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William Shakespeare and BusinessWeek on Brand

Posted by Matt Kucharski on September 21, 2009 at 9:55 AM

"I have offended reputation, A most unnoble swerving."

"Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving."

"Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving."

"I see my reputation is at stake; My fame is shrewdly gored."

"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance."

"My dear dear lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation. That away, Man are but gilded loam or painted clay."

"O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!"

That Billy Shakespeare sure had a way with words (okay, sometimes they weren't his words, but let's not quibble.) Throughout his prolific career, he kept coming back to the importance of building reputation and the consequence of tarnishing it. Amazing that much of it still holds today (the last two are my favorites).

On a much-related topic, you'll definitely want to check out the September 29 issue of BusinessWeek and all of the very smartly written articles around the magazine's annual Brand Survey. There's a cool interactive table showing the top 100 brands, a really good lead article on Trust, and a bunch of other interactive doodads.

Definitely worth checking out, if you really want to understand that building a strong brand is a long-term proposition that's all about everything you do, everything you say, and even more important, everything that others are saying about you.

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The brewing social media turf war: why advertising, marketing, and PR need to learn to play nicely together

Posted by Rich Goldsmith on September 1, 2009 at 11:23 AM

There's a storm a' comin' - a rumble in backrooms and boardrooms on par with anything the Jets and Sharks might have put together, though not nearly as jaunty. The number one with a bullet rise of social media has created some significant questions as to who should "own" this space, as in this article in The Firm Voice. And while some structure is necessary, the debate here is counterproductive because it asks the wrong question. Rather than asking who should own social media, we should be looking for an answer to "how can we best collaborate to make social media better?"

PR already leads social media and digital communications at 51 percent of companies, according to the latest Digital Readiness Report. And it's true that the nature of social media, especially tools like Twitter, make it a natural fit for public relations pros to lead the way on corporate usage. However, rather than take that as the doorway to exclusive ownership, PR executives need to lead a collaborative effort to leverage these tools in an effective, thoughtful, and responsible way.

Since the public relations function is primarily concerned with reputation and brand identity/awareness - the two primary benefits of social media - it's uniquely suited to take on this role. But to truly leverage social media, like any other tool in the marketing communications toolbox, everyone needs to be able to use it. Locking that tool away in any one discipline's tackle box is a profoundly bad idea. PR should coordinate - making sure the overall plan makes sense and that each discipline and initiative that needs to be is represented in a company's overall social media strategy.

In other words - play nice and share your toys with the other kids.

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