Recently, the Rochester Chapters of the AMA and PRSA hosted a seminar where Steven V. Restivo, the Director of Corporate Affairs in the Northeast Region for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., spoke on rebuilding corporate reputation.
Many of us wondered for years what strategy Wal-Mart would use to combat all of the negative press that competitors and activists generated through the public attacks on the company and staged protests, and how they would attempt to position themselves positively in the public eye.
It's hard to believe that at one point in time Wal-Mart operated 4,000 nationwide with no PR or public / corporate affairs in place. How did they do it? Well after 40 years of taking the backseat on PR, the company recently (like 6 or 7 years ago) had no other choice but to implement a VERY aggressive campaign and infrastructure that would allow them to continuously communicate all of the positive aspects of the company. They literally had to pick up the phone and open the doors to the media.
Some of the immediate and key initiatives that Wal-Mart drove through its PR efforts were:
- an infrastructure that could field 700+ media calls per week
- a media hot-line based out of Bentonville, AR
- assigned a media director to every state
- built a community relations campaign that supports more than 100,000 local community organizations and donates over $300 million to charity
- jumped on the media's green bandwagon
I have plenty more to say about Wal-Mart’s attempt to rebuild its reputation on the RAMA blog. Click here to view my blog post. There, you will also find a copy of the Power Point presentation that Mr. Restivo used during his presentation. The most valuable information that I took away from the presentation was the lessons learned.
The lessons that Wal-Mart learned through its efforts to rebuild corporate reputation:
- If you aren’t willing to tell you story and tell it effectively, others will
- Its good practice to survey your customers about their perceptions and experiences in order to effectively manage your reputation.
- Don’t think reputation will take care of itself
- Nurture your story by telling the positive
- Be transparent and open to the media
- Use your greatest assets – your employees – to tell your story as the local spokespeople
- Use consistent, tested messages
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