Force For Good Communications

Reputation comes before brand. But what does that mean?

Okay, so we all agree that "reputation is a winning company's greatest asset," right? That makes it pretty darn important.

But what exactly do we mean by reputation? And how does it differ from brand?

These are crucial questions – the two words are central to the professions of communications and marketing, yet there seems to be widespread disagreement on what reputation and brand really mean.

I generally love Wikipedia but this isn’t helpful:

Reputation, as distinct from image, is the process and the effect of transmission of a target image. To be more precise, we call reputation transmission a communication of an evaluation without the specification of the evaluator, if not for a group attribution, and only in the default sense.

Got that?

This is how I would begin:

Reputation is the audience filter that comes before consideration – of purchase, investment, recommendation, or employment. A positive reputation opens the door to consideration; a negative reputation can slam it shut.

Brand is all about identity and connotation, but it has no power to drive action without reputational “permission.”

Advertising pioneer David Ogilvy (who would’ve turned 100 a few months ago), made this simple and brilliant distinction:

“Brand is the promise that an organization makes. Reputation is whether it lives up to that promise”. (Thanks to Mike Hatcliffe’s blog for that.)

Other useful definitions:

“Reputation is (corporate) culture seen from the outside.” – Alan Towers, TowersGroup Inc

Reputation is “how much a community trusts you.” – Stackoverflow

If there is any doubt of reputation’s primacy before brand, consider this pithy command to the marketer by Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airways and someone who knows a bit about branding:

“Build brands not around products but around reputation.”

And finally, on the notion of “building your own personal brand” as distinct from your reputation:

You build reputation by silently doing, proving and acting on everything you said you were going to do while building your brand. If your brand is … that you know what the hell you’re talking about, your reputation is the proof that you do. – Lisa Barone, Outspoken Media

Silence worsened sordid Penn State scandal--2011 PR Disaster of the Year

The real tragedy of the scandal at Penn State is that so many of Jerry Sandusky's alleged acts of predatory sexual abuse over the years could have been prevented if university officials had not tried to keep it quiet. Hoping to avoid an ugly incident, their silence led to arguably the worst scandal in American sports history ... and made for an easy choice for the Force for Good's 2011 PR Disaster of the Year.

Time and again, the lasting impact of a crisis is made worse by those first on the scene hoping to sweep it under the rug. How many times have you you heard, "The coverup was worse than the crime?"

Bold prediction: this won't be the last time a scandal is made far worse by embarrassed officials trying to make it all go away. Don't let it happen at your company. Work with senior leadership to develop a rigorous crisis management plan built around smart, proactive crisis communications to all stakeholders.

Click here for five years of truly memorable recipients of FFG's PR Disaster of the Year.

- Jon Harmon

Few employees are truly engaged or know the strategy; Great internal communication sets winning companies apart

In a hyper-competitive world and in a weak economy, companies need fully engaged employees who understand and buy into the corporate strategy. So there's a shockingly huge opportunity at most companies in America today:

• A 2009 Gallup study found only 28% of employees at large companies describe themselves as fully engaged in their work; 54% say they are not engaged and 18% say they're "actively disengaged." (Accompanying graphic courtesy of Gallup Management Journal, Sept. 2010)

• "Only 37% of employees have a clear understanding of what their organization is trying to do and why. Just one in five employees are enthusiastic about their organization's and teams goals." -- You Can't NOT Communicate², by David Grossman

Fortunately, Grossman's latest book is an incredibly useful tool for business leaders and communicators who want to increase employee engagement and alignment. Clear, compelling, purposeful communication can make a huge difference in the workplace. 

Grossman makes the case for the greatness: "Good internal communication gets the message out, but great internal communication helps employees connect the dots between the overarching business strategy and their individual roles. When it's good, it informs; when it's great, it engages employees and moves them to action." (p. 17)

The book itself models many of Grossman's principles for effective communication--it's short and easy-to-follow with simple, bulleted copy and lots of illustrations. Each chapter has practical tips, questions for self-reflection and specific actions to implement. It amounts to a comprehensive, self-guided business school course, beginning with the fundamentals (that ought to be obvious but will be of benefit to just about everyone) and including "Advanced Communication Mastery" for those ready to take the fundamentals "to the next level." Grossman makes even this graduate level material easy to understand, but warns that it will take courage to put into practice. "What courageous conversation might you need to have today," he asks, "and how can you develop your communications skills to prepare?"

Disclosure: David Grossman is a friend and someone I admire.

-- Jon Harmon 

GM learns from Toyota's mistakes with sure-footed crisis response to Volt fires

GM moved quickly to diffuse a potentially devastating crisis by continuing to learn from Toyota--in this case, avoiding Toyota's mistakes at the beginning of its own product crisis last year.

Media pounced (as they inevitably do) on GM soon after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into the Chevy Volt, an advanced plug-in hybrid electric car. A Volt had caught fire three weeks after it had been crash tested, touching off a crisis with far-ranging consequences: to GM (while not expected to make a positive contribution to GM earnings for many years, the Volt is the most visible symbol of the potential of the new GM, reborn after the bankruptcy of the old one), for the Obama Administration (which rightly has taken credit for saving thousands of American jobs with its rescue of GM), and for the nascent electric car industry (which are almost universally powered by lithium ion batteries similar to the ones used in the volt).

Remember that reports of flaming laptop computers originating from over-heating lithium ion batteries forced Dell in 2006 to initiate the largest recall in the history of personal computers.

The most important action for GM was to commit to do the right thing, not just set out to prove that the Volt was a safe vehicle, I told Keith Naughton of Bloomberg news as the crisis unfolded:

"They’ve got to demonstrate that they’re putting their customers’ safety first,” said Jon Harmon, a former spokesman for Ford Motor Co. and author of “Feeding Frenzy,” a book about the Ford-Firestone crisis of the early 2000s. “The focus needs to be on getting to the bottom of this, not trying to prove that they’re right.”

To GM's credit, the company reacted in mostly the right ways--cooperating immediately with NHTSA investigators to understand the cause of the fires while working to reassure the public. The fires had occurred after the crash-tested Volts had been parked without fully discharging the batteries, GM said--and the company would not only get the word out to its dealers and other auto service centers on the necessity of discharging the batteries after a collision, but they would develop an onboard system to slowly and safely discharge the batteries after a crash. And they offered loaners of good-old fashioned petrol-burning GM cars to Volt owners who didn't want to keep their cars while the company was sorting out the problem and the fix.

GM's only misstep was when GM CEO Dan Akerson said the company would buy back Volts from concerned customers, comments the company's PR people quickly clarified (the loaner program had been launched to quell customer concerns and the company has every intent to quickly understand and remedy the problem which would take away the need for any buy-back program).

Toyota in contrast had stone-walled investigators and the media when reports began to surface of complaints of unintended acceleration in a number of Toyota and Lexus models. After much criticism put a significant dent in its sterling reputation for quality and customer satisfaction, Toyota reversed course and began handling the crisis with laudable care and attention. Ultimately, the company was vindicated in its insistence that no computer or electronic malfunction was occurring. But that did not excuse its initial behavior in brushing off reports of its cars speeding up on their own, and undoubtedly that first impression left lasting scars on Toyota's reputation.

GM's adroit handling of the Volt crisis has rightly earned high marks and the contrast with Toyota's bumbling crisis response duly noted (for example, in the Los Angles Times).

- Jon Harmon

New candidates step forward ... for PR Disaster of the Year

The last few weeks have brought us a rush of new, worthy candidates—for Force for Good's annual PR Disaster of the Year award.

Herman Cain—no matter what you believe at this point, it is clear that the Cain campaign has been clueless in handling a crisis they should have seen coming. With 10 day's notice before the publication by Politico October 31 of the first allegations, how could Cain be caught flat-footed and ill-prepared? The steady drip, drip, drip of new accusations (we've seen this movie before, twice: It's Tiger Woods and Anthony Weiner, all over again) makes it clear this story isn't going away and Cain's various responses—angrily lashing out at reporters, trying desperately to change the subject, defiantly attacking one of his accusers as a "troubled woman," are all wrong, wrong, wrong.

Penn State—the sad, sordid tale of sexual abuse allegedly perpetrated by longtime assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky should have ended in 1996 when Sandusky was first caught showering with a boy; police were notified but no charges filed. Or in 2002 when a graduate assistant coach walked in on Sandusky in the shower with a boy, he told head coach Joe Paterno who reported the charges up to the Administration but didn’t notify police, confront Sandusky or otherwise follow through on his obligations to the community to stop a predator. Yesterday, university officials abruptly cancelled Paterno’s weekly press conference, only adding to the uproar. Today, the 84-year-old Paterno announced he will retire at the end of the year, surprising no one. The real tragedy is that so many at the university remained silent while Sandusky continued to molest at least eight boys.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, who in a quieter year might be running away with the award. With rioters in the streets of Athens a daily event protesting austerity measures that will end the gravy train for a coddled public in an IOU economy, Papandreou surprised his fellow leaders in the Eurozone by saying he would put Greek's last-chance bailout up for referendum. Hmmmm, seems like all those riots would give one pause before putting further-but-necessary austerity moves up for public referendum. Then, when Germany, France and the rest of the Eurozone made it obvious that their generous deal would be rescinded, Papandreou did an about-face and cancelled the referendum--nothing like promising a vote to a riotous public and the reneging, throwing gasoline on the fire. Papandreou was forced to resign to be replaced by ... no one yet. This being Greece, a new coalition government has yet to be formed amid more squabbling.

These newbies to PR disaster join entrenched candidates Wiener (who exposed himself as a liar), Lindsey Lohan (can’t seem to stay out of trouble), Dominiquec Strauss-Kahn and his accuser (he is at best a lech accused of much worse, but her story fell apart and he returned to France where he will apparently not be President), and the Boston Red Sox / Atlanta Braves (historic chokes by both teams--okay not so much a communications issue, but disasters nontheless).

Jon Harmon

Social media backlash spurs BoA to reverse course on debit card fee

A furious social media backlash helped convince Bank of America to reverse its unpopular decision to charge customers a monthly fee for using their debit cards.

The anti-Big Bank sentiment that is driving the Occupy Wall Street protests accentuated the consumer hue and cry, and BoA CEO's tone-deaf comments provided plenty of opportunity for derision.

"We have a right to make a profit," CEO Brian Moynihan, said infamously. While a perfectly reasonable statement in normal times, these are hardly normal times and the comment struck a discordant note with those hurt by the Great Recession. BoA received a taxpayer bailout to the tune of $45 billion, plus a "loan-loss back-stop" of $97 billion, according to CNN. Home-owners with upside-down mortgages and unemployed/underemployed workers haven't been as fortunate and quite predictably were put off by Moynihan's line.

As reported by the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal:

"The 'right to make a profit' comment triggered a great deal of negative sentiment," wrote James Purchase of Attensity (a company selling social media analytic software). On-line comments mimicked Moynihan, "'I have the right to bank elsewhere,' and 'Yes, but no more than I have the right to a job.' The most negative sentiment was around 'excessive profits,' 'high fees' and 'bailout.'"

BoA's experience is a cautionary tale for business failing to keep abreast of consumer sentiment being expressed in social media. You can learn a lot by listening. And if what you're hearing sounds severely at odds with a climate conducive to a business decision you're about to make, it's time to revisit the decision.

BTW - BoA's stock dropped when it announced the new debit card fees (investors apparently being more in tune with public sentiment than Moynihan and company), it fell again when Moynihan dug in his heals, and it further sank yesterday when the company rescinded the decision (losing more than the overall market on a very down day). The BoA incident is in line to receive serious consideration for Force for Good's 2011 PR Disaster of the Year.

- Jon Harmon

Secret for brand success in social media: Take a walk in shoes of customers, critics

Complete this thought:

Corporate communicators seeking to use social media to connect with customers and other constituents should concentrate on ...

If you ask Peter Hirshberg, CEO of The Re:imagine Group, he'd say "empathy."

Brands are shaped by conversations "out there" and the brand messages a company puts out must be in sync with those conversations or they will have no traction in the market. You probably know that already.

But there's something even more basic to success in social media engagement, Hirshberg says. Our ability to shape conversations depends on our ability to truly empathize with the people inside those conversations.

Hirshberg provided the keynote address last night at the Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations' second annual Celebration of Leaders in Chicago. Hirshberg's credentials are most impressive: a nine-year run at Apple, followed by Chairman/CEO roles at Elemental Software, Interpacket Networks, Gloss.com and Technorati (the world's leading aggregator of user-generated content).

Social media provides the on-going narrative to learning empathy, he says. That means more than just listening and responding to what we might see as factual errors. It means putting ourselves in our customers' -- or our critics -- shoes and seeing the world from their point of view before responding.

A not surprising viewpoint if you consider another aspect of Hirshberg's impressive resume. He is a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute -- the Henry Crown Fellowship seeks "to develop the next generation of community-spririted leaders by honing their skills in value-centered leadership."

- Jon Harmon

Crisis media relations made easy: Keeping COOL on the HOT Seat

"Keep your head when others around you are losing theirs." It's sound advice for the crisis communicator, but easier said than done.

The secret is preparation. Start with a thorough crisis vulnerability audit covering your company's operations, products and people. Then develop a detailed crisis communications plan with variations included for each significantly different type of crisis envisioned by the audit.

Then remember that the actual crisis that strikes won't be at all like any of the scenarios you envisioned. A crisis creates a whole string of moments requiring on-the-spot good judgment from the person leading crisis communications. But you'll be much more ready to exercise good judgment and a steady hand if you have previously taken the time to develop your crisis plan.

If you have little media-relations experience handling combustible issues and preparing for an all-out corporate crisis seems over-whelming, you'll do well to read Judith Hoffman's concise and well-reasoned Keeping COOL on the HOT Seat: Dealing Effectively with the Media in Times of Crisis. Just released as a revised fifth edition, this handy paperback provides wise counsel to the communicator that is both up-to-date and timeless.

The beauty of this book is its simplicity. Hoffman breaks down the daunting specter of a crisis--and the role of a crisis communicator in confronting it--into a series of short, easy-to-understand mini-chapters that collectively can help a novice make sense of it all. Yet a more seasoned public relations pro will also find it to be valuable because it's all so spot-on.

Keeping Cool walks the reader through the basic elements of crisis planning, along with the basics of crisis media relations. It is full of practical advice, including these 10 C's of Good Crisis Communications:

• Be cooperative.
• Provide control.
• Demonstrate caring and concern.
• Demonstrate competence.
• Be credible.
• Be consistent.
• Be clear.
• Be concise.
• Remain current.
• Act calm (keep your cool).

She advises against trying to be "cute or clever" and to avoid the always deadly "No comment."

This is all great advice and it's a solid reminder of the basics of crisis communications. Those who read and abide by the principles in this book will better serve their organization in the sudden event of a crisis.

What's missing is exactly where I began this post--the crisis audit. Hoffman skips over the need to dissect the organization for vulnerability on various fronts. Often, the crisis audit will detect deficiencies that, once addressed, may help an organization avoid a crisis in the first place. And different types of vulnerabilities may require somewhat different crisis plans (for example, an explosion in a plant will require a different response plan than would a string of complaints of sexual harassment).

Hoffman's book alone won't prepare a novice communicator for any emergency, but Keeping Cool readers will be far better off in an emergency for having read her book.

- Jon Harmon

Disclosure: Judy Hoffman includes a nice reference to my book, Feeding Frenzy, in her book which I'm happy to quote here:

"To get a true sense of what it is like to be on the "hot seat" in the midst of a raging crisis with national and international attention, read this book. Mr. Harmon was the head of Pubic Relations for Ford Truck in 1999 when this high-profile case broke. If there is even a possibility that your organization could be in such a high visibility position with your products deemed a safety threat to a large population, you owe it your self to know how these things work."