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The future of Reputation Management

Mirko CreyghtonMarket Leader

Club of Amsterdam - 31 May 2006

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Is reputation manageable?

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What’s behind us?Sales

Marketing

Branding

Narrowcasting, DM, experience

PR, CSR

Blogging, podcasting

Mass advertising & broadcasting

(sell)

(sell more)

(facilitate)

(tell more)

(personalize)

(authenticate)

(confront)

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What’s next?

ProSumption?ConDuction?

WeDontCarion?

All signs refer to more stakeholder power!

Co-makership?

Personal branding?

Audience participation?

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Change of communication impact

• Produce & send

• Consume & receive

• Trust me (having)

• Interact & communicate

• Try & interact

• Show me (sharing)

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State of the art

• Blauw Incompany 500 research

– Financial institutions increase

– ICT companies decrease

– CSR/fundraising is no longer a ‘killer app’

– New ideas & original approaches win

• Burson-Marsteller CEOGO research

– CEO life cycle is becoming shorter

– CEO successors are harder to find

– Warning signs of failing reputations

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Warning signs of failing reputation• Low employee morale• Customers are nuisances• CEO celebrity• Top executives depart• Talk growth, do cost-cutting• Focus on procedures & internal politics• No positive stories told by employees• Initiatives are badly rewarded• Seeing problems, not solving them• Internal documents leak• Management spends more time inside than

outside• Memos are internal focused, lots of cc’s

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Research & quotes

Fortune's most admired companies increased annual returns, on average, by 22%. Companies on the other end of the spectrum - those that rank lowest in annual surveys - faced negative returns of 1.7%.

“Competition for reputation becomes a significant force, propelling our economy forward.”Alan Greenspan, Former Federal Reserve Chairman

“The reputation of a company in the widest sense has a direct impact on its commercial fortunes.” Sir John Browne, CEO BP

“The key point, of course, is that reputation consists of perceptions – how others see you.”Charles Fombrun,

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Barriers for reputation management

• No internal horizontal communication

• Different departments

• Different targets

• Different starting points

• Different semantics

• Different budgets

• Different reporting lines

• Different agencies

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Drivers for reputation management• Complementary

• Learn from other professionals

• Formulate shared targets

• Sharing budgets

• Manage agencies

• Manage CEO* & Board

• Manage ambitions: ‘walk the talk’

On a global basis, the CEO is among business influentials held responsible for 47% of a company’s reputation. In Europe for 43%. (B-M & Economist research 2005)

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Crisis communication Crisis management

Crisis preparedness Media training Force field analysis

MarketingPR Positioning Message house

Media relations Research & evaluation

Brand building(identity & values)

Brand protection(image & issues)

Perceptions

Reputation

Reputation Accelerator©

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• Organize & train– What makes a journalist tick?

– What can marketing add to PR and vice-versa?

– What is the positioning towards different stakeholders?

– What is the joint communication strategy?

– How to organize all communication tools?

• Select agencies– With the same vision

– With a track record in co-operation

• Etc…

How does it work?

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How does it work?

• Prepare!– Think mountains & valleys

– How to write press releases?

– Prepared for issues or crisis?

– What are the perceptions of stakeholders?

– Training!

– Etc…

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How does it work?

• Relation management– Know the media & journalists

– Build relations

– Know the sources offline & online

– Etc…

– Monitor, evaluate and learn!

• (Re)organize & accelerate!

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The future of reputation management?

• Co-operation

• Prepare & learn

• Internal communication (walk the talk)

• Interactive communication (digital arena)

• Be consistent (you can when prepared)

Self management (new style; no command & control) is the best road to successful reputation management