Articles

Responding to attacks on corporate reputation
Ethical Performance July 2001

Companies should make greater use of their web sites to respond to attacks by campaigners, argue Peter Knight and Simon Propper.

Should a company respond to the agendas of others? The answer seems to be'no' if you look at the responses of some companies that have come under attack from campaigners.

There are exceptions, but most companies seem to think that it's better to keep your head well beneath the parapet than to engage on issues that have been raised by influential others.

Looking at how companies respond to the attacks through their web sites reveals two distinct approaches.

The first - and by far the most popular - is to adopt the classic ostrich position and blithely ignore what's going on in the outside world. McDonald's has a 'People's Promise' but does not respond to the criticisms made by a legion of campaigners. Nike has some information on the way it audits its suppliers but this is limited in scope and well hidden behind a lot of clicks. Exxon looks the other way.

The second - and far more difficult strategy, is to engage fully in debates on issues that might affect the company but are essentially 'owned' by others - animal testing, hormone disruption and so on. Shell and Unilever are good examples. Visit their web sites and you will find information on a wide variety of topics, from human rights to GM foods. The information has been there for quite a while and the sky has not fallen on their heads.

The old-fashioned public relations approach is to be the ostrich, emerging occasionally to say incredibly positive and amazingly boring things about your company and the huge benefits it bestows on society. When something goes wrong you hire firefighters called crisis managers who charge an absolute fortune for work that should have been done while you had your head in the sand.

This reactive approach is not only silly but demonstrates a total lack of understanding of how the world has changed and how the expectations of your customers have progressed. There is nothing more disappointing than a visit to a web site of a brand or company where the gap between image and reality is so thunderingly obvious.

It may be argued that a company fails to respond positively to reputational challenges on its web site simply because it does not consider the medium important. Yet, a company's web site reveals the soul of the enterprise. When it is shown to be empty and arrogantly disengaged, the negative signal is so strong that the company might as well put a fingers-up sign on the home page and be done with it.

Driving much of this reticence is a belief that one encourages trouble by engaging. But surely, there is enough evidence already that people actually appreciate being treated like adults.