Posts Tagged ‘Tokyo’

  Do cities and countries recover their reputations after their images have been tarnished or damaged by natural disaster? This question is bound to be answered as we see what happens to London after the August riots.  A market research firm analyst Simon Anholt studies the reputation of cities and reports on them annually for Gfk Roper.  When asked what he thought about how much cities are affected by reputational issues, Anholt said “not much.” He thought that if it did, he would have seen more change in reputational perceptions of New York, London and Tokyo than he has seen so far. Essentially, memories are short. Some proof of what he says comes from The European Tour Operators Association who report having only 0.2% cancellations on visits to London immediately after the riots. Additionally, property prices have not seen any negative effects among investors or large real estate firms.  There always is a silver lining when it comes to politics, however. The mayor of London said that the riots this past summer showcased London’s resilience. There is no doubt that city reputations get bruised when these types of events occur but the impact does not seem long-lasting. Is that a sign of the times? In the aftermath of Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear accident, the city of Tokyo has seen no significant erosion to its city image according to the 2011 Anholt-GfK Roper City Brands Index^SM just mentioned above. Among the top ten cities in the 2011 survey, Paris ranks as the top overall city "brand”, and  Tokyo ranks 10^th among 50 cities measured. There you go. But I must add that there was one thing that truly saved London’s reputation and set an example that may have lasting power -- the “broom armies.”  Groups of people took to the streets afterwards with brooms, dust bins, cleaning gloves and garbage bags to sweep away the broken glass and debris left after the looting.  As someone said, it was the “perfect symbol for the civilised majority.” And another said it was a “shared response” to fear and uncertainty. Best of all, it started with a simple Twitter campaign among stranges, #riotcleanup.  Twitter again comes to the rescue to mobilize people to do the right thing, not just the bad. We can expect to see more of this in 2011 and 2012.  People will fight back to reclaim their shared decency, city citizens will mobilize to stabilize their home streets and reputations will repair themselves through the deeds of ordinary people who barely know each other.

  Regards from Tokyo. I am speaking  later today at the National Press Center on our research on online reputation management that we conducted in cooperation with the Economist Intelligence Unit. Last night we celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the Weber Shandwick Tokyo  office at the magnificent National Museum of Modern Art.  

 

Our CEO Harris Diamond noted something in  his congratulations speech about understanding the economic crisis that we are all living through.  I thought it  was worth repeating on my blog. He said:  “We can take some comfort from a Japanese poet’s words of wisdom: ‘Since my house burned down / I now have a better view / of the rising moon.”’” The quote is thoughtful reminder that out of crisis rises opportunity. My fellow colleague Tomo said it was haiku. A good one at that.

 

[Note: Mizuta Masahide was a samurai in the Zeze domain of Ohmi Province. Masahide initially studied haiku first under Shohaku but later became a disciple of the famous poet Basho. In 1688 Masahide's house was burnt down, prompting him to write his most famous haiku Barn's burnt down... This haiku is said to have been highly praised by Basho.]