We have seen that in recent time the spotlight has been put on Corporate America in a way that has not been seen since the Great Depression. Newspaper polls suggest that many investors and members of the general public no longer trust Wall Street and corporate boards for obvious reasons. In order to try to restore the reputation of Corporate America, politicians and law makers are suggesting more stringent reporting and controls. Does it make sense for a company to try to form its reputation in such a way that it helps to gain a competitive advantage relative to its industry rivals?

Richard Branson, the founder of the Virgin group of companies in the UK had advised senior managers to build their corporate brands not around products and services, but around their company’s reputation. In order to consider whether to compete on one’s corporate reputation is a sensible strategy, managers need answers to the following questions:

- What are corporate reputations and can they be crafted to provide an advantage over those of other industry rivals?

- How are corporate reputations validated?
- What type of reputation should be fostered?

Let us explore what is corporate reputation and how is it formed? A dictionary defines a reputation as the estimation in which a person or thing is held by other people. A corporate reputation is an overall evaluation that reflects the extent to which people see the firm as substantially “good” or “bad.” Good reputations foster trust and confidence, bad ones do not. Corporate image is a person’s beliefs about an organization, and corporate identity is the attributes used to describe an organization. Thus, corporate image means that we are talking about people’s perceptions of the organization and answers the question “What do people think about you?” Corporate identity refers to the way that the organization presents itself to its stakeholders and answers the question “Who are you?” An organization develops and highlights the parts of its identity that it hopes will foster a better image than its rivals in the minds of key stakeholders. If this occurs, the organization is said to have a good reputation.

For an organization to use its corporate reputation as a competitive weapon it must initiate a set of programmes to shape its identity, namely, its character, ability, products and services, and its behavior so that these will be evaluated favorably by its key stakeholders—relative to that of its industry rivals. Two basic options are either to foster a broad-based “good” reputation that will resonate with all stakeholders or one that is anchored to a specific identity attribute that is highly valued by one or more key stakeholder groups.

In some industries, it is important for competitors to have a broad-based good reputation. Trust and confidence in the organization is a strategic factor in its success. Those organizations that lead their rivals in this endeavor can gain a competitive advantage. In other industries, the establishment of a good corporate reputation is anchored to an attribute of the organization that is of particular importance to target customers and/or a key stakeholder groups. In both cases, corporate reputation can be a strategic asset that provides a source of potential competitive advantage. An organization that seeks to compete on its corporate reputation does so by choosing to promote some of its identity attributes or to publicly trade on its good name. In both cases, the corporate brand name is used to direct attention to the organization as the source of some type of communication, such as advertising, press releases, sponsorships, community activities, and investor relations.

For an organization to be a persuasive source of communication, it must be perceived as either:

- Credible, e.g., expert, objective,
- Attractive, e.g., likable, similar to the stakeholder, or
- Powerful, e.g., authoritative, influential.

The question then arises as to how can an organization present itself as credible and/or attractive and/or powerful? John Rossiter and Larry Percy suggest that because claims made by the organization will be carefully considered, they should be:

- Emotionally authentic (and this needs to be checked as it will vary across stakeholder groups)

- Convincing, that is, pitched to build on, or gently refute, the target stakeholder’s current beliefs.

Maintaining a good reputation requires constant vigilance. The actions of a rogue employee can quickly damage such a reputation. Also, it is easy for a company to pronounce its good intentions but fail to put in place formal procedures to ensure and measure compliance. To make a reasoned judgment, managers need to understand how good reputations are formed and maintained. This understanding suggests that the organization’s behavior is the prime determinant of its reputation. This will be driven by its overall system—such things as its strategy, business process, culture, controls, employees, and governance. Another crucial reputation driver is the value proposition offered to customers Also, the integrity of the top team —the Board, CEO, and executive managers—play a crucial role in personifying and creating trust and confidence in the company. Because different stakeholder groups often hold different reputations of an organization, managers need to address the problem of achieving a balance among the competing interests of their stakeholders.

To sum it up, a corporate reputation reflects the organization’s strategy, culture, and values. A good corporate reputation signifies trust in the company; creates an emotional and intellectual bond with employees, target customers, and other important stakeholders; and acts as the source of authority and credibility for all the organization’s dealings.

I have been working with PR agencies in India for almost 12 years and the last 3 years have been with a leading agency in India. One of their key clients that I handled was on mobile telephony. As is true to the nature of the client, crisis was an everyday issue.

Crisis always led to chaos and chaos to confusion, resulting in numerous phone calls, direction less running around and tension. I wondered why such situations cannot be approached in a more systematic and planned way. While conducting my study with the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) UK, I chose Crisis Communication as my personal project. I would like to share with you some of my thoughts and the theories behind it.

Let us first define what is crisis. Crisis as described by Banks K.L. is a, “major occurrence with a potentially negative outcome affecting an organization as well as its public services, products and good name.” It interrupts a normal business transaction and can at its worst threaten the existence of an organization. Not all crisis are alike and the response to different crisis differs at any point. Nevertheless, crisis management regardless of parameters requires strategic action be taken both to avoid and mitigate undesirable developments and to bring about a desirable resolution to the problem (Burnett J 1998).

Crisis management is a continuous effort. It is a strategic issue that looms as one of the most difficult to resolve because of both the additional elements of time pressure, limited control and high uncertainty. Crisis is better when it is averted. Weick (1998) in his “enactment perspective” also focuses on the prevention of error occurrence in an effort to reduce the magnitude of those errors. The anticipatory model of crisis management therefore argues that effective crisis management is prevention oriented because it is hard to cope with a crisis for which one has not prepared. The anticipatory model states that although human error cannot be eliminated in their entirety, it still is our responsibility to engage in prevention efforts that require anticipation of these errors.

Public relations experts are urged to move beyond traditional communication responsibilities and to develop skills in researching the company and industry history

and forecasting potential problems with remote stakeholders. Being prepared requires having self awareness knowledge, realizing one’s vulnerability to crisis and engaging a plan of action that counteracts the risk of crisis (Udwadia and Mitroff 1991). Paying attention to the interactions of human, technological and general management factors are the only way to exacerbate a crisis.

A typical crisis situation comprises of 5 stages as referred by Barton (1993). The initial prodromal stage when the organization is watching for warning signs. The second is the preparation or prevention stage. The third stage is that of containment, the efforts to limit the duration of crisis or keep it from becoming more serious. The fourth stage is that of recovery, the efforts spent in salvaging the situation. The fifth stage is that of learning, the process of evaluation and how to convert the learning as knowledge base for future warning signs.

Some of the best practices involved in a crisis management as enlisted by (Fearn Banks 1996 a) are given below.

* The public relations head should be a part of the top management team. Being a part of the dominant coalition, it helps the PR personnel to be privy to all management decisions. They are aware of the issues from the initial stage which may lead to a crisis situation.

* The programmes are designed to build relationships with all key stakeholders who are ranked and segmented according to importance. The organization should know who its stakeholders are and strive to maintain a strong relationship with them.

* An ongoing public relation plan is developed for each key stakeholder. A continuing dialogue with publics helps to bridge the gulf between an organization and its stakeholders. This is what has been defined by J. Gruning (1992) as ‘excellent communication’.

* A strong network and bonding with the media is essential during a crisis situation.

* An ongoing two way symmetrical crisis communication plan is developed as a response to a crisis. The plan should identify the crisis team, spokesperson, duties and the key talking points.

* The organization maintains a reputation for having an overall ‘open and honest’ policy with publics all the time.

The public relations manager should use their boundary spanning role to provide a contingency plan in case of a crisis situation. Given the public relations manager’s knowledge on communication concepts they need to assume a leadership role to resolve the crisis. Crisis like competition is a phenomenon that public relations managers can plan for and produce strategic responses to minimize adverse effects. Public relations is about an effort to mitigate uncertainty. It can do so by manipulating public behaviour or by being proactive to deal with uncertainty strategically.

Crisis communication is not a stand alone module of communication. It has a boundary spanning role and encompasses organizational variables such as strategy, leadership, training, culture, structure and socio-psychological behaviour of both the organization and their stakeholders on whom crisis creates a greater impact.

The cause related marketing or CSR activities is being deployed by many corporates and companies to strengthen their presence in the media on an ongoing basis. While some companies have been working on CSR responsibility with lot of focus and energy there are others who have not diverted completely towards this. One company that comes top of mind that has been practicing CSR for quite some time has been Godfrey Philips for their RED & WHITE brand in promoting bravery excellence.

The company has been doing this on a national level but unfortunately they are also promoting tobacco. But let’s not take away the credit from them as year after year they have been awarding people for excellence in bravery from all walks of life.

To me CSR has to come from the bottom of the heart if one is keen in promoting it. There are quite a few liquor brands in view of restriction in advertising has been using CSR as surrogate way of communicating their products. This according to me will never fall under CSR as the primary objective is to get the brand visible and not promote the CSR initiative.

Brand fit very important:

Identifying a cause or supporting any CSR responsibility must focus on issues that relate to the business the company is into. If the brand fit is relevant consumers will also appreciate the efforts as it is important that the CSR activity is also meaningful to them in their walk of life. Hence it is important for companies to check the relevance of the CSR activity so that companies don’t support unrelated cause which at times the consumers may feel that the business simply is trying to benefit from the not for profit ‘s reputation.

Many a times this may lead to consumer to stop buying the company products. Hence it is very critical for companies to maintain good brand fit when they venture into CSR activities so that consumers also connect well with the company and also see there is an effort being displayed by the company to promote CSR with more purpose.

Role of Public Relations in CSR:

A few years back a very interesting CSR effort was undertaken by a reputed finance brand SUNDARAM FINANCE in Chennai. I am sharing this example to illustrate as how this CSR effort was initiated and how successful was it. Sundaram Finance as a brand has been a very trusted and dependable brand in the finance space. The brand is almost present amongst most families mind , residing in the south. The brand over a period of time as been part of many families in south by truly demonstrating to its customers its correct brand values corporate vision. The company hardly advertises and it has entered the consumers mind mainly through strong word of mouth marketing and well networked distribution of their products with strong focus on service across South India.

As a part of their CSR push the company along with Ogilvy PR came out with the novel idea of promoting carnatic music among kids in Chennai. This move was initiated, as it was found more kids in that part of the world were getting hooked to computers, chats and TV shows and little recognition was given to the classical carnatic music. The company saw a great opportunity here and branded this CSR program as SUNDARAM FINANCE SUNDAY KUTCHERI ( Music concert ).The program was held in a park and the concept was developed to provide young kids aged under 15 to showcase their music talent .The idea was more to give a little back to the society as a CSR effort. High on recall. Low on cost was the motive on this CSR effort. The audience for this program was the young and aspiring musical talent, music connoisseurs and morning walkers in the park.

How did this CSR Program work?

* The program was held every first Sunday between 6.30 and 7.30am
* Kids were selected through audition tests
* Kids with good flair in music with basics were given opportunity
* Group of kids display their musical talent at the park with great ambience
* After the first half a dozen Kutcheri the concept caught on
* News papers and channels came forward to cover it

So what was unique about this CSR?

* One of its kind showcasing musical talent
* Age was the only criteria ( kids under 15)
* Open environment ,perfect and colorful settings
* No microphones. No loudspeakers
* Kids were the stars. No chief guests.
* Minimum branding from the company

The End Result:

* Zero advertising for the event. PR got the registrations.
* Entries came from neighboring cities also.
* Vast coverage on the event. Pre and Post.
* More audience participated
* Pressure was mounted to increase the frequency
* More parks wanted to hold the musical concert
* Boosted the confidence of the kids to perform
* Parents were thrilled and devoted more time on music with their kids.
* Finally the brand fit was also perfect as it connected well with the event.

I have observed a very curious trend in media, over the last one year- A whole new breed of young journalists suddenly gaining a lot of ground and visibility in almost all publications and TV channels, across the country. While the seasoned journalist is still very much around, the gen X (Y?) media poses a new challenge, and excitement, tossing out of the window the revered set of media relations pointers we’ve collated since the genesis of PR in India.

Many of these young journalists are smart, savvy and rather fearless. The in-depth stories, the frequent bylines and the probing questions, all demand that we take them seriously. Having had the opportunity to deal with many of them, I have collated a personal reference of pointers that have proved very useful when dealing with a young journalist. I would definitely appreciate additions to this.

1. Be prepared with details: Keeping all the facts and figures, even the most atypical ones, is important as the young journalist asks a lot of questions. While the more seasoned ones know that certain questions will not be answered and will be evaded, the new ones tend to demand for answers and explanations.

2. Do not escalate issues: I have had some big issues where a journalist had behaved in a rather unprofessional/unethical manner. For instance, once a journalist refused to complete a food review as a tiff with a friend had upset her mid-way! Not only had we taken appointment with the client a week in advance, we had made arrangements for the entire F&B for the evening. While it really was tempting to call up her editor and report the issue, we realized that it was best to sort the matter then and there. No matter how close you are to the boss, do remember that today’s rookie is tomorrow’s editor-in-chief. Plus, you also stand a chance of ruffling feathers incase the editor is drinking buddies with the concerned journalist. Be firm and reinforce the importance of the task at hand and inform the journalist of the effort gone into it. More often than not, you will get your message across. If nothing works, ask for an alternative and confirm further action immediately.

3. Follow-up incessantly: Do this with both the journalist as well as the editor concerned. This not only ensures that you get the coverage but also conveys a sense of importance of the story to the journalist. Once a journalist actually said to an executive in my team-“Oh, I didn’t realize this story is so important to your client!” Also, this acts as a reminder and a great way of building relationships with the concerned media.

4. Socialize. Socialize. Socialize: They are a lot of fun and are great friends with lots of journalists. I actually met a very senior journalist through a trainee, over drinks. This is also a great platform for getting to know their psyche and their general opinions. Add them on Gtalk and Facebook; few will refuse an invitation.

5. Do not underestimate: A reputed financial publication in Bangalore has a very talented trainee journalist whose bylined stories are featured in the daily almost every day. When she had turned up at an important press conference a couple of months back, we were all very worried. When she started asking questions, not only did she come across as smart but also very, very thorough. No surprise, the client was impressed and we got a big story.

6. Brief the client: It is most challenging when you have an inexperienced journalist turning up for interactions. Reinforce the importance of the publication to the client and share samples of the journalist’s work, if possible. Also prepare a detailed briefing document, focusing on the journalist’s qualities like depth of stories, style of interacting, industry knowledge, etc., instead of experience.

7. Do not forget to brief the journalist on the client: Share company literature and if possible, have a long chat the day before, on the client. Last month, a new journalist asked the global head of one of my clients to give an intro about the company to him! Enough said, it did not go down well with the client at all. It also makes sense to give the journalist an overview of the client’s industry and competition if he/she is very inexperienced. He will remain thankful for increasing his knowledge base, the client will be happy about the quality of interaction, and you might get a more prominent story in the bargain.

8. Share visuals: Doesn’t matter if the client is in the manufacturing business, share as many pictures/videos as possible. These are definitely more interesting than plain pitch notes and are much more appealing to the younger audience. Plus, I see a lot of pictures getting picked up for industry/trend stories magnifying a client’s participation in them.

9. Draw a line: It is very easy to get carried away when you chat with someone everyday and catch up outside of work regularly. Please remember that even the junior-most of journalists expect respect and professionalism, and rightly so. Maintain the same level of deference that you would employ for a senior journalist and stay away from gossip as much as you can. It will backfire for sure.

10. Share appreciation when you feel a job is well-done: Drop in a thank you note for a great article and call up if you can. Even if a story is not about a client and you think it is fantastic, let them know. Not only is it a great booster for someone, who is new, it also shows that you actually follow their publication. However, be wary of appreciation bordering on flattery. It is easy to catch and leaves a bad taste no matter how close you are. Be honest and you will do just fine.

We generally talk about PR agencies out here on this blog and what we can do to enhance our client and media skills. Well, I found this interesting article on how to become a good PR client. Read on and let us know what does it take to be a good client. What do you think?

PR is most productive when the agency and client people work as a team. The ideal is a blurred distinction between the two organizations. The goals are nearly the same, only the paychecks and business cards are different. Efficient teamwork and friendships develop, with the clients relying on agencies for a full range of strategic as well as tactical communications values. The agency is free to ask all questions, including the hard or perhaps embarrassing ones, and offer help wherever and whenever needed while remembering its charter to client service.