Executive Summary | 2015 –2016
How authentic companies behave in a more demanding world
The gap between what people expect and what they experience reveals which companies are more likely to succeed today. Consumers expect companies to align their brand promises with realities of their reputation through honest, direct communication. Expectations of how management behaves are rising, requiring companies to discuss more than just products. Authentic engagement comes from bridging gaps between audience expectations and experiences.
1. Executive Summary | 2015 –2016
How authentic
companies behave
in a more
demanding world
The gap between what people expect and
what they experience reveals which companies
are more likely to succeed in business today.
2. This year there has been more discussion about authenticity than perhaps any
other time in the history of business. The word has appeared more than 12,000
times in the business press this year in reference to CEOs, the Pope and even
a cover story in Harvard Business Review.
Yet our experience tells us that being authentic, ironically, still seems pretty hard
for most organizations.
For more than two decades the world had been obsessed with promises. Then came
the age of digital and social media and we launched new channels, new functions,
we created a bevy of new job titles. We imploded time. Attention became the new
currency and to get that attention we became brash about what our companies
could promise, what they could influence and what they could control.
And in all of that, it became harder and harder to find the authentic – the real
truths about the organizations we work for and the people who lead them.
FleishmanHillard’s latest Authenticity Gap study is a lens through which
communicators and marketers can find that North Star of authenticity. We believe
that authenticity comes when your brand promise speaks directly to the realities
of your reputation. When organizations are honest and direct they are given far
more credence, and thus they are able to evolve their reputation and then push
their brand to new heights.
One often overlooked piece in the quest for more authentic conversations is that
neither brand nor reputation are shaped by a single audience. In our customer-
centric world we too often overlook the broader circle of audiences that have
tremendous power over our reputation and brand – even when they don’t directly
buy our product. Look how consumers are shaping the debate on genetically
modified food even though they never purchase a single seed. Examine how
regulators or legislators can take down a company almost overnight when they
lose faith in the organization’s ability to do the right thing.
Inside this report you will find new insights to help you bridge the gap between
audiences’ expectations and their experiences in industries around the globe.
I find it most interesting that expectations of how management behaves are on
the rise – a clear signal that the stories we tell and the storytellers we put forward
must be talking about more than product features.
As a global society we expect more. The era of big promises and platitudes is
over. We must ‘be as we wish to be seen’ if we are to embark on an authentic
conversation about what matters most to our businesses.
Marjorie Benzkofer
Global Managing Director, Reputation Management Practice, FleishmanHillard