Brand matters…more than ever

How many times have we heard the word “unprece­dent­ed” in rela­tion to the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic over the past few weeks?

One word that has not been quite as overused is rep­u­ta­tion. How­ev­er, plen­ty of brands and busi­ness­es stand to cement or lose theirs depend­ing on their response to this cri­sis. And some have already been found want­i­ng, mak­ing head­lines for the wrong rea­sons.

Com­pa­nies are com­ing under increased scruti­ny, whether it is for what they do or do not say. Brand rep­u­ta­tion may be hard to mea­sure, but it becomes a valu­able asset dur­ing times of cri­sis espe­cial­ly.

Neil Stan­hope, founder of brand agency Under­score, says: “Brand rep­u­ta­tion is not just how your com­pa­ny is per­ceived by your exist­ing cus­tomers, but by the mar­ket as a whole. In times of cri­sis, peo­ple quick­ly turn to what they know and trust or they work on mar­ket author­i­ty and word of mouth.

“A favourable brand rep­u­ta­tion means peo­ple not only trust your com­pa­ny, but they are com­fort­able spend­ing what lit­tle they have with you.” Every deci­sion your com­pa­ny takes in the COVID-19 out­break will be exam­ined more close­ly than ever before, says Louise Ahu­ja, direc­tor of Louise­B­comms.

Silence isn’t golden

Brand mar­ket­ing in a cri­sis: Why now is not the time for silence, pub­lished in March by Opini­um, shows the more vocal brands are per­ceived as hav­ing respond­ed bet­ter to the cri­sis.

It is no sur­prise that super­mar­kets came out on top for hav­ing been vocal and respond­ing well, fol­lowed by the health­care, phar­ma, and food and drink sec­tors. Mean­while, Opinium’s research shows the top five sec­tors con­sumers think have not done any­thing in response to the cri­sis are auto­mo­tive (27 per cent), fash­ion and beau­ty (26 per cent), gym and fit­ness (17 per cent), finan­cial ser­vices (15 per cent) and char­i­ties (14 per cent).

“Now is the not the time for silence,” says Ahu­ja. “Even com­pa­nies that have been forced to close need to find ways to com­mu­ni­cate with their audi­ences to stay rel­e­vant and help their cus­tomers.”

Paul Bea­dle, asso­ciate direc­tor and head of social media and dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tions at MRM, a finan­cial comms and pub­lic rela­tions con­sul­tan­cy, says dur­ing a cri­sis com­pa­nies should want their brand rep­u­ta­tion to com­mu­ni­cate trust and respon­si­bil­i­ty.

“If you’re a brand like Ryanair, which doesn’t come across as being very cus­tomer focused, then it comes as no sur­prise when the air­line starts drag­ging its feet over refunds for pas­sen­gers. That just com­pounds a poor rep­u­ta­tion,” he says.

All for one…

How have the super­mar­kets man­aged to find this bal­ance? “The qual­i­ty I’m see­ing from good brands, like the super­mar­kets, is the sense that ‘we are all in this togeth­er’,” says Bea­dle. “Shop­pers will be tol­er­ant if there are queues or short­ages in stores, so long as com­pa­nies explain why and show the extra mile they and their employ­ees are going dur­ing dif­fi­cult times.”

Stan­hope agrees that the best way for brands to demon­strate sol­i­dar­i­ty is to show empa­thy with their cus­tomers and their sup­ply net­works. Who this mes­sage comes from is also impor­tant, though.

The same report by Opini­um found 38 per cent of con­sumers want to hear from employ­ees on the front­line of brands’ com­mu­ni­ca­tions, fol­lowed by 31 per cent who want to hear direct­ly from the chief exec­u­tive or founder. Only 5 per cent and 4 per cent of those asked want­ed to hear from influ­encers and celebri­ties respec­tive­ly.

To then sud­den­ly tell all its staff to get jobs at super­mar­kets when it was told to shut down and refuse to pay sup­pli­ers owed mon­ey, sug­gests its pre­vi­ous stance was pure­ly dri­ven by greed

Ahu­ja believes employ­ees are now brand ambas­sadors. “Your rep­u­ta­tion is in their hands, which is some­thing all chief exec­u­tives and com­mu­ni­ca­tion spe­cial­ists need to wake up to very quick­ly,” she adds.

As Bea­dle points out: “Co-op has done well, tap­ping into its com­mu­ni­ty roots and putting a real face to its com­mu­ni­ca­tions, using real employ­ees and cus­tomers.”
But the gen­er­al pub­lic has not respond­ed so well to bil­lion­aire busi­ness­man Sir Richard Bran­son, founder of the Vir­gin Group, whose plea for state aid for his air­line Vir­gin Atlantic fell on unsym­pa­thet­ic ears.

“The Vir­gin Atlantic brand report­ing about unpaid staff leave, fur­loughs on gov­ern­ment mon­ey and gov­ern­ment bailouts to the tune of £7.5 bil­lion has felt far removed from their cel­e­brat­ed promise as the ‘fun, friend­ly and fab­u­lous choice’ to fly,” says Stan­hope.

“While their needs as a busi­ness to weath­er this storm are com­plete­ly under­stand­able, it seems the brand itself is inex­tri­ca­bly linked in the minds of the pub­lic with a high-pro­file bil­lion­aire own­er of whom they sim­ply expect more, even in a glob­al cri­sis.”

Of course, many com­pa­nies will have to break bad news to their employ­ees and cus­tomers, but there is a way to deliv­er these announce­ments with­out caus­ing seri­ous, long-term dam­age to your brand rep­u­ta­tion.

“Clear, time­ly and hon­est com­mu­ni­ca­tions to staff, cus­tomers and share­hold­ers is crit­i­cal to main­tain­ing a firm’s rep­u­ta­tion,” says Louise Dolan, a part­ner at Camar­co, a finan­cial and cor­po­rate advi­so­ry firm. “If tough deci­sions have to be made, such as restruc­tur­ings, fur­lough­ing or clo­sures, explain­ing why and being trans­par­ent will show the integri­ty of the busi­ness and its senior staff.”

Driven by greed?

Keep con­sis­tent and authen­tic, advis­es Bea­dle. “When [pub chain] JD Wether­spoon said it was stay­ing open dur­ing lock­down because pubs were essen­tial, it was clear­ly try­ing to cre­ate a ‘bull­dog’ spir­it,” he notes.

“To then sud­den­ly tell all its staff to get jobs at super­mar­kets when it was told to shut down and refuse to pay sup­pli­ers owed mon­ey, sug­gests its pre­vi­ous stance was pure­ly dri­ven by greed.”

One com­pa­ny that can cer­tain­ly not be accused of greed is insur­ance provider Admi­ral, hav­ing stat­ed “it isn’t our inten­tion to ben­e­fit from the lock­down”. It announced a stay-at-home refund to its car and van insur­ance cus­tomers totalling £110 mil­lion, in recog­ni­tion of there being few­er dri­vers on the roads.

“Brand is more than just the logo and colour scheme for a com­pa­ny. It should be how you feel about doing busi­ness with them; so it’s about a cul­ture,” Bea­dle con­cludes. “If you still feel the way about a com­pa­ny in a cri­sis as you do dur­ing nor­mal times, then the brand is strong and shines through.”