When reputation takes a hit – knowing what you stand for is the first step to recovery

Reputation, image and identity are different concepts. Much confusion exists between the three because we use them synonymously.

A reputation is a distillation… it is the sum total of the experience, knowledge, feelings and emotions people have when interacting with an organisation or brand. Whether it is ‘good’ or not depends on the extent to which the public views the organisation (or brand) as delivering on the organization/brand promise.

Image is different.  It is how an organisation choses to represent itself to its various stakeholders. It tells people what it stands for and why that has benefit for customers through promotion of its products and services.  It advertises those benefits in communication which is rich is symbolism (think the Nike ‘Swoosh’ or the Mercedes ‘bangle’) and ‘success by association’ (Breitling and Rolex watches).

Identity on the other hand speaks to how an organisation sees itself. An identity is inward looking. It concerns itself with values and value systems in a complex network of stakeholder relationships. It is intended to appeal to employees and shareholders.

If reputation, identity and image are different, then it follows that by damaging one you don’t necessarily damage the other.

So an organisation that does something to damage its reputation (what others think of it) and image (the way it promotes itself) it can recover if its identity is sound.  When reputation takes a hit knowing what you stand for is the first step to recovery.

Why Google believes digital media is driving Oz culture and identity

This is an interesting take on Oz culture and identity by Nick Leeder, MD Google Australia & New Zealand.

$24Bn reasons to believe digital media is driving Oz culture and identity

Reputation and competitive advantage

How does reputation lead to competitive advantage?

I reckon in two ways: Reputation, or let’s say the net effect of all one’s interactions with a brand, provides an identity that becomes a rallying point for employees and makes customers proud to be associated with a company or brand. They have a clear understanding of what a brand is about and identify with the vision and value system associated with that brand. Abraham Lincoln would call this the ’tree’. It’s the real thing and cannot be faked … at least not for long.

Secondly, reputation affects image, or the way others view you – this is Abraham Lincoln’s ‘shadow’ analogy. A positive image attracts people to you – like prospective employees so you get to choose the best of the bunch, but the same may be said for attracting customers and shareholders. Image is good for share price; good for attracting people to your cause.

So a positive reputation helps a company keep its best people, attract and retain good customers, and adds value to the share price as the share takes on an intrinsic value of its own.

Where is the competitive advantage? Sustainability is key across the triple bottom line – people, planet and profit. Now if sustainability is important it means that experiential gains from employees, and their interactions with customers, become the means by which service levels soar, input costs are kept low and where one facilitates a premium on pricing.

Sound easy?  Not a chance.  A reputation is hard earned and easily lost.

Why do some companies get away with reputational damage and yet go on to even greater success?  More about that next post.

Has Qantas damaged Brand Australia?

The idea of grounding an airline in today’s world of interconnectedness sounds like the stuff a Jeffrey Archer or Ken Follett block buster is made of.  If this was a case study you would probably be critical of its authenticity.  But that’s exactly what Alan Joyce (CEO) did with Qantas and the debate now is whether his actions have damaged Brand Australia?

In asking the question I wonder if we aren’t confusing two things here: brand identity and brand image?

The ‘problem’ for Qantas is an identity one – a fight for the soul of the airline.

Either it is a commercial enterprise run along commercial principles or it is a national airline with nationalist tendencies …. including a staff cost irreconcilable to a competitive environment.

Fix the identity problem and the image will be fixable.

Leave the identity issue unresolved and no amount of money or spin will pull a brand out of a death spiral that will end with a hard landing (ok weak pun but you get the point?).

I think Qantas will become a classic case study of how a CEO (with the unqualified support of his Board) can wrestle back the identity of a brand and go on to fix the fall out and crisis in image that Qantas no doubt feels right now.

Although$20m in free flights, and a no nonsense refund of costs associated with the decision to ground the airline, will go a long way to resolving an image problem even of this magnitude.

And as for those customers who swear they will never fly Qantas again?

They will be at the head of the queue for one of those freebies.

Integrity and brand building

Just as reputation plays an important role in the creation of a brand so too is it foundational to the development of a personal reputation an individual can be proud of. 

Benjamin Franklin reckons that ‘if you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing’.  

As with a brand then, and assuming you want to leave some sort of legacy, a personal reputation is just as important for individuals.  

I reckon reputation has one foundational personality trait:  Integrity. 

Integrity is an often misused word.  It means doing what you say you are going to do with honesty and truthfulness. 

A good reputation must enjoy public trust and strong equivalence between appearance and reality.  

How often have you met someone who can talk-the-talk but when it comes to delivery … well that’s another matter?

Make a decision today to walk-the-talk, not just talk it. 

To help you do that ask yourself two questions: What are you reading? and Who are you associating with? 

The idea here is that both influence who you are – this is something a parent readily recognises as they seek to protect their children from the influences of peer pressure and yet how few adults follow their own advice.  Where you will be in 5 years depends on both these factors – What are you reading? and Who you are associating with? – something obvious to Benjamin Franklin and critical to establishing your own personal reputation based on integrity. 

Make integrity the foundational personality trait in your life.  Integrity is inspirational.  Be inspired.

 

Should there be a link between workforce development and the bottom line?

I attended an interesting discussion yesterday on workforce development and was surprised to hear it is a nebulous concept at best.

Should it be part of HR (which is seen as tactical) or Learning & Development (which is strategic)?

How should one define workforce development ROI? To the individual? Society? Or how about in OH&S terms that shows less absenteeism or injury while on duty has a positive impact on the bottom line?

Can one draw a linear association between the development of people in an organisation and raw Dollar outcomes?

Should one?

Previous post I spoke of moral motivation in individuals and how we can apply similar principles to the modern day corporation.

Workforce development is a good example of how business is confused over its motivation. The common mantra is economic considerations must come first (i.e. ROI) because if you go out of business you can’t do anything else. Societal and environmental considerations come next but clearly in a hierarchical pecking order.

The UN Global Compact gets it right when it speaks of the triple line in terms of people, planet and profit – in that order.

Why does business find this conversation so difficult?

The economic imperative is a false one. It’s rarely about going out of business but rather how much profit is enough.

Workforce development is an input just as profit is an output.

Profit is a consequence of doing the right things not an end in itself.

Of course business would prefer to have a balance between all three and not have to elevate one above another but that is a hard task considering there often needs to be short term compromises to realise long term gains.

Isn’t that what sustainability is all about?

Building a good corporate reputation

The theory behind reputation management isn’t overly complex or difficult.

You need a vision and value system and then need a commitment to, and consistency in, upholding that vision and value system.

There is an assumption here that the vision works towards the common good and that the value system is such that in any given situation each value will be universal in its application i.e. regardless of the circumstances or context the value applies e.g. honesty.

Why then is a good corporate reputation so difficult to obtain and even harder to defend?

It comes down to the moral motivation behind the vision and value system.

A vision that requires a company to pursue a certain return on net assets; and claims profitability as one of its values must have its motivation in any and all circumstances viewed with suspicion e.g. saying you believe safety is important and believing it to the extent everything else is secondary are not the same.

Here you can see the problem – a company may not articulate the role of profitability in its endeavours but is driven by the value nonetheless.

Moral motivation in the development of a good corporate reputation is critical.

For an individual moral motivation could be determined by looking at whether their behaviour consists of ‘good action and good desires’ resulting in ‘positive moral worth’.

Positive moral worth speaks to both the action and the intention behind the action thereby enabling insight as to an individual’s moral disposition.

Can we apply the same theory to the corporation?

I think we can. More about that next post.

How do you create a good corporate reputation?

Ethical business practice makes you more competitive, not less so. 

That’s because ethical business practice gives rise to a reputation that attracts people to you:

• prospective employees want to be part of that reputation because they want to be proud of who they work for; 
• customers want to do business with a company with a good reputation because it reduces their risk;
• same for service providers. 

The more people want to do business with you the more selective you can be. 

• You can pick and choose between candidates making it more likely you will get the best possible person for the job. 
• You can focus on customers with a better risk profile than others; and
• You can discriminate between service providers which means you will get more for your money be it in delivery times, quality assurance or innovation in process, product and design.    

Ethical business practice then makes you more competitive because it makes you exceptional in a sea of mediocrity and product mimicry.

Most would agree to this point. 

Where things get tricky is how to develop that reputation. 

As with anything important in life it isn’t about one thing or a killer app. 

Rather it’s like a recipe in which there are four factors at work – the planning that goes into the process, the inputs you use, the way you put them together and external factors – similar to the heat of the oven. 

Trust me reputation takes on a whole new meaning the hotter the temperature.

Online reputation management – when the message is positive but off strategy

You can imagine the situation – a comment about a brand, while positive, is entirely off strategy. 

Years ago I worked for autotrader.co.za. 

From time to time we would receive ads that – while representing a positive commentary about the brand – were entirely off strategy. 

Private advertisers would try and list their mother-in-law at a real knock down price. 

Hollard Insurance advertised 24 individual photographs depicting where a motor vehicle should have been.  The only problem was they had been stolen – not to worry said Hollard ‘that’s what we are here for’.  Great for Hollard, not so good for Auto Trader. 

And then Rand Aid advertised ‘a 1916, work horse, in great condition if a little worn around the edges, looking for a good home’.  You guessed it – the model was someone’s grandfather, an octogenarian who, having fallen on hard times, had nowhere else to go.  Rand Aid, a charitable organisation, was asking for donations to help them provide for people when they couldn’t provide for themselves.  Clever take but not on strategy. 

In the social media space we see the same sort of commentary. 

‘I love my jeans because no one else can afford them’ – not great if the brand aspires to coolness rather than exclusivity. 

‘My car is so hip I pick up guys all the time’ – a problem if the vehicle is pitched at the family values conscious yummy-mummy brigade.  

We call this sort of message ‘Incongruous’ – positive (I love my jeans and I have a hip car) but where there is dissonance between the nominal brand message and the commentary (coolness and family values not exclusivity and a guy magnet).

In such circumstance a brand should adopt what Pierre Berthon, Leyland Pitt and Colin Campbell refer to as the ‘applaud stance’. 

Here a brand is primarily positive about the comment but doesn’t do anything to encourage it.  

By applauding, the brand doesn’t appear tyrannical but is able to legitimately observe the conversation real time.

Matrix: Source:  Berthon, Pitt and Campbell, California Management Review, Vol.50,No.4, Summer 2008

Online reputation management – what happens when they dig your brand?

So far in this series on reputation and social media (online reputation management or ORM) we have covered ‘Reputation management in a changing world’, and used a matrix adapted from an article by Pierre Berthon, Leyland Pitt and Colin Campbell showing ‘How to use social media when a commentator is being subversive’ and what to do ‘…when they are being contrarian’.

Now let’s use the same model, this post and next, to talk about how to engage when a commentator ‘digs your brand’ and what do to when their commentary is ‘incongruous’ to the nominal brand message.

 Q3 of the matrix below would apply where a message from a commentator was aligned with a brand message and was positive in attitude. Here the message would be viewed as ‘concordant’ which means the author digs your brand.

The question is ‘what to do, if anything, in such a situation?’

Online reputation management (ORM) software will have alerted you to the post and you now have an opportunity to engage with the commentator if you wish.

And you probably should.

Previously, we discussed the need to ensure that the use of social media not only engaged in a meaningful conversation with the community but that the engagement be used to ‘live the brand promise’.

Critical is to allow those people interested in your brand to also help develop and improve on the brand promise.

Never before have focus groups and labs been so easily and readily available to marketers.

But there are risks.

Often when someone is asked for an opinion there is an expectation you will act on their advice. This isn’t always possible which in turn can cause resentment.

The positives of facilitating further engagement with someone positively disposed towards a brand are enormous.

But they need to be used wisely.

Source:  Berthon, Pitt and Campbell, California Management Review, Vol.50,No.4, Summer 2008