industry reputation

It has been an unusually warm couple of months here in New York. I can’t    help but think that global warming is staring me right in the face.  I often think of myself as a bear that hibernates when cold weather arrives. I often joke with my neighbors that they won’t see me until spring because I’ll be going into my bear cave for my “winter sleep” when the first chill arrives.  So the past couple of months have been an anomaly as I have wandered out doors more often than usual on the weekends. Of course I have to go to work and do the ordinary errands that surround my life but given the choice, I stay inside. Maybe that is why I like to write about reputation because it gives me an excuse to sit in my little office cave that is closed off to the world.

All of this got me to thinking about how climate change gets communicated today when there is criticism about  the science after controversies arose from the release of stolen emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. This happened a year or two ago.  Undoubtedly this is the perfect case study for how an industry (climate change scientists) suffered reputational damage and now has to recover and restore reputational equity. Climate change skeptics were fairly adept at effectively persuading many in the general public to doubt the scientific validity of global warming.

I was glad to see an article in the New Scientist (sorry, you need a subscription) by Robert Ward (policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics) on how some of the reputation recovery methods that I recommend in my book might be applied to regain confidence and trust in climate science.  He sees the situation right, “Even if the claims of misconduct and incompetence are eventually proven to be largely untrue, or confined to a few bad apples, mud sticks.”  This is a truism — no matter how much science you have on your side, it is sometimes never enough when it comes to public opinion.  Sometimes the facts just don’t matter as much as they should in a perfect world.

Ward is right that hope is not a solution to rebuilding reputation. Many CEOs used to think they could outlast controversy but in fact learn the hard way that it only extends the problem.  ”Communicating tirelessly” — one of my recommendations — is the right path forward.  ”No comment” does not work as it used to. Whether it is finding neutral partners or independent coalitions to bring additional voices into the discussion or actually training climate scientists to transparently talk about and defend the science — its certainties and uncertainties, communications will do more good than harm in this digital world.

An interesting analysis of temperature records appeared in an article in The Economist  which speaks to the importance of bringing in a third, fourth or fifth party opinion to validate scientific findings.  I read it on a plane to Europe in November but kept it because it made commonsense as an approach to understanding the climate change debate — is it getting warmer or not?  Let me just add here that the topic of global warming is a lot more complicated than I will ever understand — gaps in readings, different criteria, different types of thermometers, urban settings where temperatures might be recorder higher, etc.  But interestingly, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project stepped into the argument on climate change 18 months ago to test existing analyses. And they did so with the addition of skeptical scientists and funders as well as Nobel prize winners. As it is often said, let’s open the kimono and thus they did. And they found that the existing temperature records that the earth was warming was not far off the mark from what had been previously reported.  A peer review is underway and I look forward to learning more about that when it is released.  Next up, however, for climate scientists and institutions affiliated with climate change,would be communicating openly and collectively (and maybe relentlessly) to explain how the newest findings answer questions, raise new ones and guide us as to what we need to be doing Now not Later.

Because I am off from work for the holiday, I have a little time to catch up on things I meant to read in the months before. I was particularly interested in some research on CEO transitions and its impact on the value of the enterprise conducted by FTI.  A few facts jumped out at me from their study among the financial community. They found that one-third (32%) of investor decisions are impacted by the reputation of the CEO. Moreover, the reputation of the CEO was more important to investors than the reputation of the company’s products and services.

The research covers the value at risk depending on what type of CEO transition occurred. The greatest risk to the enterprise is when a CEO is forced to resign.

Because of my work on CEO tenures and how to build CEO reputation, the findings confirm my own research over the years that CEOs need to show success by that 12 month marker. FIT found that investors give new CEOs about six months to assess the challenges and opportunities facing the company, setting a vision and strategy.  They give new CEOs more leeway to improve market performance and valuation — about 12 months. After the first year, all engines need to be firing.

Another particularly interesting finding was what investors look at in their first 100 days to further establish the CEOs credibility in their eyes….here is what they said was of “significant importance.” Despite the ranking for “charisma,” it is still interesting that it is still estimated to be of high importance and only 16% said it was of limited importance.  FTI concludes that investors take a multi-dimensional view of new CEOs. They expect to see it all.

 FTI Consulting

Industry reputation is always changing. One of the major shifts in reputation today is the collateral damage that one company can inflict on its entire industry. Wish there was a more positive incline in how consumers see American business and government. Gallup’s recent analysis is now out and provides a look into who is up and who is down. It is no surprise that the real estate industry reputation has declined preciptiously from 2001. Even my own industry — PR — has witnessed a decline besides the fact that it is doing well.  The computer and Internet industry look like they are surviving the best with positive lifts in reputation among US consumers.  

The drop in perception of government, the deepest decline, seems to the theme of the day. To learn more about why that might be…take a look at our research on Civility in America. It says it all. [Have to add that the CEO of Yahoo, Carol Bartz, was fired via a telephone call. How civil is that? Regardless of what was happening at the company, what happened to the pink slip?]

One of the reasons that reputation has become so complex has to do with the vast portfolio of stakeholders that companies are asked to engage with. Years ago, companies primarily worried about financial analysts and labor unions. Today the stakeholder audience is deep and wide, ranging from one to many. Some companies have to consider the entire general public and others only 25 people whose opinions and perceptions count. The question that often arises is what’s external engagement worth?  For that reason, I like what I read in some research by Witold Henisz at Wharton, Sinziana Dorobantu, senior research fellow at Wharton, and Lite Nartey at University of South Carolina (“Spinning Gold: The Financial Returns to External Stakeholder Engagement”) As they said, external engagement pays.  “The researchers’ goal was to figure out what role these stakeholder events played in companies’ efforts to maximize profits. The answer: a very large role.”

The researchers looked at 26 gold mines over a 15 year period and coded over 50,000 stakeholder events covered in the media.  Stakeholder events included actions or expressions about cooperation or conflict with mine owners.  As for stakeholders, they included just about everyone…”local and national politicians and community leaders to priests, war lords, paramilitary groups, NGOs and international bodies like the World Bank.”  The researchers designed a stakeholder index that revealed the level of stakeholder cooperation or conflict. Communicating and building bridges with their stakeholders led to profitability according to the researchers’ anlaysis.

“We found in our research that the value of the relationship with politicians and community members is worth twice as much as the value of the gold that the 26 mines ostensibly control.”

 Stakeholder engagement and cooperation helped companies deliver on budget and in a timely manner leading to competitive advantage and profitability. When cooperation was blocked, they found that mines were are open to delays, unrest and additional costs that led to closure or suspension. 

“It used to be the case that the value of a gold mine was based on three variables; the amount of gold in the ground, the cost of extraction and the world price of gold,” he states. “Today, I can show you two mines identical on these three variables that differ in their valuation by an order of magnitude. Why? Because one has local support and the other doesn’t.”

This research can be applied to other industries and does a fine job of making the case for engagement and dialogue.

A reputation for cooperation and meeting stakeholders half way at least is critical. It is good to have data to back up the importance of minimizing conflict and its link to financial performance but I agree with the authors who say “it is not just corporate social responsibility, but enlightened self-interest.”

Harris Interactive just released their annual RQ (reputation quotient) survey among the U.S. public.  This is year 12 for the Harris RQ – that’s a long time and underscores the value that this kind of research brings.  Harris conducts the survey among  consumers on what they call the most visible companies in the US along with others that represent major industries. The study starts by asking people to nominate or name the companies that stand out as having the best and worst reputations overall.  The most nominated companies form the core group asked about. For this reason, one usually finds that those companies that have been in the headlines for reputational scandals are measured.  Besides the usual ranking of who’s on first and who’s struck out, Harris identifies several trends: 

• Among their “elite” reputation winners (i.e. most highly regarded), two reputation drivers stand out – “looks like a company that has high ethical standards” and “tends to outperform its competitors.” Again, this underscores the importance of speaking up and being an industry leader.
• How companies communicate also drives reputation according to Harris – communicating Sincerely, Accurately and Consistently correlates highly with positive reputation. Transparency and empathy count.
• An additional theme that Harris highlights is that those companies that “support the infrastrucuture” of Americans’ lives at work and at home also drives positive corporate perceptions.  This means that companies that help people get their jobs done easily at home and at work tend to be esteemed.  Interesting notion.
• All the major industry sectors saw year over year reputation improvements — particularly automotive.

Of course, there are always clouds and rays of light in any silver lining. And here it is….66% say that the reputation of corporate America is not good but there’s hope for improvement. This figure has not moved much from the 65% who said the same thing last year. So I’d say a solid thumbs down with cautious optimism. However, 22% say the reputation of corporate America is good with room for improvement (up four percentage points from last year).  Not so terrible. A miniscule 1% says corporate America’s reputation is great and can’t get any better (same as last year).  I sure would like to find out more about them to see what they are thinking or or if they are living in the clouds! Thankfully only 12% of the American public say corporate America’s reputation is terrible and there is little that can be done about it.  That’s pretty definitive. So all in all, hope is alive for corporate America and for those of us in the reputation management arena, it is in our hands.

 Each year Weber Shandwick measures the rate at which companies lose their #1 most admired position in their respective industries on the Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies survey. We call this the “stumble rate.” Between 2010 and 2011, 43% of the world’s largest companies (22 in absolute) experienced a stumble, down slightly from last year’s 49%.*  While this marginal improvement is a positive sign for the stabilization of reputation, the fact that 4-in-10 companies lost their enviable industry position during the past year highlights just how difficult a good name is to keep.

 A few things distinguish reputation stumblers from non-stumblers:

• Reputation stumblers had more CEO transitions or changes. Those companies that lost reputational status had more CEO transitions and retirement announcements during 2010. This is perhaps not surprising since change at the top can signal that a company is in turmoil or that a new strategic direction has been set.  On the other hand, rankings may be very sensitive to the uncertainty of any CEO transition – voluntary or not.
• Reputation stumblers underperformed non-stumblers in terms of financial performance. Stumblers’ average share price rose 9.5% year over year compared to the 21.2% for non-stumblers . Although it might seem confusing that stumblers’ share price rose, it is important to recognize that stumblers are most admired companies.
• Reputation stumblers did not lose admiration for any one particular reason. Stumblers lost reputational equity for a variety of reasons such as governmental investigations, bad loans, poor returns on mergers/acquisitions or issues related to the housing market.  No one reason appeared to stand out.

Reputation Drivers Most Affected

Weber Shandwick dug deeper into Fortune’s nine reputation drivers to explore possible reasons for stumblers’ loss of reputational esteem.  Of the 22 stumblers, we found that:

• The most pervasive loss of reputational equity between 2010 and 2011 was in the area of “wise use of corporate assets,” perhaps a sign of the challenging times. This attribute was the most frequently dinged by survey respondents – industry peers, financial analysts and board members. 
• Other factors that appeared to affect the overall stumble rate were perceptions on  “people management,” “management quality” and “long-term investment value.” The rankings of 15 stumbling companies on each of these factors dropped since 2010, possibly reflecting a lack of confidence in a company’s overall long-term strategic direction.
• The least damaged driver during 2010 for stumblers was “financial soundness.”  Only 8 of the 22 stumblers lost credit on this attribute, perhaps because of an improving economy and/or raters cut their peers some slack, recognizing how hard it’s been the past few years to grow a business.  

*Fortune reports 22 companies out of 57 industries experienced “tumult” (p111, March 21, 2011 issue). A reader would interpret that as a 39% stumble (22/57). Since Weber Shandwick is tracking the rate over time, our base of industries needs to include only those that are reported year over year. For example, the Packaging/Containers industry was not reported in 2010 so Weber Shandwick excluded it from the total 57 industries reported in 2011. In total, six industries were excluded for the 2011 stumble rate to net a base of 51 industries (22/51=43%).

It is now the end of the week and I promised to mention something about the other half of our results on executive top-tier conferences, especially as the World Economic Forum is happening this week. Nearly three out of 10 industry-leading CEOs spoke at one or more top- tier business events in 2010, according to our new analysis.  [For each of the 55 industries identified in the World’s Most Admired Companies survey, Weber Shandwick examined where each CEO spoke in 2010.] Key findings are:

• Among those who took to the podium, the World Economic Forum at Davos was the leading executive speaking platform for industry-leading CEOs.
• The World Economic Forum was followed by the Clinton Global Initiative among our list of Five-Star conferences in 2010. Other forums are below.

• The global economy and outlook was the leading topic for industry-leading CEOs who participated in these events. Other themes included education, gender equality and company- or issue-specific opportunities.  What will top executives talk about throughout 2011 if the economy recovers…..perhaps they will focus on their positioning and differentiation and corporate responsibility will rise again in popularity (it has slowed we think). I did hear that regional forums on corporate responsibility are increasing.

Since we always like to look at a different segment of the executive conference business — this year industry-leading CEOs and leading women — we are looking for any ideas for next year.  Got my thinking cap on.  Let me know what you are thinking too.

Scorecards are part of our day-to-day business in building reputation. At Weber Shandwick, we are expert in identifying the right rankings, scorecards, league tables (whatever you might call them) for companies and their leaders. It makes perfect sense to me that vying for the best rankings helps boost reputation. It is but one way to spread the word that your company is worthy of what it is doing. Of course, if you dig too  deep in some of them, you discover flaws. We recently advised a company against issuing a press release on a survey that had fewer than 50 respondents because of its limited sample size and lack of representation. Sometimes you just have to rise above it.

Well, companies are not the only ones to compete for these honors. Countries have caught on as well according to an article I just read. “With investment scarce and jobs even scarcer, countries that sparkle in global league tables can send a powerful signal to investors.”  Countries are in a race to the top of the World Competitivness Index published by IMD, the business school, or the World Bank’s “Doing Business” league tables. Saudi Arabia just made it to the near top (11th place) from 55th place one year ago and Rwanda has moved up from the very very bottom to a more respectable showing. These accolades can go far in convincing investors that a country is business-friendly and investor-worthy.

Turning to company awards, I often talk about rankings fatigue and this article on airline awards in the WSJ nailed it. As it said, “The travel world is overbooked with awards these days, with some two dozen organizations around the world giving out annual awards for the ‘best.’ Each has different selection criteria, different funding and different judging, so they end up with different results.”  That’s alot of applications to fill out and data to provide. This leads me to think that there should be a new corporate title in 2011 — Chief Rankings Officer.

I’ve been very busy so have not had a chance to mention two studies related to reputation that are worth reviewing.

The first one is about industry reputation which continues to intrigue me. The Harris Interactive Poll found that the most credible industries among 2,152 adult Americans are supermarkets, hospitals, banks and electric and gas utilities. They have been doing this research since 2003. Not too surprisingly but disturbing nevertheless was that when asked this question about 17 industries, a large 48% said “none of these” industries are trustworthy. This was the highest number of people saying this since 2003.  Overall, no one industry is doing particularly well and this speaks to the overall downturn in perceptions of business over the decade.

The second survey that should be on your radar is research by Nora Ganim Barnes. She has been diligently surveying Fortune 500 companies with regard to their social media usage.  Social reputation is a growing component of reputation which is why I am writing about this. This is the third survey that she has done on this topic at the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Here are some of her key findings for 2010 (conducted in August/September 2010) which are great to track over time.

1. One quarter (23%) of Fortune 500 companies have a public-facing corporate blog with a recent post over the past 12 months. Two years ago, only 16% had blogs so this is a healthy increase.

2.  When it comes to industries, the industries with the most blogs are computer software, peripherals and office equipment. This includes companies such as HP, Microsoft, Apple. There have been increases in blogs in the specialty retail industry (Best Buy as an example) and telecommunications as well (Verizon, AT&T).

3. About one third (32%) of top 100 ranked Fortune 500 companies had a blog, a slight dip from 38% in 2008. 

4. A whopping 90% of  Fortune 500 blogs take comments, have RSS feeds and take subscriptions. That is good news to see that these blogs are interactive and not one-way.

5.  They looked at corporate Twitter accounts (had to have tweeted in the past 30 days) and 60% had Twitter accounts, a jump up from 35% in 2009. Nine of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies had accounts and consistently posted.  Specialty retail companies were the most likely to have Twitter accounts. Since they are so consumer-facing, makes sense.

6. A fairly large 56% of the Fortune 500 companies are on Facebook. Not bad but not up to the level it should be and will be over time.

Industry reputations are still failing but social media seems to be exploding (Twitter and Facebook) among the top companies in the US.  We are witnessing the Great American Reach Out. Industry reputations could begin the climb upwards if there was greater adoption of interactivity. No doubt industries will take this seriously and jump onboard. CEOs as well will become more socialized in the years ahead.

I just posted to the HBR blog site on how Qantas‘ reputation is suffering reputation darts instead of pats on the head after the double-decker’s engine explosion last week and the pilot’s safe landing with 466 people on board. Why is Qantas’ reputation being challenged when headlines about its pilot’s (AKA Captain Marvel) heroic emergency landing should be dominating?  Read my thoughts on how social media is changing reputation perceptions and if you are wondering the same thing.