Aligning company values with market expectations
Incompetent? Belligerent? Homophobic? Conniving? In the world of Business-to-Consumer(B2C) branding or, more to the point, in markets where the brand lives or dies by the sword of consumer opinion, having your organisation perceived consistently in such negative terms can wipe billions off of market valuations and ultimately threaten the survival of the business. Just ask the public relations executives at companies making the headlines at the moment such as BP, BA, Punch Taverns and EasyJet, or hark back to Gerald Ratner’s moment of madness in 1991. Once a negative perception has become embedded in the mind of the consumer, it is the devil’s own job to alter that opinion.
Moreover, if a turnaround in brand fortunes is not achieved quickly, then a more insidious turn of events may occur; not only will the carefully crafted brand image have been tainted, but many of the future actions of the business and its employees, whether good, bad or indifferent, will tend to become associated with an overpoweringly negative stereotype. As employees instinctively seek to adapt their actions in the face of negativity, the very personality of the business begins a subtle change in temperament.
Could things be any worse? Well, yes, in fact they could be. The grass is always greener on the other side, isn’t it? Organisations operating in the Business-to-Business(B2B) arena watch with interest and some trepidation as high profile events such as those in B2C unfold before their very eyes. At least their counterparts in B2C have the advantage, yes I said advantage, of being subjected to the glare of publicity as an early warning system. If the brand takes a high-profile knock, then rapid action can often limit the damage. Take the recent Punch Taverns homophobia incident as an example. Twitter feeds and other online social/business networks were abuzz within minutes of the offending words being spoken, enabling the company to gauge reaction and then move quickly in order to contain the problem.
No such luxury for those operating in the B2B arena. The unfortunate words and actions of employees can remain hidden for years, ultimately subverting the good intent of brand messaging and having the potential to become embedded within the organisation as pseudo ‘standard operating procedure’. So standard, in fact, that prospective customers and clients assume the offending actions are by design, part of the brand, and ‘just the way that that company does business’.
In many ways, the public flogging of businesses operating in the B2C arena, whilst unpleasant at the time, may in fact be a Godsend. After all, forewarned is forearmed, and only the most blinkered of executives would fail to act. However, for many players in B2B, the first sign that the market’s perception of the business, its people and its brand has ‘gone negative’ is when the customer fails to renew the contract. Only with hindsight, when it is often too late, does it become clear that the market’s expectations and the organisation’s values had gradually moved out of alignment.
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