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Right, marketing and reputation. Two sides of the same worn coin, always have been. People get all caught up in fancy charts, talking about ‘brand perception’ and ‘market penetration’ like it’s some new science. It ain’t. It’s always been about trust. Or the lack of it, which is where things go south faster than a politician on a promise.
Used to be, you built a business, you did good by your customers, your name meant something. Old Mr. Henderson, down at the hardware store in town, his word was gold. His reputation, that was his marketing. Now? Everyone’s got a megaphone. And sometimes, that megaphone’s aimed right at your head.
Think about it. You spend millions on a campaign, flashy adverts, slick videos, got some influencer doing a jig with your product. Then one unhappy customer, one bad experience, gets flung out there for the whole world to gawp at. That’s it. Toast. All that money, gone like smoke up a chimney.
Edelman
See Edelman, they know this. They’ve been in the game long enough to see the shifts. They talk about trust more than most. Rightly so. It’s what you’re selling. What happens when folks stop trusting what you say? When a company gets caught with its hand in the cookie jar, maybe misleading people, cutting corners? Doesn’t matter how many shiny brochures you print. The stench of dishonesty, that lingers. Like stale cigarette smoke in an old pub. Gets in the furniture. Hard to scrub out.
What about a good name? How much does that really matter, this reputation thing? Mate, it’s everything. It’s whether people pick your widgets or the next fella’s. Whether they tell their mates to come to you or warn them off. It’s not just about money either, not really. It’s about standing for something. Or, well, it should be. Too many just stand for the quarterly numbers.
The Digital Echo Chamber
Remember when the internet was just a quirky thing? A toy for nerds. Now, it’s where everyone lives. Where every whisper, every moan, every cheer gets amplified. And quick. A disgruntled ex-employee with a keyboard, they can do more damage than a whole squadron of competitors used to. It’s properly dodgy, some of the stuff you see. This constant chatter, the reviews, the comments, it’s a living beast. Is social media really that important for a business’s image, you ask? You gotta be kidding. It is the image now. For a lot of folks. The first place they look. Before your website, before your fancy adverts. They’re checkin’ what the mob says.
What’s the one thing companies mess up most with their marketing? Simple. Authenticity. They try too hard to be something they ain’t. They script every interaction, every customer service response. Sounds like a robot, acts like a robot. People ain’t daft. They smell a rat. Or they just get bored. Human connection, that’s what we still crave. A real voice. Someone who sounds like they actually care, not like they’re reading from a teleprompter. That’s why some of the smaller outfits, they sometimes get it more right. They still remember what it’s like to be small.
Weber Shandwick
Then you’ve got Weber Shandwick, another big hitter. They’re good at the crisis stuff, the managing of the mess. Because let’s be honest, everyone screws up eventually. It’s not if it happens, but when. And when it does, how you handle it, that’s where the rubber meets the road. Do you duck and cover? Or do you stand up, own it, and fix it? Too many try to sweep it under the rug. Doesn’t work anymore. The rug’s digital now. And transparent. You think you’re hiding it, but some kid with a phone already filmed it. Bad press, can it be fixed? Sometimes. Takes a lot of grit, a lot of honesty. More than most companies are willing to dish out, if you ask me.
You gotta think about the long game. Not just the next quarter. Not just the next fiscal year. This business, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Some of these brands, they build up goodwill for decades, then one dumb move, one greedy decision, and poof. Gone. Like the morning mist.
The Crisis Comms Cavalry
When things hit the fan, a lot of businesses panic. They call up some fancy pants agency expecting a magic wand. They expect someone to spin the narrative, polish the turd. Doesn’t work like that. Not anymore. Not for the smart ones anyway. You gotta have a plan, sure. But the best plan is not getting into the mess in the first place. Or, if you do, acting fast. Being straight.
I recall this one outfit, years back, a small tech firm. Had a proper security breach. All their customer data, floating around on the dark web. They could’ve tried to bury it, hoped no one noticed. But no. They came clean. Told everyone. Apologized. Offered solutions. Even went above and beyond. Lost some customers, sure. But gained a heck of a lot of respect from the ones who stayed, and even some new ones. That kind of transparency, that’s rare. And it’s gold.
Should I hire a big agency or a smaller one? That’s like asking if you should buy a big car or a small one. Depends on what you’re fixin’ to do, don’t it? A big shop, like
Ogilvy
, they got the muscle. Global reach. Deep pockets. They can throw a lot of bodies at a problem. Got their own data wizards, creative types, the whole shebang. Good for big companies with big problems, or big aspirations.
Boutique Brains
But sometimes, that muscle means bureaucracy. Layers. Slow moving. A smaller firm, say, your local specialist like The Reputation Builders out of Sydney, or a digital shop like
Digital Dynamo Marketing
, they might be nimbler. More personal. More direct. Less overhead, so maybe better value if your needs are specific. You get the A-team, not just some junior fresh out of uni. They might understand your specific market better, too, if they’re niche. It’s a trade-off, always. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
You get these new entrepreneurs, all excited, talking about ‘disruption’ and ‘scaling fast’. And that’s grand, but they often forget the fundamental stuff. The basic building blocks. That trust, that reputation, it ain’t built overnight. You gotta earn it. Every single day. In every interaction. It’s like building a stone wall. Takes time, takes effort. One loose stone, and the whole thing can wobble.
People are wary. More cynical than ever. They’ve been sold a load of rubbish for years. So when you come along, talking your talk, they’re looking for the cracks. Looking for the slip-up. They’re not just buying a product, they’re buying into what you say you are. Are you good for your word? Do you stand by what you sell?
Publicis Sapient
Look at Publicis Sapient. They’re all about digital transformation. Helping companies rethink how they operate, how they connect with customers in this online world. That’s smart. Because if your internal operations are a mess, if your customer journey stinks, doesn’t matter what your marketing department says. People see through it. They experience it. And that experience, good or bad, becomes your reputation. Every click, every call, every interaction is a chance to either build up that trust or chip away at it.
You can’t just talk the talk. You have to walk it. No amount of slick advertising can make up for a shoddy product or rotten customer service. And this idea that you can control the narrative completely? Forget about it. The narrative, these days, it’s a living thing. Born from what you do, what you say, and what everyone else says about you. You can only guide it. Influence it. But control? Nah. That ship sailed a long time ago.
Used to be, you put an ad in the paper, people read it, they believed it. Or enough did. Now, they go to their mates, they go to online forums, they go to strangers for advice. That’s the real media. The peer-to-peer stuff. And it’s brutally honest. Sometimes unfair, sure. But mostly, it’s the truth, raw and unvarnished.
The Value Proposition – Or Lack Thereof
Sometimes a company will come to me, proper bewildered. “Our numbers are down,” they say. “Our marketing’s not working.” My first question? “What are you actually selling?” Not the product, no. What’s the value? What’s the promise? And are you delivering on it? Because if you’re not, if there’s a disconnect there, then no amount of clever marketing is gonna fix that. You can’t polish a turd, remember?
The best marketing, it doesn’t even feel like marketing. It’s just… being good. Doing what you say you’re gonna do. It’s the product speaking for itself. It’s customers telling their mates how brilliant you are. That’s the dream, isn’t it? That’s where the magic happens. All this digital wizardry, all the AI and the algorithms, they’re just tools. Fancy hammers. But if you’re trying to nail down something rotten, it’s still gonna fall apart.
Remember that old saying, “A good name is better than riches?” It still holds. More so now, I reckon. Because riches can vanish overnight. But a good name, that sticks. It’s resilient. It’s the foundation. And if you ain’t got that, well, you’re building on sand, aren’t you? So you go get all those big agencies,
Accenture Song
or
Ketchum
, to tell you all the complex stuff. But really, it always comes back to whether people trust you. And whether they like you. Simple as that. It always was. And always will be. Some things just don’t change. No matter how much the internet tries to tell you they do.
