that several years before the company withdrew Vioxx (2004), its internal documents raised questions about risks of strokes and heart attacks associated with the drug. Obviously this was a serious situation for the company's reputation especially since the company was defending thousands of lawsuits over injuries and deaths, claimed by patients or surviving family members to be attributable to the drug. Three years after the withdrawal, having won many but having lost some of the cases, Merck made a $4.85 billion settlement on some 45,000 cases (Boston Globe, November 9, 2007) Merck's action was expensive, but allowed the firm to move on without a huge residual financial cloud. Merck's behaviour helped address a serious threat.
An unusual corporate action in the face of criticism was taken by the major accounting firm KPMG in 2005. Under attack by the US Government for the creation and sale of tax shelters claimed to have cost the Treasury billions of tax dollars, KPMG admitted “unlawful conduct.” What was said to lie behind the move was the company's fear of criminal indictment, which in the case of Arthur Andersen had been a major step leading to its demise (New York Times, 2005).
If the organisation truly believes that bad news about it is false, there is an opportunity to correct the misimpression. However, the communications (e.g. corporate statements) must be supported by evidence and have a clear ring of credibility. When Audi was confronted with “sudden unintended acceleration” problems, its initial responses attributed the blame to driver error. This became a matter of considerable public debate, well covered by media. Later, despite considerable internal engineering investigation, Audi was generally considered never able to pinpoint the actual cause of the problem. It took new engineering (e.g. automatic gearshift locks now widely employed in the industry) and the passage of several years of much lower sales for the brand (whose name is on all models) to mount a comeback.
Two other situations exist beyond “the bad news is true” and “the bad news is clearly false”, namely “the good news is true” and “the good news is actually false”. My advice in the first situation is to feel good and work hard to maintain whatever actions have yielded what relevant publics consider good news. Communications can
be helpful to the corporate cause if the information is supported by external credible research, such as “voted best company to work for”. This of course puts the onus on an organisation to maintain the distinction. In the second case (“good news is actually false”), a corporation needs to fix the reality quickly (especially if on a relevant reputational dimension such as a safety issue) and hope it can keep a low profile until the situation is remedied.
As part of an organisational planning exercise, one might ask these questions about the organisation's brand:
1. What do you think is the essence of your corporate brand's meaning to consumers, to the trade, to other key stakeholders? 2. What could cause your brand to undergo a brand crisis?
3. How seriously would this affect the brand's reputation? How? Why? Lessons learned
From my experiences and study of many crisis situations, let me offer four lessons in very abbreviated form:
1. Let us start with a look in the mirror. Understand your organisation's identity as others see it – not what the company says it wants to be. The latter is important, but perceptions are central. Know the brand's meaning to key stakeholders, and what could threaten its core. And monitor public approval and support of the company under different scenarios of trouble –, e.g. a strike, an environmental problem, etc. In short, understand the organisation's brand essence and what could seriously threaten it.
2. Potential reputational problems are legion. They come in many forms, and from many publics (stakeholders). But not all affect the essence of the brand. In all instances, the organisation must understand what and whom it is defending against.
3. In the event of brand reputational crisis, focus on forthrightness in communications, and on truly substantive credible responses in behaviour. These are the most likely avenues to rescue a brand in crisis. They may restore trust, although that is not guaranteed. The most important actions in a
reputational crisis, however, can be the ones taken over time to build a “reputational reservoir”, a strong foundation for the corporate reputation. In some crises, a company can draw down on that reservoir.
4. Remember that because a corporate brand is as wide as the organisation, the CEO is the ultimate guardian of the corporation's reputation.
出处：Stephen A. Greyser. Corporate brand reputation and brand crisis management
[J] Management Decision .2009.47(4), PP. 590-602
标题：企业品牌的声誉和品牌危机管理
译文：这些年来，什么是品牌危机以及如何认识和处理品牌危机，特别是企业
或组织的品牌危机，是我研究的重点。众多公司和非营利机构提供了面临严重声誉危机时危机公关的临床经验。近几十年来的例子包括埃克森（瓦尔迪兹石油泄漏事件），联合碳化物（博帕尔爆炸），佩里耶（苯痕迹），泰诺（毒丸从死亡），美国天主教教会（牧师性虐待），玛莎斯图尔特OmniMedia（行政不当行为），安达信（会计丑闻），国际奥林匹克委员会（贿赂问题）等等。他们的品牌已经受到了威胁，表现在消费者和企业客户认同度的下降和公众的信任度的下降。
一些产品的品牌根深蒂固（如泰诺），并都具有企业品牌的影响力，在公司层面上努力地进行挽救企业品牌（如泰诺强生公司，由强生公司麦克尼尔实验室的单位销售）。 因此，这些事件向企业提供一个了解品牌方面知识的丰富来源。它们说明了企业营销的关键方面的内容。
“我们可以作为一个机构，积极地维持顾客及其他利益相关群体的双边利益和社区关系是有意义的吗？”。这是由约翰和我用我们的一套综合的治疗方法在一定制度水平上提出的关于企业组织的营销导向的核心问题。（巴尔默和Greyser，2006年）。
我们认为的企业营销的确需要一个董事会和首席执行官的关注。在反思企业形象和品牌信誉危机的时候，就应该认识到全公司定位的重要性及行政总裁和公司级管理人员的责任。 声誉麻烦的来源
让我来提供各种品牌声誉危机的产生原因的解析，如何知道情况的严重性，以及公司可以尝试什么步骤以防止和克服这种危机。
声誉麻烦可以有许多形式，从各种各样的和许多公众中变现出来。 有些是突如其来的，例如当七人在一天之内死于污染的泰诺胶囊，当苯的痕迹在Perrier的瓶子中被发现，当在印度一家联合碳化物公司的工厂爆炸导致数百人丧生。 另一些人的问题影响是更长久的，例如牧师的性侵犯在美国的影响，会计丑闻最终断送了一度受人尊敬的会计师事务所安达信，或主办城市的选择中的行贿丑闻使得国际奥委会的声誉受损。一些抗议或关心来自于团体，也有来自于心怀不满的消费者或客户客户的、一些政府或监管机构和一些大众。
企业必须认识到什么问题威胁到了企业声誉以及谁公开的。 这里是一个企业品牌危机的不同成因分类与一些例子的简要解释：
1、产品故障 -泰诺，佩里耶，凡世通（事故车轮胎牵连的许多死亡的原因），切尔诺贝利核电站灾难，英特尔的奔腾芯片（有缺陷的计算），美国公司的花生（沙门氏菌）。
2、社会责任的差距 -耐克（非美国劳工和工作条件问题）。
3、企业不良行为 -安达信，安然，埃克森（石油在阿拉斯加漏油），默克（Vioxx的涉嫌镇压的临床药物试验的早期阶段），西门子（企业贪污贿赂犯罪跨国诈骗），惠普（经董事会起诉从事间谍活动通过问题的调查手段成员），国际奥委会/土壤活性有机碳（有关申办城市的丑闻）。
4、行政不当行为 -玛莎斯图尔特，丹尼斯科兹洛夫斯基（泰科）。
5、业绩不好的结果 -宝丽（未能适应技术），电路城（零售业巨头这让许多工作人员前往其最熟悉店），并于2008年许多企业尤为如此。
6、发言人行为不检和争议 ，科比-布莱恩特（NBA品牌代言人明星运动员被告强奸）。
7、公司的死亡象征 -温迪（快餐连锁）的创始人和电视发言人戴夫托马斯，关于“面对品牌”
8、支持丧失公共 -法国的路易十六（断头台和君主制下降），英国的爱德华八世（英国被迫放弃王位，都失去了他们的能力被人看到他们为“一个国家地位的象征，”中央对“君主的企业品牌”（ 巴尔末等，2006 ）。
9、有争议的所有权 –委内瑞拉和CITGO（大力反美的委内瑞拉总统）。 评估局势的严重性
是什么使这些危机威胁到一些组织的生存，是他们影响了我所谓“品牌的本质”，即独特的属性或特征是与品牌的内涵和成功密切相关。 当发生这种情况发生时公司的市场地位和品牌内涵都面临着严重的挑战。 如果品牌的本质不是中心环节，那么问题更容易被克服，尽管仍然麻烦。
这里有四个关键领域的一些简短的评论，即组织应研究分析一可能威胁到其品牌的声誉的新的或已出现的问题： 1、该品牌元素：