the lesson is that the potential impact of "sovereign social responsibility" is not something that can be overlooked in any reputation management program today, whether the company in question hails from either a developed or a developing market. When it comes to corporate reputation, it is not just the behavior of an individual company that is questioned, but also the actions of governments and nations. Corporations should bear this in mind in both day-to-day business and in how they respond to issues that arise. As a final point, I also will mention transparency, which is now universally recognized as a fundamental element of reputation management in establishing credibility and trust. It should go without saying that transparency is vital during the briefing stage between a client and its PR agency. When an agency is missing important information about a company's actions, the result can be misaligned, ineffective reputation programs that undermine trust in target audiences when exactly the opposite is desired. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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KETCHUM'S ONLINE MAGAZINE | YEAR 2010 ISSUE 2 |
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KETCHUM'S ONLINE MAGAZINE | YEAR 2010 ISSUE 2 |
