Managing corporate reputation in the new reality of the naked world

Trolls and memes are a reflection of the times, and we are living in this naked world, where everybody is a publisher and they have got a platform in the public domain and the content is unfiltered. There is no editorial control, no geographies and no publishing. Thus remarked Ashwani Singla, Founding Managing Partner, Astrum, while introducing the panel discussion on ‘Reputation Management in a World of Trolls, Memes, #Boycotts and Aggressive Activism’ at IMAGEXX 2021 Summit, held on July 7.

Adding further, he said, “In this world, brands and organisations have to be prepared to survive. They obviously can’t change that part of the world, so they will have to figure out what they need to do.”

Ashwani Singla moderated the panel that comprised some of the leading names in the PR and corporate communication industry:

Archana Jain, Founder & Managing Director, PR Pundit

Dilip Cherian, Founding Partner & Group Chairman, Perfect Relations

Dimple Raisurana Kapur, Vice-President & Group Head - Corporate Communications, Piramal Group

Seema Ahuja, Senior VP, Global Head of Communications & Corporate Brand, Biocon Group & Biocon Biologics

Sujit Patil, VP & Head Corporate Brand & Communications, Godrej Industries Ltd & Associate Companies

The new reality of the naked world

When asked, “In this fish bowl world of today, how does it change the life of brands and organisations? Dilip Cherian’s response was, “Be alert and listen consistently ahead of the curve”.

Dilip Cherian: “The way it changes things is very simple – you’ve got to be alert 24x7. You have to have the capability to swamp rubbish with better stuff, and the third thing is that you’ve got to be able to call out the vicious, the vacuous and the absolutely wrong. If you are not fast enough in doing that, the trend continues.”

“In some senses, the fact that you have this new miasma of a world where floaters are able to generate content is a great opportunity for PR people, because take a look at the content that they actually produce – most of it is execrable. So, for PR people the one big advantage is that 90% of the surround sound is worth ignoring.”

Crisis has hit, now what do I do?

To the question on what the response should be once a crisis hits, Archana Jain replied that, “Agility at the heart of responsiveness is the key to crisis management”.

Archana Jain: “The rules of the crisis don’t change, we’ve dealt with it all our lives. It’s just that you probably need to be a lot swifter and think on your feet. The Internet is really participatory, so brands and companies need to be prepared to have conversations. If companies fear that, then they are going to have to face a lot more trolling and memes in the future. I think somewhere companies have not been able to internalise this.”

An important technique that the PR industry needs to look at is do we have an army out there that’s going to rush to our support. We should not forget the old saying that – ‘PR is all about insurance’.”

How brands can remain authentic?

Responding to a question on how do we proactively create and mitigate issues and incidents from happening? Dimple Raisurana Kapur’s answer was, “Always on investment”. Elaborating on this, she said that it meant being more proactive in building corporate reputations. She also stressed on the role of employees as advocates of the company and having those voices out in the public domain.

Dimple Raisurana Kapur: “It’s really interesting to see what’s going around us. We have seen this trend emerging – this huge democratisation of social commentary, where you don’t need to be an expert or a leader to have an opinion. Anyone can post a comment, and when that is backed by wit, humour, mimicry, it can become a viral trend. When it is positive, it is a great thing for a brand. However, when someone takes pot shots at your company and it goes viral, then it becomes a huge issue for corporate reputation. While dealing with the situation is great, how can you actually create this bank of goodwill that will hold you in good stead? Brands need to be authentic and transparent at all points of time.”

The above are edited excerpts from the panel discussion. Watch the complete session below: