Posts Tagged ‘WSJ’

Another exciting day (despite the clouds and threatening rain here in NY). Weber Shandwick's research was covered in today's WSJ. B8. In the print edition. Can't send you a link (although here is one if you can get in) to the online version since you have to subscribe! But you can get all the relevant info here from the press release and the executive summary. Back at the beginning of the year, we released a terrific study (I really feel an affinity for this one) about the growing indivisibility of reputation and product brand. We had so much great data that we figured we would release at intervals. So here we are with the second installment of the global research, The Company behind the Brand: In Reputation We Trust – CEO Spotlight which explores the importance of executive leadership and communications to helping reverse the tides of waning trust in companies and solidify reputation. Here are some big learnings from the survey with KRC Research among 1,950 consumers and executives in two developed (U.S. and U.K.) and two developing markets (China and Brazil) :

• A full two-thirds (66 percent) of consumers say that their perceptions of CEOs affect their opinions of company reputations. Executives, like consumers, don't overlook the importance of a leader’s reputation – they attribute nearly one-half (49 percent) of a company’s overall reputation to the CEO’s reputation. Say goodbye to the days when purchases were made solely on product attributes. Today’s consumer is savvy, well-informed and privy to a wide array of purchase options. Decisions are now increasingly based on additional factors (yes siree) such as the company behind the brand, what the company stands for and now....even the standing of its senior leaders. 
• Nearly three in 10 consumers (28 percent) report that they regularly or frequently talk about company leaders with others. When consumers are asked what influences their perception of companies, approximately six in 10 (59 percent) say they are influenced by what top leaders communicate. Things have radically changed when you can say that consumers -- the public square -- are reacting to what leaders say. Corporate leadership communications are important across the globe, but to an even greater extent in emerging markets. Nearly two-thirds of Chinese consumers (64 percent) and nearly three-quarters of Brazilian consumers (72 percent) rely on executive communications when learning more about a company. For those companies growing in emerging markets, this is important.
• Respect for corporate leaders – CEOs and other corporate leaders – has taken an especially large hit in developed markets – 72 percent of U.S. and 71 percent of U.K. consumers have lost respect in the past few years. Not such a surprise to me because the past few years have been hard on everyone. A bit different in developing markets however: Chinese consumers are evenly split on their changing opinions of corporate leadership (35 percent lost respect vs. 38 percent who increased respect). Brazilian consumers are more likely to have increased their respect for top executives than decreased their respect (33 percent vs. 21 percent, respectively).

Here's the last word that holds a lot of punch in my book....a large 60 percent of a company’s market value is attributed to its reputation. Sixty percent. That's no small change. Get those execs on the communications trail sooner than later.   .

Interesting to hear that The Wall Street Journal is outright asking subscribers how the Murdoch scandal at News Corp might be impacting its own reputation. Many companies prefer not to bring up an issue they are facing, even when it is often the elephant in the room.  Some companies, however, think that surveying customers about an issue or self-inflicted crisis is a smart way to demonstrate that they care enough about their reputation to ask the tough questions or they simply want to know in the name of transparency.  Apparently the WSJ is asking subscribers, of which I am one, "What impact, if any, do the illegal acts by News of the World journalists have on your impression of The Wall Street Journal?" or something close to that. And my favorite question from what I have read this morning is whether the CEO of a company should be held responsible "for all the actions of all its employees, no matter how large the corporation is" on a 1 to 10 scale (disagree completely --->agree completely).  I think I know the answer to that one. My guess is that 75% to 85% of subscribers, AKA business executives, will give this statement an 8/9/10.  All in all, as my colleague said to me....a brave move.

How much fun is this? Google Labs has this new program where you can search words among a database of two billion words and phrases taken from over five million books published during the past 200 years. Those are all big numbers and mind blowing if you think about it. You can track the usage of "God" or "enemy" or "Lady Gaga." Since this is now available to the public, I quickly typed in "corporate reputation" to Ngram Viewer and got to see how the term has soared over the past 19 or so years. The above chart shows the upward rise from 1990 to 2009 and demonstrates how much attention has been paid to the term in published books. Then I decided to look at the terms' corporate reputation (blue line) and online reputation (red line). As you can see below, online reputation took off around 1998 and is moving upward although it does not come close to corporate reputation in the world of authorship.   I found all this out when reading an article in the WSJ while sitting on a plane (where I get alot of reading done).  I was captivated by the ability to capture trends by tracing words and cultural signposts over time. It is a researcher's dream and I am busy making slides for powerpoint decks that we use to describe the surge of interest in reputation today. I guess you could say that I have been lucky enough to ride the wave.

I have posted about scenario planning before and wrote about it in my last book as well.  Scenario planning is a good way to plot what your leadership might do when their reputation falls off a cliff. I have always been fascinated by the process, especially when it works.  In fact, I have a recent Royal Dutch Shell Scenario Planning book that I bought from Amazon about three years ago. I keep it out on my desk as a reminder of a smart way to plan. It was amazing to me that it sold commercially. Today’s WSJ had an article on the return of scenario planning. It was very popular after 9-11 when companies felt the urgent need to prepare for such sudden disasters. Apparently it lost some favor as the economy became bullish and everyone lost their senses. A study by Bain & Co. which I have used in presentations showed that  scenario planning had soared from 1999 to 2002 as a risk management tool (up 30%) among senior executives.  Now it is back on the upswing as we face unprecedented economic challenges. I did not realize that scenario planning first surfaced in the US Military in the 1950s and became popular with companies such as GE and Shell in the 1970s. My mistake for believing that Royal Dutch Shell was the source. Peter Schwartz, a partner at the Monitor Group and former head of the Global Business Network where I first learned about him, says that scenario planning is a learning tool and for making informed decisions. Not just a tool for the worst case scenario but a process for learning how to make the right and avoid the wrong decisions. The article ends on an upbeat note – that perhaps scenario planning can be used to plot possible responses to a business upturn. Same could be said about reputation recovery. Time to start. Never too early. Only too late.