corporate reputation

Authentic Corporate Reputations: The Real PR Challenge

May 27, 2011

Tweet To craft a corporate reputation that seems authentic, claims about the organization’s character must be anchored in real features of the organization. It’s the organization’s job to demonstrate a link between reputation claims and real features, and it’s the PR professional’s job to explain a link between claims and real features. (This post is […]

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Target: Why Organizations Should Boycott Target but Individuals Shouldn’t Bother

August 26, 2010

Tweet I’m a supporter of LGBTQx rights and of organizational diversity. As an individual, I’m not likely to do much to boycott Target in response to Target’s $150,00 contribution to an anti-gay, pro-bigotry gubernatorial candidate. But, if I were Target’s business customer, business supplier, stakeholder, or other important large stakeholder, I would make a bit […]

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Implicit Complicity and “Negative Spillover”: Reputation Damage from BP’s Oil Spill Crisis

June 30, 2010

Tweet What do birds, beaches, and Chevron have in common? They have been “tarred by the same gush” of “negative spillover” from BP’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. In one of the weirder cases of a collision between literal and figurative language, the “negative spillover” of BPs Deepwater Horizon crisis is soiling not only birds and beaches, […]

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BP’s Bravest Brandividual: What could be motivating Darryl Willis?

June 22, 2010

Tweet If you’ve been paying attention to BP’s “Making it right” newspaper advertising, or if you’ve seen BP’s recent television advertising, you’ve seen BP’s new Brandividual Darryl Willis. Aside from Tony Hayward, BP’s walking PR disaster CEO, Darryl Willis is the only person with a name shown by BPs own advertisements as being in charge […]

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Crafting Business Avatars: An Authenticity Exercise

October 19, 2009

Tweet We all need to stop playing around with how we represent ourselves visually online, at least where work is concerned. That’s what Gartner Consulting advises. They released a report last week proclaiming that Enterprises Must Get Control of Their Avatars. The animated avatars that an organization’s employees use when they participate as organization members […]

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Brandividual In Action: Follow @cbarger to watch General Motors transform

June 2, 2009

Tweet Here’s your chance to see someone in the brandividual role taking action, over time, in the face of a big challenge. When I gave my talk about The Rise of Brandividuals at last week’s Corporate Reputation Conference, I used the example (well-known in social media circles) of @scottmonty of Ford Motor Company to illustrate […]

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