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 research attention (note to reader: “corporate” and “organisational” are used interchangeably). Numerous corporate and non-profit entities have provided public clinical experiences of confronting serious reputational crises. 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 sex abuse), Martha Stewart OmniMedia (executive misbehaviour), Arthur Andersen (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 these 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 organisation's corporate-level marketing orientation posed by John Balmer and myself in our treatment of an integrated approach to marketing at the institutional level (Balmer and Greyser, 2006).
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 recognises 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 serious, and what steps companies can try to take to prevent or if necessary to overcome such crises.
Reputational troubles can come in many forms, from a wide variety of causes and from many publics. Some have been sudden, such as when seven 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 sex abuse scandal affecting many Catholic archdioceses in the US, the accounting scandal that eventually ruined the once-respectable accounting firm of Arthur Andersen, or the bribery scandal over selection of host cities that tarnished the reputation of the International Olympic Committee. Some of the protest or concern comes from advocacy groups with a cause, some from disaffected consumers/customers, some from governmental/regulatory entities, and some from the general public.
Organisations must recognise 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 causes of corporate brand crises, with some examples and some brief explanations:
1.Product failure –Tylenol, Perrier, Firestone (tires implicated as the cause 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 Andersen, Enron, Exxon (oil spill in Alaska),
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).
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 endorser of brands who was accused 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 seen by their people as “a symbol of nationhood,” central to the “monarchic corporate brand” (Balmer et al., 2006).
9.Controversial ownership –Venezuela and CITGO in the USA (vigorously
anti-US Venezuelan president).
Assessing the seriousness of the situation
What made some of these crises life-threatening to the organisations involved was that they affected what I term “the essence of the brand”, i.e. the distinctive attribute/characteristic most closely associated with the brand's meaning and success. When this occurs a company's marketplace position and its brand meaning are seriously challenged. If the essence 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
dangerous the problem.
o Brand strengths/weaknesses. The more differentiated (vs other entities), the better it is for the affected company, unless a key differentiation is
the subject at issue (see “integrity of athletic competition” below).
o Essence of the brand's meaning (see examples below).
2.The crisis situation:
o Seriousness of situation at outset. If the problem prospectively affects many consumers or some severely, e.g. salmonella in food leading to
deaths, the seriousness is higher.
o Its threat to brand's position/meaning (see text examples in “consequences” below).
https://www.doczj.com/doc/c318303383.html,pany 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 crises
What can and should companies/organisations do when threatened by brand crises? 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 address the problem, even if it involves changing corporate behaviour. And it should support the initiative with credible communications. These 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 serving 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 response to critics of its wages and benefits for its workers and its impacts on the communities where its stores are located. Some observers (including myself) raised the question of how this message could be effective when the company was being widely criticised (with extensive media coverage) for reportedly closing a store where employees were trying to organise 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 itself 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 sets 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 response communications should have continued, and some said non-advertising communications should have been used. 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 subsequently settled 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 sensible route. Merck, the third-largest US pharmaceutical manufacturer, suffered an attack on its reputation because of its actions regarding Vioxx, a pain medication. It was revealed
that several years before the company withdrew Vioxx (2004), its internal documents raised questions about risks of strokes and heart attacks associated with the drug. Obviously this was a serious situation for the company's reputation especially since the company was defending thousands of lawsuits over injuries and deaths, claimed by patients or surviving family members to be attributable to the drug. Three years after the withdrawal, having won many but having lost some of the cases, Merck made a $4.85 billion settlement on some 45,000 cases (Boston Globe, November 9, 2007) Merck's action was expensive, but allowed the firm to move on without a huge residual financial cloud. Merck's behaviour helped address a serious threat.
An unusual corporate action in the face of criticism was taken by the major accounting firm KPMG in 2005. Under attack by the US Government for the creation and sale of tax shelters claimed to have cost the Treasury billions of tax dollars, KPMG admitted “unlawful conduct.” What was said to lie behind the move was the company's fear of criminal indictment, which in the case of Arthur Andersen had been a major step leading to its demise (New York Times, 2005).
If the organisation truly believes that bad news about it is false, there is an opportunity to correct the misimpression. However, the communications (e.g. corporate statements) must be supported by evidence and have a clear ring of credibility. When Audi was confronted with “sudden unintended acceleration” problems, its initial responses attributed the blame to driver error. This became a matter of considerable public debate, well covered by media. Later, despite considerable internal engineering investigation, Audi was generally considered never able to pinpoint the actual cause of the problem. It took new engineering (e.g. automatic gearshift locks now widely employed in the industry) and the passage of several years of much lower sales for the brand (whose name is on all models) to mount a comeback.
Two other situations exist beyond “the bad news is true” and “the bad news is clearly false”, namely “the good news is true” and “the good news is actually false”. My advice in the first situation is to feel good and work hard to maintain whatever actions have yielded what relevant publics consider good news. Communications can
be helpful to the corporate cause if the information is supported by external credible research, such as “voted best company to work for”. This of course puts the onus on an organisation to maintain the distinction. In the second case (“good news is actually false”), a corporation needs to fix the reality quickly (especially if on a relevant reputational dimension such as a safety issue) and hope it can keep a low profile until the situation is remedied.
As part of an organisational planning exercise, one might ask these questions about the organisation's brand:
1.What do you think is the essence of your corporate brand's meaning to
consumers, to the trade, to other key stakeholders?
2.What could cause your brand to undergo a brand crisis?
3.How seriously would this affect the brand's reputation? How? Why? Lessons learned
From my experiences and study of many crisis situations, let me offer four lessons in very abbreviated form:
1.Let us start with a look in the mirror. Understand your organisation's identity
as others see it –not what the company says it wants to be. The latter is important, but perceptions are central. Know the brand's meaning to key stakeholders, and what could threaten its core. And monitor public approval and support of the company under different scenarios of trouble –, e.g. a strike, an environmental problem, etc. In short, understand the organisation's brand essence and what could seriously threaten it.
2.Potential reputational problems are legion. They come in many forms, and
from many publics (stakeholders). But not all affect the essence of the brand.
In all instances, the organisation must understand what and whom it is defending against.
3.In the event of brand reputational crisis, focus on forthrightness in
communications, and on truly substantive credible responses in behaviour.
These are the most likely avenues to rescue a brand in crisis. They may restore trust, although that is not guaranteed. The most important actions in a
reputational crisis, however, can be the ones taken over time to build a “reputational reservoir”, a strong foundation for the corporate reputation. In some crises, a company can draw down on that reservoir.
4.Remember that because a corporate brand is as wide as the organisation, the
CEO is the ultimate guardian of the corporation's reputation.
出处：Stephen A. Greyser. Corporate brand reputation and brand crisis management [J] Management Decision .2009.47(4), PP. 590-602
标题：企业品牌的声誉和品牌危机管理
译文：这些年来，什么是品牌危机以及如何认识和处理品牌危机，特别是企业或组织的品牌危机，是我研究的重点。众多公司和非营利机构提供了面临严重声誉危机时危机公关的临床经验。近几十年来的例子包括埃克森（瓦尔迪兹石油泄漏事件），联合碳化物（博帕尔爆炸），佩里耶（苯痕迹），泰诺（毒丸从死亡），美国天主教教会（牧师性虐待），玛莎斯图尔特OmniMedia（行政不当行为），安达信（会计丑闻），国际奥林匹克委员会（贿赂问题）等等。他们的品牌已经受到了威胁，表现在消费者和企业客户认同度的下降和公众的信任度的下降。
一些产品的品牌根深蒂固（如泰诺），并都具有企业品牌的影响力，在公司层面上努力地进行挽救企业品牌（如泰诺强生公司，由强生公司麦克尼尔实验室的单位销售）。因此，这些事件向企业提供一个了解品牌方面知识的丰富来源。它们说明了企业营销的关键方面的内容。
“我们可以作为一个机构，积极地维持顾客及其他利益相关群体的双边利益和社区关系是有意义的吗？”。这是由约翰和我用我们的一套综合的治疗方法在一定制度水平上提出的关于企业组织的营销导向的核心问题。（巴尔默和Greyser，2006年）。
我们认为的企业营销的确需要一个董事会和首席执行官的关注。在反思企业形象和品牌信誉危机的时候，就应该认识到全公司定位的重要性及行政总裁和公司级管理人员的责任。
声誉麻烦的来源
让我来提供各种品牌声誉危机的产生原因的解析，如何知道情况的严重性，以及公司可以尝试什么步骤以防止和克服这种危机。
声誉麻烦可以有许多形式，从各种各样的和许多公众中变现出来。有些是突如其来的，例如当七人在一天之内死于污染的泰诺胶囊，当苯的痕迹在Perrier的瓶子中被发现，当在印度一家联合碳化物公司的工厂爆炸导致数百人丧生。另一些人的问题影响是更长久的，例如牧师的性侵犯在美国的影响，会计丑闻最终断送了一度受人尊敬的会计师事务所安达信，或主办城市的选择中的行贿丑闻使得国际奥委会的声誉受损。一些抗议或关心来自于团体，也有来自于心怀不满的消费者或客户客户的、一些政府或监管机构和一些大众。
企业必须认识到什么问题威胁到了企业声誉以及谁公开的。
这里是一个企业品牌危机的不同成因分类与一些例子的简要解释：
1、产品故障-泰诺，佩里耶，凡世通（事故车轮胎牵连的许多死亡的原因），切尔诺贝利核电站灾难，英特尔的奔腾芯片（有缺陷的计算），美国公司的花生（沙门氏菌）。
2、社会责任的差距-耐克（非美国劳工和工作条件问题）。
3、企业不良行为-安达信，安然，埃克森（石油在阿拉斯加漏油），默克（Vioxx 的涉嫌镇压的临床药物试验的早期阶段），西门子（企业贪污贿赂犯罪跨国诈骗），惠普（经董事会起诉从事间谍活动通过问题的调查手段成员），国际奥委会/土壤活性有机碳（有关申办城市的丑闻）。
4、行政不当行为-玛莎斯图尔特，丹尼斯科兹洛夫斯基（泰科）。
5、业绩不好的结果-宝丽（未能适应技术），电路城（零售业巨头这让许多工作人员前往其最熟悉店），并于2008年许多企业尤为如此。
6、发言人行为不检和争议，科比-布莱恩特（NBA品牌代言人明星运动员被告强奸）。
7、公司的死亡象征-温迪（快餐连锁）的创始人和电视发言人戴夫托马斯，关于“面对品牌”
8、支持丧失公共-法国的路易十六（断头台和君主制下降），英国的爱德华八世（英国被迫放弃王位，都失去了他们的能力被人看到他们为“一个国家地位的象征，”中央对“君主的企业品牌”（巴尔末等，2006 ）。
9、有争议的所有权–委内瑞拉和CITGO（大力反美的委内瑞拉总统）。
评估局势的严重性
是什么使这些危机威胁到一些组织的生存，是他们影响了我所谓“品牌的本质”，即独特的属性或特征是与品牌的内涵和成功密切相关。当发生这种情况发生时公司的市场地位和品牌内涵都面临着严重的挑战。如果品牌的本质不是中心环节，那么问题更容易被克服，尽管仍然麻烦。
这里有四个关键领域的一些简短的评论，即组织应研究分析一可能威胁到其品牌的声誉的新的或已出现的问题：
1、该品牌元素：
品牌的市场情况，如市场份额或（危机前）的企业的有利情况。较弱的情况及更危险的问题。
品牌优势或劣势。越是的与其他实体有区别，越能更好的影响公司，除非是在关键的问题上有分歧。
品牌的本质意义。
2、危机情况：
一开始就有严峻的形式。如果这一问题提前影响到了许多消费者或者更加严重，例如，在食品中的沙门氏菌导致人的死亡，这样的问题就更加严重。
威胁到品牌的地位或本质。
3、公司倡议：影响公司的品牌和问题行为或行动，特别是通讯，在计划阶段有可能的影响可以被检查到。
4、结果（实施措施一段时间之后）：恢复或重新启动有效的措施，恢复品牌内涵，和有利的市场或市场占有率。
在品牌信誉危机中的措施
当品牌危机威胁到公司，公司能够和必须做些什么？哪里适合交流？我的主要建议涉及到的情况是“公司真正的坏的消息”。
在面对危机，尤其是当它已经是一个问题或将成为问题时，我相信一个组织应当承认这个事实，即使尴尬。此外，它应该直截了当地尝试解决这个问题，哪怕这意味着这是改变企业的行为。并且它应支持有效交流的主动权。这是最好的（但仍是坎坷的）康复治疗或救援品牌的道路。交流沟通是不能单独就能完成的工作。
实质 - 即行为 - 是一个至关重要的（例如，从快速召回分布的泰诺）有效的防御计划。一个相关联的沟通工作也很重要和有益的。但是，这一消息必须避免成为一个“提醒活动”。特别是如果基本问题或指控没有被相关公众所熟知。
可信的传播是沃尔玛在2005年初发动“沃尔玛是为每个人工作的”的传播活动。该消息是对工人的工资和福利有不满和对沃尔玛所在这区的一些影响的回应。一些观察家（包括我自己）提出当该公司因为媒体报道员工们试图组织工会关闭商店和公司因为歧视女职工被起诉而广受批评时如何才能让这一消息变得有效果。在我看来，公司在传播方面的努力和这个特定的消息或主题不太可能是有效的。
有时甚至任何传播都可以让人怀疑。当委内瑞拉总统在联合国抨击美国总统布什时2006年底美国的CITGO发现他的声誉受损（CITGO的母公司是一家的委内瑞拉是有公司）。一个主要的零售加油站经营者结束了他与CITGO的供应商关系。据称这已经和政治攻击有关联了，CITGO决定进行一项宣传运动，“ CITGO 设置了直接记录”，强调公司良好的公民身份和美国主要雇主的角色。此后不久，公司还进行了形象建设活动。一些专家同意这样的努力，有的认为应继续响应传播，也有的说，非广告传播应该被使用。不过，其他人则认为，这一运动推动了更多的公众对根本问题的认识，不应该进行。随后的局势平静下来，因为美国人把石油坎作一种产品，而不是它的所有权。
正如我所说，直率的行动往往是企业最明智的路线。默克公司美国第三大制药商默克公司，其声誉因为其关于万络，止痛药物而遭受了声誉攻击。据透露，几年前公司撤回万络（2004年），其内部文件中对药物对中风和心脏病发作有影响提出质疑。显然，这是对公司声誉来说是一个严峻的形势尤其是公司欲数以千计的损伤和死亡投诉有关，并且病人或者家属将原因归结到药物上。三年之后退出，失去了一些机会单赢得了很多，默克公司用4.85亿美元解决了45000个这样的例子（波士顿环球报，2007年11月9日），默克公司的行动是昂贵的，但允许该公司在剩余的经济情况下提出。默克公司的行为，帮助解决一个严重的威胁。
在2005年一家主要的会计事务所毕马威会计事务所在面对批评时被了。在美国政府为创造和销售所得税声称有税收有数十亿美元的压力下，毕马威承认“这是非法行为。”背后的谎言是什么，此举是该公司的恐惧的刑事起诉书，这在阿瑟安德森案件是重要的一步了导致它的失败的重要一步（纽约时报，2005 ）。如果该组织真正相信坏消息是假的，这里是有机会纠正错误的印象的。然而，信息（如企业报表）必须有证据的支持。当奥迪面临“突然意外加速”的问题时，它的初步反应归咎于驱动程序错误。这成为了相当大的公共辩论的问题，深受媒体报道。后来，尽管有相当大的内部工程勘察，奥迪始终无法找出问题的真正原因。它采取了新的工程（如自动换档锁目前在同行业中被广泛采用）和几年的低销售额为品牌的卷土重来做了准备。
另外两个情况存在于“坏消息是真实的”和“坏消息显然是假的”之外，即“好消息是真实的”和“好消息是真的假的”。我在第一种情况的建议是，感觉良好并努力保持的任何行动都能取得了相关公众认可。信息是对企业目标是有帮助的如果信息通过外部研究是可信的的话，如“票选最佳公司的工作”。当然，为了保持特性组织应该担负起责任。在第二种情况下（“好消息是真的假的”），一个公司需要很快的解决现实的问题（特别是如果有关声誉方面，如安全问题），并希望它能够保持低调，直至情况得到纠正。
作为一个组织规划工作的一部分，人们或许会问到关于组织的品牌的这些问题：
1、你认为你的企业品牌对消费者、业内人士和其他主要利益相关者的来说是什么本质？
2、这是什么原因使你的品牌经历一个品牌危机？
3、这将如何和为什么会严重影响了品牌的声誉？
吸取的经验教训
从我的经验和研究的许多危机情况下，我就以简略形式提供了四个教训：
1、让我们来从镜子中看一看。了解其他人看组织的身份-而不是公司所说的想成为什么样的。后者是重要的，但消费者的感知才是核心。了解这个品牌的关键利益相关体的意义以及什么可能威胁到它的核心。公开审监督和支持公司在不同情况下遇到的麻烦如罢工，环境问题等。总之，了解该组织的品牌精髓和什么会使他受到严重的威胁。
2、潜在的声誉的问题是多方面的。他们有许多形式，来自许多民众（股东）。但是，并非所有都影响品牌的精髓。在所有情况下，组织必须了解它是什么并知道谁来解决它。
3、在品牌信誉危机中，重点在直率的通信，事件和行为的真正实质性和可性。这是拯救处于危机中的一个品牌最有可能的途径。他们可能恢复信任，尽管这不能保证。在信誉危机的最重要的行动中，随着时间的推移可以采取建立“声誉蓄水池”，作为企业信誉的一个强大的基础。在一些危机，公司可以动用该水库。请记住一个企业品牌是广泛的机构，CEO是该公司的声誉最终监护人。
出处：Stephen A. Greyser. Corporate brand reputation and brand crisis management
[J] Management Decision .2009.47(4), PP. 590-602