标题：Corporate brand reputation and brand crisis management
原文：For some years, the what, why, and how of recognising and addressing brand crisis –particularly corporate/organisational brand crisis –has occupied my rearch attention (note to reader: “corporate” and “organisational” are ud interchangeably). Numerous corporate and non-profit entities have provided public clinical experiences of confronting rious reputational cris. Examples over recent decades include Exxon (the Valdez oil spill incident), Union Carbide (the Bhopal explosion), Perrier (benzene traces), Tylenol (deaths from tainted pills), the US Catholic Church (priest x abu), Martha Stewart OmniMedia (executive misbehaviour), Arthur Andern (accounting scandals), the International Olympic Committee (bribery issues), and many others. All faced threats to their brands from deterioration in consumer and business customer approval and from decline in public trust.
While some were more product brand-rooted (e.g. Tylenol), all found their corporate brand affected, and efforts to rescue the brand were undertaken at the corporate level (e.g. Johnson and Johnson for Tylenol, marketed by J&J's McNeil Laboratories Unit). Thus the incidents provide a rich source of insight into the corporate brand. They illustrate a key dimension of corporate-level marketing. “Can we as an institution, have meaningful, positive and profitable bilateral on-going relationships with customers and other stakeholder groups and communities?”. That was a central quest ion of an organi
sation's corporate-level marketing orientation pod by John Balmer and mylf in our treatment of an integrated approach to marketing at the institutional level (Balmer and Greyr, 2006).forlan
We held (among other points) that corporate marketing is indeed a boardroom and CEO concern. In reflecting on corporate identity and reputation in times of brand crisis, one recognis the importance of corporate-wide orientation and the responsibility of the CEO and company-wide managers.
Sources of reputational trouble
Let me offer an anatomy of the kinds of reasons brands can be in reputational crisis, how to know that the situation is rious, and what steps companies can try to take to prevent or if necessary to overcome such cris.
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Reputational troubles can come in many forms, from a wide variety of caus and from many publics. Some have been sudden, such as when ven people died in a single day from tainted Tylenol capsules, when traces of benzene were found in bottles of Perrier and when an explosion in a Union Carbide facility in India killed many hundreds of people. Others were the result of problems that festered over longer periods, such as the priest x abu scandal affecting many Catholic archdioces in the US, the accounting scandal that eventually ruined the once-respectable accounti
ng firm of Arthur Andern, or the bribery scandal over lection of host cities that tarnished the reputation of the International Olympic Committee. Some of the protest or concern comes from advocacy groups with a cau, some from disaffected consumers/customers, some from governmental/regulatory entities, and some from the general public.
Organisations must recogni the “what” of the issue generating the reputational threats, as well as “who” the involved public(s) is/are.
Here is a categorisation of different caus of corporate brand cris, with some examples and some brief explanations:rally
1.Product failure –Tylenol, Perrier, Firestone (tires implicated as the cau of
many deaths in car accidents), the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster, Intel's Pentium chip (flawed calculations), Peanut Corp. of America (salmonella).
2.Social responsibility gap –Nike (non-US labour and questionable working
conditions).
3.Corporate misbehaviour – Arthur Andern, Enron, Exxon (oil spill in Alaska),
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Merck (alleged suppression of early clinical drug trials of Vioxx), Siemens (corporate corruption in multinational fraud and bribery), Hewlett-Packard (Chairman indicted for spying on board members via questionable investigative means), IOC/SLOC (scandals regarding bid cities).
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4.Executive misbehaviour – Martha Stewart, Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco).
5.Poor business results – Polaroid (failure to adapt technologically), Circuit City
(giant retailer which let go many of its most knowledgeable store staff), and many others particularly in 2008.
6.Spokesperson misbehaviour and controversy – Kobe Bryant (star NBA athlete
and endorr of brands who was accud of rape).
7.Death of symbol of company –Wendy's (fast food chain) founder and TV
spokesperson Dave Thomas, the “face of the brand”.
8.Loss of public support – Louis XVI of France (guillotined and monarchy fell),
Edward VIII of England (forced to abdicate the British throne); both lost their ability to be en by their people as “a symbol of nationhood,” central to the “monarchic corporate brand” (Balmer et al., 2006).
否极泰来英文9.Controversial ownership –Venezuela and CITGO in the USA (vigorously
anti-US Venezuelan president).
Asssing the riousness of the situation四六级报名时间
What made some of the cris life-threatening to the organisations involved was that they affected what I term “the esnce of the brand”, i.e. the distinctive attribute/characteristic most cloly associated with the brand's meaning and success. When this occurs a company's marketplace position and its brand meaning are riously challenged. If the esnce of the brand is not central to the situation, the problem is more likely to be overcome, albeit still troublesome.
Here are four key areas, with some brief comments, that organisations should examine to analyze an emerging (or emerged) issue that may threaten its brand's reputation:
1.The brand elements:
o Brand's marketplace situation, e.g. market share or corporate favourability (prior to crisis). The weaker the situation, the more
洪恩幼儿英语dangerous the problem.
o Brand strengths/weakness. The more differentiated (vs other entities), the better it is for the affected company, unless a key differentiation is
the subject at issue (e “integrity of athletic competition” below).
o Esnce of the brand's meaning (e examples below).
2.The crisis situation:
o Seriousness of situation at outt. If the problem prospectively affects many consumers or some verely, e.g. salmonella in food leading to
deaths, the riousness is higher.
o Its threat to brand's position/meaning (e text examples in “conquences” below).
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3.Company initiatives:
o Impact on brand and problem situation of company behaviour/actions, especially communications; this can be examined at the planning stage
as “likely” impact.
4.Results (after initiatives and/or passage of time):
o Effectiveness of initiatives in terms of recovery/relaunch, restoring brand meaning, and favourability or market share.
Action in brand reputational cris
What can and should companies/organisations do when threatened by brand cris? Where does communications fit in? My principal recommendation relates to situations of “bad news about the company and the news is really true”.
In the face of crisis, especially when it is rooted in a problem that is or will become visible, I believe an organisation should admit the truth, even if embarrassing. Also, it should forthrightly try to addres
in the spotlight
s the problem, even if it involves changing corporate behaviour. And it should support the initiative with credible communications. The are the best (but still bumpy) roads to possible brand rehabilitation or rescue.. Communications alone cannot do the job
Substance –i.e. behaviour –is central (e.g. the quick recall of Tylenol from distribution) to an effective defensive program. An allied communications effort can be important and helpful. However, the message must avoid rving as a “reminder
campaign”, especially if the underlying problem/allegation is not widely known by relevant publics.
Credible communications were an issue for Wal-mart in its early 2005 corporate communications campaign “Wal-Mart is working for everyone”. The message was a respon to critics of its wages and benefits for its workers and its impacts on the communities where its stores are located. Some obrvers (including mylf) raid the question of how this message could be effective when the company was being widely criticid (with extensive media coverage) for reportedly closing a store where employees were trying to organi a union and when the company was being sued (again with substantial media coverage) for discrimination against women employees. In my view the company effort at communications and this specific message/theme were not likely to be effective.
Sometimes even any communications can be questionable. CITGO found itlf in a reputational brouhaha in the US in late 2006 when Venezuela's president attacked President Bush at the UN (CITGO's parent is a Venezuelan petroleum company). A major retail gas station operator ended its relationship with CITGO as a supplier, allegedly connected to the widely publicized political attack. Although only a modest proportion of Americans were said to know of the ownership linkage, CITGO decided to undertake a communications campaign, “CITGO ts the record straight”, emphasizing the company's corporate good citizenship and role as a major US employer. Soon thereafter the company returned to its ongoing image-building campaign. Some experts agreed with the effort; some thought the respon communications should have continued, and some said non-advertising communications should have been ud. However, others argued that the campaign fueled more public awareness of the underlying problem, and should not have been undertaken (New York Times, November 1, 2006). The situation subquently ttled down as Americans looked at gasoline as a product, rather than at its ownership.
As I have suggested, forthright corporate action often is the most nsible route. Merck, the third-largest US pharmaceutical manufacturer, suffered an attack on its reputation becau of its actions regarding Vioxx, a pain medication. It was revealed
