Series of 7: Top Topics from the PROI Gathering of the World’s Leading Independent Agencies:Reputation Management After the Global Economic Meltdown

This is the first in a series of seven blogs highlighting the seven breakout session topics presented at the 2010 PROI annual meeting.  PROI is the largest, oldest and furthest-reaching alliance of independent communications agencies.  The PROI partner office for the Upper Midwest, LaBreche attended the 2010 international meeting in May, which was hosted by its L.A. partner office, mPRm.

 

All PROI agencies, representing the world’s most forward-thinking innovators in the communications industry, participated in a discussion on how reputation management is viewed and managed for companies, as they begin to emerge from the global economic crisis.  Below are the top-ranking insights from these leaders – from Delhi to Copenhagen, Bratislava and NYC.

 

• Research now reveals that the topic of reputation makes it on to the agendas of the meetings of the boards of the world’s largest public companies.  Today’s board members and executives are increasingly concerned about managing their reputations in a new media world, in which every stakeholder has a voice and many are using that voice, after 24 months of decreasing trust in companies, their brands, governments, and world and industry leaders.
• Social networks and the messages they move -- based in truths and untruths – because increasing consternation among leaders, many of which are not yet comfortable adopting, participating in and using networks to proactively engage their stakeholder communities.
• Reputation management processes are becoming more mature, advanced and accepted by companies and their executives.  The best reputation audits, maps and outcomes are measured in tangible values – in languages that can be understood by the CFO.
• As companies move into their next challenge – the fight for talent that is expected to be able to soon act on their desires to change jobs – they will pay more attention to their reputations as employers of choice, and take action to proactively position themselves to compete to retain and attract the human resources a knowledge economy demands.
• Reputation management – a term that first used in the 1980s and never really made it out of the agency’s lexicon – is finally understood by companies, at the highest levels of the organization.  Agencies have seen increases in proactive conversations with clients who want to understand how to manage the perceptions of their companies.  The role agencies now play is connecting what a company does to what it says to lead to what it’s known for.
• CEOs are interested in knowing what stakeholders think about their companies, its leaders, its products, and agencies skilled in reputation management are delivering research that leads to strategic discussions around the current-to-desired path of reputation building.
• Issues management is at the core of reputation work; intelligence mapping and risk management that identifies, monitors, interprets and prompts preventative crisis controls is a given at any well-managed organization.
• Rebuilding credibility will be the mantra for many companies and companies within industries that have taken a beating over the past 24 months. 

 

Next week’s topic:  digital marketing…who owns it?

Brogan Plays to a Diverse Crowd

Months ago, Minnesota Business Magazine and LaBreche started a discussion around this town on the topic of Reputations.  We set out to tackle the myriad topics that are encompassed by the concept – from intangible and tangible, to management vs. non-management, and crisis communications to measurement.  The discussion happens every month in the magazine and online through a new Reputations column.  And, annually, our two companies have committed to hosting a forum within which an aspect of Reputations can be studied. Last week, as part of our program, we welcomed Chris Brogan of New Marketing Labs and author of  Trust Agents to our twin towns to lead a discussion around social media, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtlnjkqNL1c.    We invited businesses of every size – from those with the most advanced social media strategies (Best Buy), to those with the longest tenure in social media (Select Comfort), to newcomers like Quality Bicycle Products. And we spurred the conversation everyone in our market – and markets throughout the world – need to be having.  The conversation drew a diverse mix of the curious, the serious, the hobbyists and the most fluent in the language of social media.  Studying the audience as a microcosm of reaction to the subject was almost as educational as listening to the speakers.  We had the evangelists seated down in front, those who tweet their way through every day, who fist-bumped during the presentation over private social media jokes, and seemed as tight as a clique that meets regularly at tweet-ups over beer and bacon. Then there were closest of Brogan followers, offering up their fan gifts to him before the speaking started.  (Eerily, I might add – some brought children’s books for the two kids we know he has if we follow him on Twitter, and one brought a handkerchief, just because she knew Brogan has an allergy he just can’t shake.)  Ahhh…the intimacy of social media.  Then we had the competitors – there to check out what we were doing and stay close to some of their own clients in the room.  I saw a few who claim on their web site to be social media gurus leaving with multiple copies of Brogan’s book under their arms, more than their allotted one free copy with the price of admission.  Required reading?  Or a sign of the times in terms of just how much cash flow social media is generating for agencies? We had panelists who were nervous because they didn’t have all the answers.  And panelists who had not yet sent their first tweet, though they managed teams who were pumping out thousands of tweets per minute.  And panelists predicting the fall of print media, even though a magazine was the host of the day’s events.   And we actually did have representatives from the companies just trying to figure this whole social media thing out.  I noticed two groups from the same company – representing the still unconvinced and the internal champions, respectively -- sitting symbolically several rows apart, a sign of the internal strife social media is causing within their own organization. And we were all facilitated by the leader of this dysfunctional marching band, made up of those just trying to make music out of tweet beeps, video sound bites and, ultimately, the ringing of cash registers.  Brogan, who flies around the country purposefully putting himself in the middle of such dynamics, preached wisdom at times, made foul-mouthed comments about old-school marketers at others, and slammed the whole point of the entire event:  reputation management – while sneaking peeks at real-time hashtag remarks coming in on his Droid from those in the audience or joining in from the off-site fray…comments ranging from praise to sarcasm to downright rude contradictions. Ahh…Change.  It’s uncomfortable, isn’t it?  It breeds early adopters who hold their knowledge close, yet sell it on the open market.  It causes head-nodding – either up and down, or side to side.  And, above all, it stimulates diverse disruption.  And LaBreche is more than happy to help bring conversations like this to you – whether you’re the client who promptly declared Brogan’s book to be trash after only the first few pages, or the warm welcomer who brought him Minnesota-nice souvenirs just for coming. By now you’re probably wondering what you missed.  Well, according to many of the social media savvy around town, apparently it wasn’t much.  Yet, according to the mid-sized businesses that brought people, took notes and headed back to their offices to get something started, you missed quite a lot, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhrCgJaXEKc.  I’m just glad the event inspired you to say something, and hopefully now do something.  Let’s keep talking.

We are LaBreche.

Welcoming in the new year with our new capabilities video. Enjoy.

Always start with a question

What the L? you ask. It’s the LaBreche blog. And it’s all about just what’s going on inside Suite 2020 at our agency. See and hear from our brand communications experts…what they’re thinking and reading, what great things our clients are doing to build their businesses as category leaders, and – most importantly – what’s on your mind. We’ll talk brand strategy, public relations, interactive and design. You’ll see individual blogs from me; our head geek, Jake; and our health care and wellness alliance partner, Pat Kullmann. We promise to earn a spot on your most-visited list by being curious and opinionated, open and authentic.

What the L? is a name that comes from a favorite saying I used while growing up. I haven’t lost my foul mouth, although we’re toning it down here, nor my sense of inquisitiveness, questioning authority for the sake of finding as close to the truth as possible. It’s a phrase that got me in plenty of trouble when I was too young to have such an attitude. But it’s a phrase that has served me well as a counselor who keeps asking the tough questions and rethinking old ways of doing things.

There’s a lot happening right now in business and in our industry that begs the question: What the L? On our blog we’ll explore, question and comment on the communications side of it all. But we can’t do it without you.

Join us.

What the L dot net: It’s about time.

Ironic, isn't it? We're an agency that provides communications services, including social media consulting and interactive work. Yet we haven't, until now, had an agency blog. We're active on Twitter and Facebook and in other communities, but have been violating our own commandment about content—when you don't have it, you don't have much to offer.

So, why so late, you may ask? Well…the bad news is we just haven't had time. And…the good news is, we just haven't had time.

It's a crazy world in the agency business right now. Those of us surviving and thriving in the chaos of outsourced marketing have been busier than ever. Luckily, it's the client work that has kept us away from doing much work for ourselves. Hence, our blog deadline has been moved monthly, all year long. And, after all the procrastination, it's still just a temporary format. The upgraded What The L dot net will be up soon. Just don't ask me when.

It's a tale of the shoemaker's children, but this time the shoemaker is keeping busy despite the worst recession of his life. I'm proud of our blog already, because it was literally created during the breaks from client work, mostly before or after a long work day. But, in the end, the client's work is complete, and it was done on time. And it's award-winning stuff that's transforming their businesses. It's work that is making us tired, but keeping us happy.

So if you were waiting for word from LaBreche, our apologies go out as we come up for air. Looking forward to talking to you, even if it may be in the wee or late hours of the day.

—Beth LaBreche