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Getting a grip on global reputation John Davis explains how successful brands build trust by adapting to local markets
“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.” So said Benjamin Franklin, one of the USA’s Founding Fathers, more than 200 years ago – and his words have rarely been so relevant as they are for global businesses today. But what is reputation?
Reputation = Global brand + Local brand Disconnects Too few of today’s organizations and leaders are disciplined enough to live this every day. They don’t realize that a reputation and a brand are one and the same. The good news is that this can be fixed by recognizing that reputation development drives brand strategy. Reputation and trust are synonymous (see ‘Brand of Gold’, Dialogue, Q1 2018), and leaders have an obligation to nurture trust both internally and externally. It cannot be manufactured, or situational. It must be consistently experienced. The key to building a global reputation and being relevant in local markets, minimizing disconnects, is to embrace a ‘firm brand, loosely held’ approach, on the premise that a brand is guided by a universal set of principles, translated to regional locations based on cultural sensibilities. Dialogue Q4 2019
Competitive success
In my book Competitive Success – How Branding Adds Value, I looked at 500 top performing brands to understand how the best cultivated successful global and local reputations. Four brand levels emerged from the research (see page 30). Levels 3 and 4 represent the most successful brands, with the biggest struggles being faced by organizations at levels 1 or 2. Level 3 brands are Professional: for example, consulting firms. Level 4 brands are relatable, and are viewed as more human: Richard Branson’s Virgin brands embody this spirit. At both level 3 and 4, brands are clear about who and what they represent. Their reputations are built through the firm brand, loosely held approach. Unfortunately, too many companies are still structured on last century’s business model, with leaders defining brand management as a systematic way of managing their firm’s image by hard-coating branding and using conventional marketing communications. This approach is obsolete, unimaginative and, as research shows, sows distrust with today’s customers. Top brands deliberately avoid being robotic and systematic, focusing instead on developing an organization that lives and breathes the brand. To paraphrase many of the comments from leaders I interviewed: “We meet people from top brands every day and they exude branding in everything they do. How can I get my organization to be like this?” Put differently, these leaders are asking how they can humanize their brand. In a 2018 New York Times article, Amanda Hess said