This chapter discusses the importance of a companies identity, image, and reputation. A company's identity is defined as the physical presence of the company that is represented by the company's moto, vision, products, and services. Image however, is how constituents actually see the company. The challenge for a company is to create a consistency between how constituents see the company and how the company wants to be seen using its reputation. This can be accomplished through effective communication and understanding the dynamics of your constituency.
This concept becomes especially apparent when a company wants to change there identity, image or reputation. A former employer of mine is currently trying to accomplish this. Blockbuster Video has traditionally been know as a movie rental provider. Due to dynamics of the industry and the tendency of customers to rent at home, online, or purchase home entertainment media the company is trying to change its reputation and provide additional forms and methods of attaining home entertainment. The challenge is to communicate with customers and inform them that Blockbuster is now a one stop shop for renting and purchasing home media, both at home and online. The success or failure of the company is reliant on the successful communication of this new strategy.
The ideas of image,identity, and reputation are changing with the continued growth of internet users. The link below is a presentation that discusses how if a company does not strongly form and represent its brand, constituents will create it for them using internet communications, forums, bloggs, and e-mails. It also notes a major pit fall of current company's is their ignorance of the influence the internet may have on their business.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZSoiY3sTuk
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To better understand the concept of brand image, it is necessary to remind the basic utility of the brand. At the end of the American Civil War, Procter and Gamble, suppliers of soap and candles of the army, wish that the demobilized soldiers find that same quality as under the flags. Thus was born the brand… It was thus built like an identity for the producer, a “brand quality control”.
ReplyDeleteThe brand image thus concerns the vertical communication, from the company towards the consumer. It is the result of an advertizing speech, which includes the labels, certifications and other communications tools. The brand image is thus connected with the image wanted by the company.
If one speaks about vertical communication, its opposite should be mentioned: the horizontal communication. Its principle is simple: the consumers discuss between them such or such product, compare it, recommend it… or advise against it. This communication is done independently of that of the company, it is buzz marketing.
With the development of the participative Web, these means of communication take a new dimension. A dimension almost worldwide, limited only by linguistic barriers (which are decreasing).
The ideal in global communication, would be to take into account the totality of the communications around the brand. The downward communication, but also horizontal and especially ascending communication. To take into account the opinion of the Net surfers will be one of the big challenges of the companies on Web 2.0
A good example to illustrate this would be the one of eBay, where people can read reviews and feedback provided by other buyers of the same seller.
Here is a link that tells you what is feedback according to eBay and how it affects buyers' reputation.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/feedback/questions/feedback.html
Identity is described to be “the visual manifestation of the company’s reality as seen in the company logo, its buildings, its stationery and even in employees’ uniforms” and reputation is image accumulated over time. Building Company's image and reputation is the most important thing in today's competetive world to be successful in long run.
ReplyDeleteMy Real Life Example:
Back in INDIA my dad asked me which car to buy and the first brand which came to my mind was HONDA, over the years HONDA has maintained its brand reputation. It is very well said that "It takes LONG to build the image and reputation of the organization but it takes even LONGER to maintain it". In Today's world where competetion is on its extreme one has to be really conceous about building and maintaining the image, identity and reputation of any organization.
http://www.edmunds.com/honda/history.html
Given how every industry today faces global competition and companies are trying to manage the limited resources, and organization’s identity and image might be the only difference that people can use to distinguish one company from the next.
ReplyDeleteAnd building, but especially keeping a good image and reputation is very hard nowadays, and a result of a hard work. But it also easy to loose a good reputation, even if in certain way the company is not responsible.
I have a personal experience to what happened in my father’s company. He created 20 years ago a head hunting company, specialized in recruiting managers and top managers, until 2008, the company run very well, and the 15 employees within the company where really happy. But with the economical crisis, which hit very strongly the recruitment market in 2009, my father had to take a hard decision, and fire the four employees who where the less effective. And in France it is not like in the USA, firing people is going through a lot of processes, and cost a lot of money to the company, especially in this case, where the employees don’t want to leave. Therefore the company had to pay these employees a lot of money to fire them.
And few weeks later, we found out, that two of these employees decided to create their own company, in exactly the same business as my father was, and in the same city. This is one fact, but coming back to the subject of this blog, we also found out, that on a public blog, where employees can grade their company, these two employees gave a really bad grade to my father’s company. Lying about the working conditions, the salaries, how clients are treated. This could have had a big impact on the reputation of the company. He was lucky that some employees saw it, and they react immediately, by grading also the company, which help the average note to go up.
With this example, we can see how easy it is, to destroy a 20 years reputation and the image of a company, just by lying on a public blog. It comes back to what John told us during his presentation yesterday, today, companies are working on influencing information and communication, and this is really important for the customers opinions.
Sorry, I forgot to put the link from the website, where the grading of the company were done:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.notetonentreprise.com/company.php?id=4216&entreprise=cabinet-walter
In class, our guest speaker discussed the model of Many-to-Many. With the current age of technology, Images and Reputations can be distroyed quickly. A company's ability to focus on it's identity and insure it's image is remaining consistant can be a difficult battle.
ReplyDeleteI did a research project for an operations research class. My project was an analysis of the new (at the time) Click-To-Call service that amazon.com had developed. Since amazon.com had grown from a $7 million company to a $10 billion company in less then a decade, the challenges of keeping up with such growth was enourmous. Their identity and therefore, their reputation, were built on customer service. Very quickly, the customer service division had become too small to handle such large volumes of issues. Instead of simply increasing the size of the department, the new method was introduced to allow customers to arrange online for a costomer service agent to call them at a time that was convenient to the customer. The service was a great success and supported the company's identity and therefore, their image and reputation.
Due to this new model of many-to-many, amazon.com discontinued all traditional advertising to favor word of mouth advertising. In order to keep up with current technology, they have implemented programs on facebook so that friends with interest in reading are offered suggestions and are given the ability to purchase books from amazon.com directly from facebook.
It is amazing that a company can stay so focused on it's constituents and it's identity to build such a strong image and reputation that advertising strictly by word of mouth continues company growth.
Here is a link to an article about reputations and includes the story of amazon.com
http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/06/facebook-marketing-reputation-oped-cx_bje_0206facebook.html
One of the companies that I can think of that has really worked on their brand identity recently and changed things around with their company has been GM. Their new spokes person for their company is Mike Rowe from Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs." With the addition of the cash for clunkers deal that just ended recently, has also helped GM as well as other car companies get some relief from the downturn of the economy and the car market. The cash for clunkers deal gives customers more money back for their cars than they would of received otherwise, up to $4,500.
ReplyDeleteGM has also come up with cars that not only fit potential customer's budgets better but also get better gas mileage. They worked on limiting their brands and models but making them better and stronger. In addition, GM's CFO Ray Young left the company further letting GM turn itself around.
Lastly, GM was also mature enough to admit their mistakes in the past and realize that they need to start at chapter one, after going through chapter eleven. The commerical below explains what they have been through recently, but also how they plan to change everything around.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44MlSSL6WkY
Matthew Beucker
I grew up a video game player and will continue to be one until I die. With that said, I think a company that has done a very good job at building its image, reputation, and identity would be Nintendo. Nintendo started out as a very well known playing card making company and eventually moved over to creating video games. Since Nintendo was introduced to America in 1985 it has become a household name. Unlike its current competitors of Microsoft and Sony which are better known for their bloody and violent action or war games, Nintendo has always stayed true to its identity of being a wholesome family entertainment company that can connect with all ages. They take their stable of well known characters such as Mario, Link, and Kirby and constantly reimagine them which keep them fresh but they always make sure the essence of the character stays intact. This provides customer loyalty because then Nintendo has developed the reputation that every time one of their star characters has a new game, it’s going to be a must buy.
ReplyDeleteNintendo’s current video game console is known as the Wii. Unlike Nintendo’s other two competitors, the Wii deals with motion controls which keeps the game player more engaged and active as they play the game. They have since released several titles focusing mainly on being healthy. Not only does Nintendo want to be seen as the wholesome gaming company fun for all ages, they now want to be seen as the Company that advocates people can stay healthy and active while playing video games. Here is a link to Nintendo’s new accessory for the Wii, the Wii Fit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3pfQdADxEs
Enterprise Rent-A-Car has a very strong brand identity that is focused on superior customer service. Since I have started working for them, I learned that customer service and employee retention are what really seperates Enterprise from other car rental companies. Their mission is to take care of employees first and this in turn will lead to employees taking care of the customers. The idea is that a happy, motivated employee will provide a better experience for customers. Customer service is so vital to Enterprise that is measured daily, tracked and used as part of the basis for promotions and commissions paid out. I believe that this extreme focus on customer satisfaction is why Enterprise has such a strong brand and is the largest car rental company in North America.
ReplyDeleteTo find out more about Enterprise's corporate values http://www.erac.com/default.aspx
Another Company that has done well after changing a Brand Image is the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Today its a multi million dollar company that grew from a rough original image. The UFC started with the Gracie family of Brazilian ju jistu, who wanted an area where martial arts styles could compete in an almost lawless environment. However, the beginning image was much too barbaric and violent; to the point it was illegal in almost every state.
ReplyDeleteAfter a couple of years, other folks bought the UFC and started adding rules and more safety equipment. He wanted to change the image from thugs beating the daylights out of each other, to bring an image of world class atheletes rising to the top of the their game with sportsmanship and character. While there is still some rough edges to the sport, it has come miles away from it's beginnings and is rapidly growing around the world.
http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=LearnUFC.History