Communication Tools

Angst among consumers and business leaders will continue to grow as the economy spirals downward, global credit markets slump, and foreign investors acquire marquee U.S. assets. In this environment, corporations will be even more subject to attacks than in the few years since Enron.

 

Potential antagonists such as activist shareholders, public interest groups, non-government organizations, regulators, legislators, consumers, and the media will likely exploit this period of vulnerability to advance their own agendas.

 

In response, companies can mount a two-part campaign.

 

First, articulate vision and values. This prong of the campaign accentuates the positive. It is all about reputation management and brand-protection communications that, in essence, build up goodwill equity deposits – a trust bank, as it were, for corporations to draw on if they are specifically targeted in the months ahead.

 

The corporation and its ostensibly disinterested third-party surrogates should be the first to articulate the vision and values of their enterprise. The goodwill deposits will pay high-interest dividends if they’re made before a specific crisis occurs. Amid multi-media attacks, the instinct of consumers, business partners, analysts, investors, and even journalists will then be: “Wait a minute, that’s not the company I know!”

 

The “equity bank” strategy worked like a charm during the 2007 Jet Blue crisis when severe weather gutted airline operations. Along with the many things Jet Blue did right during the crisis, the airline had also nurtured a pool of trust and loyalty before the crisis, shielding its brand during that troubled winter.

 

Second, have an offense ready to deploy. Understand how activist groups think and react in order to anticipate how they’ll come at you, and lay groundwork for an effective response. These antagonistic organizations have become particularly adept with technology, leveraging viral digital communications to create a global climate of inimical opinion.

 

But they don’t have to dominate the Internet. There are effective corporate counter-strategies based on proactive outreach, web optimization, and a constant monitoring of the significant “high-authority” blogs that focus on your industry.

 

There is also a particular area of vulnerability where NGOs and other adversaries may be particularly unprepared, online and off. They may not expect or be able to withstand attacks on their own independence and objectivity. They are so accustomed to being on the offense that their own defensive lines might be porous – especially if, as forensic investigations commissioned by corporations often disclose, they have a pecuniary or otherwise compromising stake in the outcome of their own “public service” initiatives.  

 

An offense-based strategy should never be triggered automatically. There must instead be sober analysis of whether such a strategy will actually serve the corporate brand or ratchet up the battle to a point where everybody loses.

 

At the very least, however, the attack plan should be ready, the weapons primed, and the war games played.