Public Relations, Branding and Authenticity: Brand Communications in the Digital Age 2019046541, 2019046542, 9780367077655, 9780429022685

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Routledge New Directions in PR & Communication Research

PUBLIC RELATIONS, BRANDING AND AUTHENTICITY BRAND COMMUNICATIONS IN THE DIGITAL AGE Sian Rees

Public Relations, Branding and Authenticity

Public Relations, Branding and Authenticity: Brand Communications in the Digital Age explores the role of PR and branding in society by considering the notion of authentic communications within the context of an emerging digital media environment. This qualitative analysis explores the challenge of developing authentic brand narratives in the digital age, whilst questioning the problematic nature of authenticity itself. Case studies of public relations activity of successful brands, and those in crisis, are supplemented by interviews with senior public relations and branding practitioners. The book lays out three specific arguments. Firstly, a repositioning of the relationship between public relations and brand practice is explored. It is argued that public relations practitioners are well placed to facilitate brands in the digital age, because of the inherent acceptance of the value of relationship building, adaptation and boundary spanning embedded in PR practice and best practice theory. Secondly, the book introduces a new concept of riparian brands. Such brands are based on solid core values, but have an ability to atune, adjust and naturalise to the prevailing social, cultural and economic environment. Thirdly, the book presents an ontology of the riparian brand in the form of an authentic brand wheel and 15 real-time interaction success factors. Aimed at both academics and practitioners interested in the theoretical development of PR and its emerging relationship with branding, it will also be of interest to scholars of corporate communications, corporate reputation and branding. Sian Rees is Associate Professor at Swansea University, specialising in public relations, marketing and branding. Following an industry career in public relations and marketing, she is currently Head of the Department of Media & Communications at Swansea University, UK.

Routledge New Directions in PR & Communication Research Edited by Kevin Moloney

Current academic thinking about public relations (PR) and related communication is a lively, expanding marketplace of ideas and many scholars believe that it’s time for its radical approach to be deepened. Routledge New Directions in PR & Communication Research is the forum of choice for this new thinking. Its key strength is its remit, publishing critical and challenging responses to continuities and fractures in contemporary PR thinking and practice, tracking its spread into new geographies and political economies. It questions its contested role in marketorientated, capitalist, liberal democracies around the world, and examines its invasion of all media spaces, old, new, and as yet unenvisaged. The New Directions series has already published and commissioned diverse original work on topics such as: • • • • • • • •

PR’s influence on Israeli and Palestinian nation-building PR’s origins in the history of ideas a Jungian approach to PR ethics and professionalism global perspectives on PR professional practice; PR as an everyday language for everyone PR as emotional labour PR as communication in conflicted societies, and PR’s relationships to cooperation, justice and paradox.

We actively invite new contributions and offer academics a welcoming place for the publication of their analyses of a universal, persuasive mindset that lives comfortably in old and new media around the world. For more information about the series, please visit www.routledge.com/RoutledgeNew-Directions-in-Public-Relations--Communication-Research/book-series/ RNDPRCR

Public Relations, Branding and Authenticity Brand Communications in the Digital Age

Sian Rees

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Sian Rees The right of Sian Rees to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Rees, Sian (Associate professor), author. Title: Public relations, branding and authenticity : brand communications in the digital age / Sian Rees. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Routledge new directions in PR & communication research | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019046541 (print) | LCCN 2019046542 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Branding (Marketing) | Public relations. Classification: LCC HF5415.1255 .R44 2020 (print) | LCC HF5415.1255 (ebook) | DDC 658.8/27—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019046541 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019046542 ISBN: 978-0-367-07765-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-02268-5 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Thomson Digital

Thank you to Huw, Amy, and Morgan for their unfailing support

http://taylorandfrancis.com

Contents

  1 Introduction: public relations, branding and authenticity

1

  2 Public relations history re-imagined: aligning corporate and activist perspectives

16

  3 The digital public relations turn: understanding how digital media is changing public relations practice

35

  4 Communicating the projective organisation: public relations and digital organisational forms

46

  5 The riparian brand: exploring polyphonic corporate brand identity and public relations

57

  6 Justification and corporate social responsibility: exploring organisational legitimisation processes

73

  7 Public relations for digital media brands: authentic brand narratives in a digital age

89

  8 Crisis management in the digital age: harnessing the reputational influence of social media

107

  9 Public relations industry perceptions: the impact of digital media on reputation management practices

121

10 The authentic brand wheel: an ontology of the riparian brand and authentic public relations

130

11 The authenticity managers: post-modern public relations practice in the digital age

144

Bibliography Index

158 175

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1 Introduction Public relations, branding and authenticity

Successful branding in the digital age According to the latest Forbes ranking, Apple is the world’s most valuable brand, with a brand valuation of $182.8 billion.The top 100 Forbes-rated brands for 2018 spanned 16 countries, crossed 20 broad industry categories, and had a cumulative brand value of $2.15 trillion (Forbes 2018). How do successful brands such as these gain trust and legitimisation from their brand users? Is brand loyalty and trust based on emotional or rational criteria, and why is it that some brands are perceived as authentic and others not? The nature of brands, the products they represent, communications policies, and overall reputation seem to be important components, but how do these all fit together? The following chapters aim to explore these questions. In particular the book considers how public relations practitioners have taken on a pivotal role in corporate brand reputation management because of their stakeholder focus, dialogical communications skills, and their understanding of how 21st century brands have to dynamically respond to their social environments. The theoretical argument developed as the book unfolds aims to challenge existing ideas about corporate identity and corporate brand personality management arguing that a digital turn in public relations has realigned public relations as an important discipline in determining and focusing corporate brand personalities and narratives. Branding is not traditionally mainstream to public relations activity, but as the behaviour of umbrella and group organisations which own brands becomes more important to consumers (Portal et al 2018), so the link between corporate branding and reputation becomes closer and more aligned. In addition to this, the need for organisations to be able to present and deliver a consistent narrative, and a believable corporate character (Arthur W. Page Society 2007, Watson 2010), has become more important in an age where global communications has been empowered and democratised by digital media (Gilpin et al 2010), and where corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental concerns have come to the forefront of branding and corporate reputation issues.

Public relations and branding research approaches Public relations is often conceptualised as a servant of marketing and sales-led branding practice but with the paradigmatic changes to communications practice

2 Introduction brought by digital media, and considerable citizen activism around social and environmental concerns, it might be argued that public relations is evolving as a dominant branding discipline. With this increased responsibility comes an urgent debate about the role of public relations-led branding in society. Experience of public relations in practice suggests that there has been a cross-over of marketing and communication disciplines in industry for many years, but this does not seem to translate into the academic literature, which tends to divide marketing, branding, and public relations into distinct disciplinary areas. Sitting within business schools, much academic marketing research focuses on either best practice research for industry or the identification of long-term marketing trends (Baines, Brennan, Gill and Mortimore 2009). Public relations academic research is more difficult to place as a discipline as it resides in both media arts or business and management subject areas (Oliver 2010), and much contemporary popular public relations research has tended to focus on public relations as part of an effective integrated marketing strategy. The reason for this over reliance on business-led public relations research is a dearth of empirical research into public relations in the latter half of the 20th century which has led academics to use business or corporate strategy models as a structure for research into communication management (Oliver 2010). Meadows and Meadows (2014) analysed the themes and characteristics of four decades of public relations research published in two leading academic journals, Public Relations Review and the Journal of Public Relations Research. They found that public relations research still has work to do in terms of paradigm development and agreement on a shared theoretical and methodological approach. The most researched t­opics were international PR; crisis response/communications; professional standards, ethics, and social responsibility; and image/reputation management and the most used models to support investigation were agenda-setting, the situational theory of publics, critical theory and framing. It is interesting to note that image/­reputation management is identified as a key public relations area, suggesting a universal recognition that this aspect of communication management falls within accepted understandings of public relations (Meadows and Meadows 2014). Initial UK-based research has focused on the development of the UK public relations industry as a profession (L’Etang 2004), or best practice development with some critical approaches from authors such as Moloney (2006) and L’Etang (2008b).Twenty years ago Kitchen (1997) argued that public relations academic research had the hallmarks of Kuhn’s pre-paradigm period and called for exploratory approaches that could develop hypotheses and establish priorities. Kitchen identified four common themes for public relations research: 1) PR as a communications function; 2) PR as establishing mutual understanding between parties; 3) PR as an intelligence function identifying issues; and 4) the social context in which public relations is concerned with assisting organisations to both formulate and achieve socially acceptable goals, thus achieving a balance between commercial imperatives and socially responsible behaviour. Edwards (2012) has addressed this critique with the formulation of a continuum of underlying public relations research assumptions which usefully categorises research into an ontological continua of foci, encompassing broad themes of functional (best practice, crisis communications,

Introduction  3 media relations, etc.) and non-functional research areas (e.g., postmodernism/post colonialism, critical political economic approaches/cultural approaches). Edwards calls for greater cross-fertilisation of research across the functional/non-functional divide, as well as a de-coupling of PR away from the normative view of it as managed communications in an organisational context.To draw the connection between functional and non-functional research, Edwards conceptualises public relations as a flow of communication. She later highlights the fact that early public relations scholars rarely published beyond core public relations and communications journals and as a result did not connect with some of the grand theoretical work which was being undertaken in other disciplines (Edwards 2016). In the 21st century the scale and reach of public relations means there is a need for comprehensive analysis of public relations as a social and cultural practice to interrogate the influence ­organisations have on our lives (Edwards 2018). One of the key challenges here is the functional approach of much public relations research work, which supports a managerial and corporate perspective of public relations. Bentele and Wehmeier (2007) highlight the need to confront the empiricist and positivist tradition outlined above and suggest that the use of social theory might lead to more macro level understandings of public relations and its function in society. Holtzhausen (2002) also argues for a stronger emphasis on postmodern perspectives and critiques in public relations, proposing that this could include the deconstruction of management language and the development of public relations techniques which take a more postmodern stance. In the 21st century a range of public relations critique has been developed from rhetorical, postmodern, cultural, subaltern, globalisation, and diversity perspectives to highlight the consequences for individuals, organisations, and society of the way in which persuasive organisational discourses are used to exercise power and underpin hegemonic structures and views (Pieczka 2017). The next stage, according to Pieczka, is for public relations academics to use research to play a formative role in producing transformative knowledge to help improve social relations and power balances, rather than simply exemplifying and revealing structures and processes. Like marketing, normative branding research also tends to reside in business school best practice projects, whilst occasionally being considered as part of cultural studies. Keller and Lehmann (2006) identified 17 different functional foci emerging from academic brand studies and argue that there has been too much of a preoccupation with brand extensions and brand equity. There is still room for a general unifying theory of brand equity (Davcik and da Silva 2015), and the nascent concept of brand authenticity has not been thoroughly examined in academic research (Schallehn et al 2014). Likewise, legitimacy, particularly in relation to the use of legitimisation strategies within public relations activity, is under-theorised (Merkelssen 2011).The study of brands has lagged behind the industry in looking at the bigger picture as traditional boundaries between brand management and other management areas are dissolving (Abimbola 2009).There have been specific studies relating to brand authenticity, particularly consumer perceptions of authenticity, but much work is embryonic and there is a lack of empirical evidence providing insight into how brands have successfully developed and maintained authentic images

4 Introduction over a long period of time (Beverland 2005). The concept of brand authenticity is still not well defined or understood (Napoli et al 2014), and questions regarding measurement, consequences, and underlying processes still remain to be answered (Morhart et al 2015). As well as exploring the underlying processes of brand authenticity the case studies, interviews, and theoretical discussion in this book consider the intersection of public relations and branding, and the role of public relations practitioners in articulating and protecting brands in such a way as to ensure they are perceived as authentic in a digital age. It is important that this inter-disciplinary gap is addressed as well as Edwards’ recommendation that public relations research can transcend the organisational context if we consider public relations as fluid and in flow (Edwards 2012). Ultimately recommendations in the final two chapters will add to a practical body of thought which considers the delivery of branding and reputation management programmes, but this unveiling of phenomena also aims to provide a structure for taking a critical postmodern stance towards the branding and public relations industries, and thus add to social critique and academic debate in this area.

Defining public relations The link between branding and reputation management over time is an important topic for this book and this is an activity, it will be argued, that tends to sit within the remit of public relations practitioners. The UK Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) explicitly states on its website that all organisations depend on their reputations for survival and success and that, in today’s competitive market, reputation can be an organisation’s biggest asset. It claims that effective public relations activities can help manage reputations by communicating effectively and building excellent relationships with an organisation’s stakeholders. The Institute defines public relations in the following way (CIPR 2018): Public Relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you. Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics. There has been much academic and practitioner agreement that public relations should aim to listen, as well as speak, in order to achieve consensus between an organisation and its publics (Baines et al 2004). Public relations activity also involves the process of developing useful communications-based relationships between an organisation and those outside it (Gordon 2011). Such activities have historically situated public relations practice in an advisory capacity, counselling organisational leaders on how to develop and maintain a good reputation. Views of the industry in the second half of the 20th century were particularly positive about this function of public relations. In 1978, the World Assembly of Public Relations Associations

Introduction  5 in Mexico defined PR as ‘the art and social science of analysing trends, predicting their consequences, counselling organisation leaders and implementing planned programmes of action which will serve both the organisation’s and the public interest’ (Theaker 2004:4). The idea that public relations will simultaneously serve both an organisation’s and the publics’ interest is problematic and highlights a fundamental dichotomy at the heart of public relations which seeks to build a bridge between an organisation and those outside it, whilst being employed or commissioned for the organisation itself, or perhaps actively choosing to volunteer services for it. The Public Relations Society of America recognises that public relations is a discipline which develops and changes over time and has made an attempt to tackle this issue of fundamental purpose for public relations. During 2011 and 2012, it undertook an engagement process with its members to develop a modern definition, finding that: ‘public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics. At its core, public relations is about influencing, engaging and building a relationship with key stakeholders across a myriad of platforms in order to shape and frame the public perception of an organization’ (PRSA 2018). Like the CIPR definition, the PRSA explanation of public relations focuses on excellent management of organisational communications in order to gain mutual understanding with stakeholders, but it nevertheless does concede that public relations aims to influence and frame perceptions.This was accepted in early definitions of public relations with Edward Bernays proposing in 1952 that public relations has three meanings (1952:3): 1) information given to the public, 2) persuasion directed at the public to modify attitudes and actions, and 3) efforts to integrate attitudes and actions of an institution with its publics and of publics with that institution. Watson also divides public relations into a number of facets, one of which acknowledges the persuasive nature of public relations whilst incorporating this notion of public good: ‘The interest of the publics should result in a mutually beneficial relationship or response, possibly as dialogue. Thus, it is different from publicity, which only seeks to disseminate messages’ (2017:4). Many modern definitions ignore the reality that the majority of public relations activity in practice is undertaken with organisational objectives in mind rather than consensus, leading Morris and Goldsworthy to redefine public relations in 2012 as ‘the planned persuasion of people to behave in ways which further its sponsor’s objectives. It works primarily through the use of media relations and other forms of third-party endorsement’ (Morris and Goldsworthy 2012:6). Solis and Breakenridge (2009) also unashamedly see public relations working in this way as possibly the most powerful marketing discipline which, enabled by web communications, can use new media technologies and emerging influencers to create meaningful persuasive communications material. Despite acknowledging the paymasters behind much modern day public relations practice, Solis and Breakenridge, and Morris and Goldsworthy, are still creating

6 Introduction definitions and explanations of practice based on a positivist approach which aims to define a normative essence of public relations practice which helps substantiate its professional credentials (Galloway 2013). Instead Galloway has suggested that it may be better to take an apophatic approach, accepting that public relations is indefinable and focus instead on a new vocabulary for public relations, based around behaviours, which questions the various roles that public relations is assigned to or adopts, conceptualising public relations as dynamic and adaptive.

Branding and corporate reputation An important aspect of brand reputation in the 21st century is the notion of responsibility brands, and the way in which brand managers present and defend reputations in the light of environmental, societal, and global concerns. By way of example, consider how on 24 March 1989 the 987-foot Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran aground spilling ten million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, causing America’s worst oil spill at the time. The Exxon chairman, Lawrence Rawl, despite leading America’s fifth largest company, pursued a policy of no-comment for a week, refusing television interviews and failing to visit the site of the disaster. When he was interviewed he claimed it was not his role to know about the latest clean-up plan. Exxon’s Esso products were by this time being boycotted in the United States. The cost of fines, clean-up expenses, and lost market share had been estimated as at least $16 billion (Regester and Larkin 2005:174-175). The Exxon case study highlights the complex relationship between brands, trust, organisational image management, and the power of communications to build or destroy reputations. To avoid such problems, public relations activity and attempts to control brand image have become an important aspect of commercial and organisational management practice. CSR encompasses many different strategic approaches and activities but implies that companies ‘have a moral obligation to the society in which they operate to behave ethically, beyond the limits of legal requirements and beyond their obligations to traditional stakeholders’ (Aksak, Ferguson and Duman 2016:79). Formative public relations discourses in this area have drawn upon concepts which derive from the key ethical doctrines – utilitarianism, deontology, and ‘rights’ theories (Somerville in Theaker 2004) and many academic theorists agree that sustainable reputation comes from reducing a perception gap between how an organisation is represented and its actual behaviour (Olins 1995; Theaker 2004;Van Riel 1995). Whether public relations practitioners are morally obliged to address this reputational dilemma, ensuring that the organisations they represent match the image which is portrayed with actions, is a rich area of theoretical debate (Emma Woods in Theaker 2004). Molleda is clear that public relations practitioners should ensure organisations and clients are ‘faithful to their true self ’ which involves ensuring core values are embedded and delivered via communications and product or service offerings (Molleda 2010:224). Some organisations have sought to demonstrate their social credentials through image (consider the Body Shop and Innocent), whilst others have produced environmental, corporate responsibility or sustainability reports, or created imaginative,

Introduction  7 publicity-focused programmes, such as Marks & Spencer’s Plan A (Marks & Spencer 2018). Nike, for example, has worked hard to promote and support its Just Do It slogan and brand position with considerable success born out of its internal brand mantra of ‘authentic athletic performance’ (Keller 1999:46). To achieve this, Nike has invested heavily in advertising, as well as globally visible brand associations, and it projects a well-designed and protected logo (Keller 1999:44). As part of its brand strategy the company has pursued an ongoing policy of sponsorship and association with fashionable sporting events and personalities, going so far as creating iconic gold shoes and clothing for those at the top of their sports. But Woods demonstrates the friction between this well-constructed image and the company’s activities: Many people exposed to these aspects of its identity may well formulate an image of Nike as a high-quality and fashionable arbiter of good design. Others, aware of some negative media coverage of Nike’s manufacturing policy in third world countries (interpreting the identity in a broader context), may form an image of Nike as exploitative and thus boycott its products (Woods in Theaker 2004:96). This tension between social welfare and corporate goals is a central issue for the public relations industry and an examination of the role of public relations as ethical guardian is therefore necessary to understand how much influence public relations professionals have in driving the way organisational image is constructed, and whether it is feasible for organisations to take a stakeholder, rather than a stockholder, approach to business. If taking a stakeholder perspective, then CSR is not an optional extra in the 21st century, but instead should be an integral part of organisational behaviour so that equal attention is given to social duties as maximising profits (Somerville in Theaker 2004). Marquand argues that players in the public domain ‘are supposed to abide by an ethic of public service that tells them to pursue the public interest, even if they earn their livings in a market of some sort’ (Marquand 2004:30), and herein lies a key challenge facing the vast majority of public relations professionals. There is inevitably a potential conflict between the concept of public relations serving the interests of society, whilst at the same time achieving corporate and brand communications objectives (Somerville in Theaker 2004). In an attempt to address the issue, public relations institutions on a global level have incorporated ethics into codes of conduct. The CIPR’s Code of Conduct, approved in 2012, includes the need for ‘Integrity and Honesty’ (CIPR 2015), whilst The Global Alliance, a meeting of global public relations institutions, agreed in April 2003 that all its member associations would standardise their codes of ethics by the end of 2005 to incorporate a number of minimum elements, including an obligation to ‘be informed about practices which ensure ethical conduct’ and to ‘counsel members on ethical decision making’ (Theaker 2004:75). The Code of Athens is an undertaking of ethical behaviour by members of the International Public Relations Association and it is recommended to public relations practitioners worldwide. It was adopted in 1965 and amended in 1968 and 2009

8 Introduction (IPRA 2016). It is clear that public relations practitioners are urged to encourage and facilitate organisations to behave in a socially responsible way, but the issue is complicated: ‘A key consideration for PR is whether CSR programmes are embarked upon as a moral duty or purely for their organizational advantage or whether they also seek to make positive changes to disadvantaged lives’ (L’Etang 2008b:89). In its Best Practice Guidelines for Environmental Sustainability Communications, launched in March 2008, the CIPR suggests (2008:1) that ‘recent years have seen an increase in businesses and organisations focusing on the long term ­sustainability of their activities – looking at all elements to improve the business process, becoming more sustainable in terms of environmental, economic and social performance’. The Institute calls for practitioners to be conscious of their integrity in making green claims and to be wary of greenwash ‘a term that is used to describe the actions of a company, government, or other organisation, which promotes positive environmental practices, whilst acting in a way that is opposite or does not adhere to the claim’ (2008:2), thus making the link between reputational positioning and authenticity and trust. Practitioners are warned that greenwash ‘can lead to a reduction in stakeholders’ trust, damaging reputation and investor confidence’ (2008:3). Stakeholders are increasingly demanding ‘greater transparency, openness, and responsibility’ from organisations (Molleda 2010:22) due to the rise in experiential brand engagements, transparency offered by digital media, and eroded trust in major social institutions (Gilmore and Pine 2007). Other factors putting pressure on organisational transparency include the rise of stakeholder activism, globalisation and 24-hour news coverage (Watson 2010). The way organisations respond to this demand will be deconstructed in this book by paying particular attention to image management activity, drawing on a sociological imagination approach (Wright Mills 1959) to unravel the complex systems of association and influence that organisations use. Consideration will be given to the process of making meaning through the rhetorical aspects of corporate image construction, whilst a wider social discourse on the ethical role of public relations and the relationship between organisations, social welfare, and brand authenticity will be explored through interviews with industry professionals. This book works on the premise that public relations is the guardian of corporate reputation, communications, image and identity and will argue that this is inextricably linked with notions of branding. These terms, however, are often used interchangeably both in practice and academia and it is worthwhile therefore to consider some definitions and explanations. According to Doorley and Garcia (2015), identity is the raison d’etre of an organisation and management of that identity involves the explicit creation and control of all the ways in which an organisation is presented to its audiences (Olins 1995). This is different from image which does not physically exist in the organisation, but is about how an organisation is perceived, based on the cues or signals transmitted (Fill 2005). Reputation is likewise formed subjectively outside the organisation and is derived from organisational actions, words, relationships, experiences, stories, histories, and public appearances (L’Etang 2008b). It has a temporal context and involves the evaluation

Introduction  9 of others: ‘a corporate reputation is the admiration and respect a person holds of an organisation at a point in time’ (Dowling 2016:218). Management of reputation over time requires a focus on performance, behaviour, communication, and the organisation’s intrinsic identity and positioning (Doorley and Garcia 2015). Many scholars highlight the potential value of a good reputation which can positively influence customer, employee, and endorser relationships (Fill 2005); secure shareholder support (Gregory 2000); and enable organisations to charge more for their products and services (Doorley and Garcia 2015). Complex formula such as the seven dimensional RepTrak System have been developed to measure reputation and identify factors which drive reputation and elicit beneficial emotional attachment (Fombrun et al 2015). Comprehensive reputation management requires a long-term strategy for auditing, measuring, and looking after both an organisation’s intrinsic identity creation and the externally produced images of that organisation (Doorley and Garcia 2015). Such approaches have become increasingly important as reputation has developed into a capital asset for organisations which are often valued in excess of the sum of their physical assets, based on the value of the organisation’s reputation (or brand). Cornelissen (2017) argues that favourable reputations are established when organisations project a consistent, authentic and unique corporate identity and that a lack of authenticity occurs when there are concerns about the organisation not being true to its values. It is therefore vital that organisations achieve alignment and transparency between internal identity and external image. Fombrun and Van Riel (2004) also found in a study of global organisations that authenticity was one of five characteristics of those organisations with the strongest reputations, the other characteristics being visibility, distinctiveness, transparency, and consistency. Cornelissen (2017) sees characteristics such as these as being linked to the behaviour, communications, and symbolism that make up corporate identity. The addition of symbolism is important here as the emphasis placed on managing corporate image suggests a preoccupation with how organisations symbolically construct image and how they are therefore perceived in symbolic terms by stakeholders (2017:85). The term corporate branding has become an increasingly popular way to represent the notion of encapsulating and projecting corporate identity and it could be argued that branding seen in this way can be considered as the symbolic manifestation of reputation. There are different theoretical and practical views as to who is responsible for this task within organisations. Cornelissen (2017), for example, defines corporate communication as a management function responsible for co-ordinating internal and external communications with the aim of providing a supporting framework for the creation and maintenance of favourable reputation. Cornelissen’s definition fits into a systems view of organisations in which communications plays a supportive role in enabling different organisational sub-systems to function in an effective interrelating way (Gregory in Theaker 2004). This book argues that such communication activities often fit into the broad reputational work of public relations practitioners, who now have a much greater opportunity to influence wider organisational strategic decisions regarding organisational positioning and behaviour,

10 Introduction as well as communications, due to increasing reputational imperatives and pressures being recognised as critical by senior managers.

Authenticity As reputation is explicitly linked to the experience and perceptions of users it is undoubtedly similar to branding which relies on a visual symbol or name to summarise a set of values and behaviours that the brand hopes to represent and deliver. The challenge for both brand and reputation managers is to avoid dissonance which may arise through a difference between how an organisation or brand would like to be perceived and the reality of user perception in practice (Lowensberg 2006). To understand how some brands have achieved outstanding reputational success it will be important to tackle the problematic concept of authenticity (Morhart et al 2015, Napoli et al 2014, Schallehn et al 2014), accepting that authenticity is essentially socially contingent (Edwards 2010, Napoli et al 2014). Different researchers have conceptualised authenticity as a subjective and dynamic value which is co-created between an object and a consumer with the intention of enabling distinction between real and fake offerings (Parkman and Holloway 2016). Beverland (2005) was one of the first theorists to tackle the specific notion of brand authenticity which he identified as an emerging trend in brand positioning. Beverland proposes a number of attributes of brand authenticity such as ‘links to past, hand-crafted methods, respect for traditions, or cultural links’ (2005:461), and as such is linking product brand authenticity to cultural, temporal, and inherent characteristics. He suggests that authenticity must appear non-commercialised, using the example of surfer brands who understand their consumers ‘prefer not to view their brands as brands, but rather as loyal friends and part of a wider community of beachgoers’ (2005:461). He also notes that ‘brand managers are not the sole creators of brand meaning’ and that there are disparate sources of brand meaning such as a connection to time and place, authenticity as a form of self-expression, or the way that brand communities can imbue a sense of the authentic (2005:461). Following this, Gilmore and Pine (2007) suggested that authenticity has become a prevailing consumer purchasing criteria in which consumers seek to confirm their own self-image by engaging with organisations and brands they perceive to be real or authentic. Gilmore and Pine problematise commercial authenticity by proposing that the very nature of commercial production or creation dispossesses products and services of object authenticity. Instead they conceptualise 21st century authenticity as socially constructed, identifying how authenticity is personally determined. They argue that in this constructivist process consumers recognise many inherently unauthentic offerings as authentic to them personally. The suggestion, therefore, is that organisations can render authenticity in a number of ways: by humanising technological interactions; providing opportunities for individual and community co-creation with brands; creating experiential opportunities and using five genres of authenticity (natural, original, exceptional, referential and transformational) to guide communication and product development (Gilmore and Pine 2007). In the same year (2007), The Arthur W. Page Society produced The Authentic

Introduction  11 Enterprise report which provides guidance for communications officers who should be the future shepherds of enterprise reputation and authenticity, transforming organisational behaviours as well as influencing perceptions. Authenticity is seen as ‘the coin of the realm’ for those organisations able to achieve it. The report suggests that this might be enabled by a clearly defined sense of purpose, a set of clear messages, multi-directional messaging channels, empowered employee ambassadors and networks of stakeholder relationships. Watson (2010) documents a combined industry and academia symposium held in 2008 to consider the Arthur W. Page Society Authentic Enterprise report findings and highlights the lack of discussion about ethical communications concepts and what constitutes authenticity. Since 2007 there has been a growing portfolio of research considering the notion of brand authenticity, particularly from a consumer perspective. Gilpin, Palazzolo and Brody (2010) identify new challenges for organisations aiming to be authentic posed by social media which, by its very interactive nature, makes it difficult for users to evaluate the authenticity of the actors. They specifically recognise that ‘authenticity is not an absolute or intrinsic characteristic of a text or exchange: it is dependent on subjective evaluation by participants or observers’ (2010:259). Focusing specifically on the public sector and notions of transparency and accountability, the team develops a matrix of dimensions which might be used to measure authenticity in public sector communications including: identity (genuine or performative); authority (high and low legitimacy); transparency (open or obstructive); and engagement (high and low interactivity) (2010:262). Molleda (2010) highlights similar traits, arguing that authenticity, which is linked historically to art and antiques, is about ‘being true in substance’ (2010:224) and he also creates a dimensional framework called the ‘authenticity index’. Molleda’s indicators include: self-identification to an original idea or design; values; association with natural commodities; originality; exceptional quality; heritage; sustainability; CSR; and stakeholder involvement. Molleda is also clear that corporate offerings aiming to be authentic must be meaningful to stakeholders, a state which can be achieved by capturing their experiences, aspirations, and expectations otherwise a clash of values and beliefs may occur. Edwards (2010) further develops this argument that authenticity is essentially contingent and linked to social context. As identities evolve according to social context ‘perceptions of authenticity rapidly crumble if claims of being authentic do not reflect these changes’ (2010:193). Edwards considers the use of authenticity as a commercial asset, aiming to reveal its socio-promotional impact in normalising certain versions of authentic self-identity via consumption and promotional practices, which does not encourage individuals ‘to get closer to an unmediated, unadorned self – the basis of individual authenticity’ (2010:198). The impact may be even more problematic when powerful groups attempt to define what is meant by authentic in certain sectors, thus forcing those outside of such fabricated norms to seek validation and belonging elsewhere which sometimes might lead to a counter subculture which redefines the authentic. Edwards also highlights the dual nature of authenticity, which may be used as the subject of symbolic discourse by organisations to infer certain associations, but which is also attributed by consumers interpreting discourses. Here Edwards, problematises

12 Introduction modernist assumptions of the effectiveness of ‘controlled’ promotional discourses, highlighting how claims are frequently redefined and re-interpreted by audiences and that it is usually the consumer, not the producer, who defines judgment criteria. Organisations frequently confuse the source of authenticity (the social context) for the target (the consumers), focusing on representation, rather than being. Instead, authenticity ‘must be recognised as a discursive, even dialectic process between different groups’ (2010:202). Malar et al (2011) focus on source of origin in relation to authenticity and question whether brand personality should match the consumer’s actual or ideal self-concept, defined as: ‘the cognitive and effective understanding of who and what we are [which]…can take two forms: the “actual self ” and the “ideal self ”’ (2011:36). Their study of consumer brand attitudes identified a trend for brands to use a more authentic approach which they interpret as a real sense of the consumer self. They found a strong connection between self-identification and emotional brand attachment, arguing that the greater the role of a brand in the self-verification process of a person’s self-definition, then the closer the emotional bond will be. Marwick and Boyd (2011) also researched consumer brand attitudes by looking into the construction of imagined audiences by Twitter users. The Twitter users studied exhibited resistance to the creation of personal brands (labelled as microcelebrity) and carefully constructed communications aimed at particular audience groups, as this was seen to be too deliberate and hence ‘inauthentic’. For Marwick and Boyd authenticity is a constantly changing concept which is connected to context, and is in part constructed by the audience. This is exemplified in their study by evidence that the Twitter users construct and amend identity via conversations with others, using strategies of self-censure and the inclusion of personal details to deliberately affect self-representation. Morin (2010) also picks up the contingent nature of authenticity and identifies the seemingly oxymoronic notion of ‘synthetic authenticity’. Her understanding of ‘synthetic’ is a conception in which a whole is created through the amalgamation of a number of parts. This involves a process of determining the truth of an organisation through the ‘integrated, intentional design of all total experience ingredients’ (2010:22). Morin’s idea of a collective amalgamation involves a process of agreeing authenticity with key stakeholders, proposing that this leads to a situation where customers become exceptionally loyal. She proposes that the search for authenticity involves brand managers looking for ‘ways to turn a vision into experiences that can be operationalised, executed, felt, owned, and ultimately valued’’ (2010:23). Schallehn, Burmann and Riley (2014) help bring these two aspects of branding together (social contingency and corporate image construction), suggesting that the two antecedents of brand authenticity might be considered to be object authenticity (where the authentic is the original) and self-authenticity in a social world (in which authenticity relates to the ability to remain true to one’s own identify despite corrupting external pressures). Authentic brands thus position themselves ‘from the inside out’, containing three important brand attributes which make up a brand trust model: individuality (uniqueness); consistency (behaviour matches communications); and continuity (core brand attributes remain stable over time).

Introduction  13 The trust comes from the fact that users assume that the brand promise ‘stems from the brand’s internal nucleus’ (2014:192). Morhart et al (2015) also map out a scale in which perceived brand authenticity can be seen from three perspectives: 1) objectivist in which authenticity is ‘an objectively measurable quality of an entity’; 2) constructivist where authenticity is a projection of one’s own beliefs and expectations onto an object; and 3) existentialist in which authenticity is about being true to one’s self. The research then identifies four brand authenticity dimensions of continuity, credibility, integrity, and symbolism. Beverland returns to the theme of brand authenticity in 2014 with a team of researchers who aimed to produce an authenticity scale to map out consumer perceptions of brand authenticity and the cues used to identify and judge authenticity, defining brand authenticity as ‘a subjective evaluation of genuineness ascribed to a brand by consumers’ (Napoli et al 2014:1090). Using the input of marketing academics to define 33 brand authenticity items, the team carried out two surveys of university students and identified quality, sincerity and heritage as three agreed dimensions of brand authenticity. A further analysis of adult consumers deepened the study to identify that ‘the higher the authenticity rating for a brand the more likely it is a brand will be perceived as being reliable and acting with the right intentions (i.e., trusted) and have more credibility in the market place’ (Napoli et al 2014:1094-1095). In 2016, the same academic team further develop this notion into the concept of the brand authenticity continuum, suggesting that brands might appear at different points along the continuum depending on whether they are a novice, apprentice, professional or master brand. Depending on the positioning such brands might use germination, cultivation, consolidation, or preservation techniques respectively to nurture and maintain their positioning on the scale between inauthenticity and authenticity (Napoli et al 2016). Parkman and Holloway (2016) also specifically focused on the intended production of authenticity citing a lack of research into the ability of organisations to develop effective ‘firm-side’ authenticity. From interviews with architectural design services they found that there was an identifiable correlation between an organisation’s capacity for innovation, and the extent of its corporate identity management activities in achieving authenticity, and thereby securing competitive advantage. This suggests that an organisation with a culture which supports creativity and innovation can influence perceptions of authenticity, as long as its culture and capabilities are clearly and consistently communicated. Hatch (2012) argues that the study of brand-related phenomena requires different philosophical and methodological foundations from traditional normative work. A philosophical approach to ethics and justification is therefore used in this book. In the process of testing justification, Boltanski and Thevenot (2006) argue that judgement relies upon the ability to recognise the nature of a situation. This notion of economies of worth (Boltanski and Thevenot 2006) is used in this book as a model for analysing how brands attempt to confer legitimacy, and are themselves subject to processes of critique and justification, within a legitimised structure. Likewise important is Sulkunen’s (2010) idea of the contract, or moment of justification, as a transparent, balanced action based on a mutually accepted view

14 Introduction of values of worth and what constitutes the common good. Also explored is the idea of the active, rational consumer highlighted within Habermas’ (1992) notion of the public sphere, and this concept is utilised as an important component of a model which accepts that publics use their critical and rational abilities when faced with choices about brands. In such a scenario brand actors are conceived as being within contractual partnerships, not as dupes, but as conscious, interpretive participants, resistant to persuasion and capable of understanding and judgement. They are ‘free to exercise reflexivity, mobility and choice’ (Sulkunen 2010:501) and are active, rather than passive.

Book Structure The following chapters consider what constitutes authentic brand narratives and the role of public relations practitioners in developing and conferring legitimacy. This is built on an examination of public relations history and practice from an activist perspective. The aim is to exploit a cross-disciplinary gap which conceives of both brands and PR as being in flow, and in doing so draws upon branding, reputational management, and PR theoretical paradigms. Consideration will be given to notions of justification and authenticity, specifically within a marketing and brand context, as well as the role of CSR. The impact of the digital media environment will also be considered, specifically its impact on brands as a concept and the practical impact for brand, PR and crisis managers. Case studies of the corporate communications of digital organisations, media organisations, and brands in crisis are supplemented by discussions with industry practitioners to explore these ideas in practice. By examining the types of discourse and brand narratives that some organisations employ in an attempt to win trust from their stakeholders, and investigating how those narratives relate to a wider social and political context, the book seeks to illustrate, and further understanding of, the role of public relations activity in shaping authenticity in brand identity construction. The aim is to explore legitimation processes which lead to authenticity, examining whether commitment to a brand comes from believing in the ethical and moral basis for an organisation. The role of organisational representation via direct means and media channels will be investigated, taking into account the body of theory which relates to brand creation, public relations, communications, the construction of image, and how image then becomes materialised as reputation over time. The book lays out three specific arguments. First, a repositioning of the relationship between public relations and brand practice is explored. It is argued that public relations practitioners are well placed to facilitate brands in the digital age, because of the inherent acceptance of the value of relationship building, adaptation and boundary spanning embedded in PR practice and best practice theory. Secondly, the book introduces a new concept of riparian brands. Such brands are based on solid core values, but have an ability to ‘atune’, adjust and naturalise to the prevailing social, cultural, and economic environment.They are specifically adapted for the digital media age and are best developed and managed within the public ­relations discipline. This conceptual exploration responds to the fact that there is

Introduction  15 little current scholarship in public relations about the adjustable (or polyphonic) nature of the brand. Thirdly, the book presents an ontology of the riparian brand in the form of an authentic brand wheel and 15 real-time interaction success factors. The wheel (and the success factors) are dynamic in concept, providing a set of relations, or interconnecting qualities which characterise public relations practice which engenders authenticity. In particular, they explore the broader abilities of PR to use story-telling narratives and to help shape our understanding of reality using the opportunities afforded by the public’s increasing reliance on digital media.

2 Public relations history re-imagined Aligning corporate and activist perspectives

Public relations historiography This chapter investigates a number of perspectives of public relations historiography and in doing so attempts to look at the development of corporate and brand-led communications, alongside the active promotion of ideas and actions by social and non-for-profit groups. The central focus here is the notion that public relations is always purposeful, and that it has the ideas and objectives of the entity it represents at the heart of its practice, but this may not necessarily be corporatist in nature. The chapter seeks to underpin an activist understanding of public relations as a driver of change activity, both within and outside of organisations. The book later presents an argument that these two aspects of public relations activity place the professional well to deal with the interactive, engagement-orientated requirements of 21st century digital brand communications (whether in the commercial or non-for-profit sector). In first looking at the development of public relations as a practice and arena for academic thought, it is important to note that, according to McKie and Munshi (2007), there remains limited knowledge of the past of public relations and that the presentation of that history has been used actively by practitioners and theorists to serve specific viewpoints of the industry. McKie and Munshi suggest that much public relations research to date has deployed a modernist emphasis on empirical evidence, which often lacks reflexivity, and they call on post-modern historiography approaches to argue that the framing of facts may be just as important as the facts themselves (2007). The historical favouring of Western public relations as the norm is starting to be challenged, however, with emerging histories and research studies exemplifying alternative global and inter-cultural paradigms (Vardeman-Winter 2016). Precipitating this Western focus, Grunig and Hunt’s four models (1984) emerged as a major frame for public relations history, providing an evolutionary narrative that shows public relations supposedly transcending from crude publicity to sophisticated two-way communications activity (McKie and Munshi 2007).The models were put forward by Grunig and Hunt as providing a typology for public relations activity, describing a chronological move from one-way broadcast communication, which aims to achieve publicity (press agentry), through public-service orientated information communications (one-way) and ­finally to asymmetric and symmetric public relations activities which aim to research publics in order to

Public relations history re-imagined  17 better improve communications, for the benefit of the organisation in the asymmetric model, and for the benefit of both the organisation and its publics in the symmetrical model (1984). Grunig and Hunt were clear in their support of the fourth model: We argue for the superiority of what we call the two-way symmetrical model of public relations – a model based on negotiation, compromise, and understanding. We see this model as a replacement for the persuasion model that has dominated thinking about public relations almost since its birth (Grunig and Hunt 1984:v). Evidence behind the models was based primarily on secondary sources, many of which came directly from practitioners and this enabled the models to act as a ‘classic myth of origins’, legitimising contemporary or future practice activity, and embedding an assumption of United States (US) public relations history as the prototype for all public relations activity and history (McKie and Munshi 2007:124). Watson (2014) argues that this positivist perspective of public relations has been legitimised through the application of Grunig and Hunt’s models by some authors, a view supported by L’Etang (2008a) who suggests that the evangelical use of the models as a typology has been to the detriment of public relations historiography by making one popular moral evolutionary discourse dominant over other potential understandings. Both Watson and L’Etang call for a less corporatist approach, including an activist perspective, which might reveal how different types of organisations such as NGOs, citizen groups and communities have systematically used PR techniques to combat government policies and expose vested interests. L’Etang (2016) specifically proposes that public relations activities typically emerge during historical moments of change and that public relations histories should thereby be orientated towards broader social shifts and changes, a socio-cultural turn which moves public relations away from an organisational focus. Her central argument here is that activism and social movements can be regarded as public relations because they mobilise a range of communications techniques for a wide range of audiences in order to achieve social change, and that in such a socio-historic perspective public relations can be seen as more conflictual then consensual in nature. Ciszek (2015) likewise calls for an orientation which includes activist as well as organisational public relations, arguing that there is evidence that activists have been using public relations techniques such as media relations, lobbying and events for over 100 years, yet their activities are often viewed through a functional-organisational frame which sees them as external publics to be managed and communicated with. Ciszek reasons that this view was born out of the Excellence approach which conceptualises organisations as systems. The Excellence project was a long-term research study involving 300 organisations conducted by Grunig, Grunig, and Dozier in the 1980s. The objective was to identify characteristics typical of excellent communication departments in order to articulate how excellent public relations activity improves organisational effectiveness. Within this perspective, activism can be useful for organisations because it encourages a two-way symmetrical approach

18  Public relations history re-imagined to communications. Contrary to this, Ciszek recommends the application of a cultural-economic framework in which activism and public relations are studied as connected processes influencing and engaging with the wider socio-cultural environment. Ciszek’s work builds on Coombs’ and Holladay’s suggestion that the roots of US public relations history can be traced to activist communications activity which was designed to seek societal change. They called for a re-imagining of the field away from a corporatist historical perspective towards one which legitimises the communication activity of activists as an important component in public relations theory and history (Coombs and Holladay 2012). In seeking to establish a historiography approach for public relations, Watson (2014) acknowledges that the embryonic development of public relations is problematic and proposes the notion of proto-PR to help combat this issue. Many public relations text books (Theaker 2004, Baines et al 2004) make reference to early uses of techniques which could be antecedents of today’s industry such as cave drawings, Greek rhetoric, Roman coins, flags, uniforms, and liveries. Watson suggests that there should be a distinction between such public relations-like activities, which he names proto-PR, and the specific recognition of defined activities such as publicity, press agentry and institutionalised communication activities which were evident in some countries from around 1875 onwards. He identifies three specific antecedents of modern-day public relations practice: 1) early corporate communications, 2) government information and propaganda, and 3) cultural influences linked to dominant religions (Watson 2017). A fourth antecedent could be argued to be social movements using communication techniques to bring about social and political change. Raaz and Wehmeier (2011) agree with this approach, suggesting that early modes of communication such as persuasion are just as much a part of public relations history as post-industrial communications in modern democracies. Watson also specifically highlights the fact that these public relations antecedents emerged separately in different geographical locations, so whilst cultural influences and government communication were important in Asia, the colonial influence on informational processes was significant, for example, in the Middle East and Africa (Watson 2014). For some, the history of public relations should be separated from modern industrialism, democracy, and traditional public relations tools to include a focus on earlier royal and state uses of persuasive communications. For example, Xifra and Heath (2015) use Gramsci’s notions of hegemony and historical bloc to study potential Assyriological antecedents of public relations activity in ancient Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq). Citing studies of notably rhetorical and persuasive ancient written and iconographic texts, they identify communicative uses of commemorative-style instruments such as parades, monuments, rituals, festivals, and building inscriptions designed to build allegiance for a strong leader to secure a resilient, thriving community. Such an approach recognises that early modes of communication, such as persuasion, are just as much a part of public relations history as post-industrial communications in modern democracies (Raaz and Wehmeier 2011). Bentele (2015) conceptualises these different phases of public relations development as a series of layers which he describes as a ‘functional-integrative stratification model’. The layers involve a long pre-history which moves

Public relations history re-imagined  19 from interpersonal communications, to public communication, and finally to organisational communication and the development of functional public relations tools in the modern age. Developing media and communication systems support these base layers, with the professional field of public relations emerging as an occupation from those informational processes. Crucially, however, Bentele sees the layers as a sequence of phases, which are inter-dependent and developmental, with the current layer being the maturity of public relations into a societal system, which adds to, but is not separate from, the previous phases. It is clear that one single and unified history of public relations is virtually impossible to articulate due to the varying influences and perspectives from different nations and this inevitably means that public relations has a multiplicity of histories (Raaz and Wehmeier 2011). From a study of US, UK, and German historiographies Raaz and Wehmeier identify three approaches to public relations history: 1) fact orientated story-telling, 2) periodising, and 3) theorising analysis. Data-based research studies have provided access to important elements of public relations history, whilst periodisation helps structure our understanding of the industry’s development. Deciding what actually constitutes public relations is important because this dictates what becomes considered and accepted as public relations history. Like Bentele (2015), Russell and Lamme (2016) later argue for the inclusion of human communication and interpersonal skills as an appropriate characteristic of public relations history. Instead of focusing on the formal professional functions of communication within organisational settings, they suggest that strategic intent is a distinguishing characteristic of public relations, in which communications activities are used with a specific outcome in mind, and stakeholders have agency in that they are free to engage with, or ignore, powerful messages.This is an important distinguishing factor from historical uses of propaganda for example. One attempt at taking a completely different historiographical approach is that of Munshi et al (2017) who use works of fiction to look at colonial communications techniques and uncover marginalised voices of resistance which help problematise hegemonic discourses of global diplomacy and political sanctity which continue to have currency today. Taking into account the variety of views of public relations historiography summarised above, this overview of public relations histories attempts to organise historical accounts into a number of ‘frames’ which are important because they contribute to our understanding of a broader development and history of public relations which acknowledges both corporate and activist activities across the globe and underpins an understanding of why certain brand narratives gain traction. The aim is not to provide a comprehensive history per se, but to provide historical context for a number of themes, which help our understanding of the developing relationship between branding, public relations, and corporate reputation communications activity.

The US paradigm and corporate public relations A third of the texts studied for this chapter provided evidence for the argument that much historical public relations research takes a structural-functionalism approach,

20  Public relations history re-imagined exploring the specialised roles and functions of public relations practitioners in support of organisational, and in particular corporate, objectives (L’Etang 2016). In the US, PR histories tend to begin with a focus on a number of commercial organisations which started to pro-actively communicate with the press, following criticism from the Progressive Publicists (Ewen 1998), before using the media for promotional purposes. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, for example, initiated a concerted effort to change the attitude of the public towards insurance companies, using health surveys to gain media coverage, and providing advice direct to the public (Bernays 1928). One of the first press agents providing a liaison service between corporations and the media was Ivy Lee who worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Lee is noted for his advocacy of an open style of communications, which he formalised in 1906 in his Declaration of Principles which championed accuracy, authority and fact (Edwards 2006). Despite being widely recognised for this pioneering public relations work, Lee was discredited later in his career for the work he undertook for the large German company I.G. Farben in 1934 to help improve Anglo-German relations. He is documented as having given both Goebbels and Hitler advice on how to represent the German Government’s case in America, and he briefed US journalists in Berlin on behalf of the Nazis.The US ambassador to Berlin labelled him an advocate of fascism, and later that same year the Un-American Activities Commission concluded that he had sold services for express propaganda purposes (Miller and Dinan 2008). Lee thereby becomes a paradigmatic example of the potentally janus-faced nature of PR which facilitates the propagation of corporate and social views in the public sphere which may or may not be deemed useful depending upon differing perspectives of those views. At the turn of the 20th century the massification of the population through the development of the telegraph, printing presses and the railway provided the capacity for a new type of collective ‘public’ (Miller and Dinan 2008) which led to a debate about the dangers of the public view. In his 1922 book Public Opinion, the journalist Walter Lippmann explored what he saw as the problematic idea of the ‘public’. He developed a theory of ‘constructed reality’ or the ‘pseudo-environment’ with three facets: an actual event; the emotional response to the event; and other influences on an individual’s response such as cultural, social, and environmental. Given the complexity of ‘reality’ Lippmann argued for greater control of public opinion (Lippmann 2007). Following on from this work, in 1923 Edward L. Bernays published Crystallizing Public Opinion, followed by Propaganda in 1928 and in these publications Bernays explored the ways in which the public mind could be manipulated in order to create sympathy and acceptance for ideas or commodities (Bernays 1928). He built on his uncle Sigmund Freud’s ideas that people are influenced by powerful, hidden drives and argued that if you could link mass-produced goods to hidden selfish desires you could make people buy them (Curtis 2002:Part 1). Learning from Sigmund Freud’s thinking, and the new psychoanalytical methods being introduced by Freud’s daughter Anna Freud, Bernays developed a ‘new propaganda’ which was developed from sound psychology, linked to ‘enlightened self- interest’ (Bernays 1928:61). An example of this in practice was Bernays’ Torches of Freedom campaign for Lucky Strike cigarettes, which aimed to break the taboo against women smoking. Bernays

Public relations history re-imagined  21 used advice from leading New York psychoanalyst A.A. Brill to position cigarettes as torches of freedom by women who wanted to be equal with men (Theaker 2004). Instead of selling cigarettes intellectually with facts, Bernays linked the products with powerful emotions and feelings and invited press photographers to witness and record a symbolic act in which ten debutantes were persuaded to smoke, while participating in New York’s Easter Parade (Curtis 2002:Part 1). The event had an immediate, positive effect on the sales of cigarettes to women (Theaker 2004). Like Lippmann, Bernays emphasised the power of symbols and images, heralding a move away from journalistic, rhetoric-based press relations activity to a more visual, emotional approach (Ewen 1998). Corporate histories of early US public relations activity include the work of Carl Byoir, and his eponymous company, which made extended use of front groups to help promote the wishes of commercial businesses (Miller and Dinan 2008). Byoir, for example, helped chain store company A&P develop a range of fake groups in an attempt to present the public as supportive of retail changes. The approach included the creation of the National Consumers’ Tax Council and was successful in defeating proposed taxes on chain stores (Miller and Dinan 2008). In 1936, General Motors created a travelling exhibit, called the ‘Parade of Progress’ which made a 20,000 mile tour of the United States, stopping at GM dealers, and local chambers of commerce, to show off a ‘rendition of America’s past and future that equated progress and social change with the emergence of new technologies’ (Ewen 1998:298). It was a precursor of the 1939 World Fair where General Motors created a central ‘Democracity’ dome, designed to be a three dimensional vision of consumerism at its most appealing (Curtis 2002:Part 1). The World Fair was part of the American Way campaign, created by the US National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which also used cartoons, syndicated features, documentary films, a Young America newsletter for schools, speaker opportunities and a vast billboard campaign in an attempt to direct the thinking of the nation (Ewen 1998). Miller and Dinan (2008) highlight the ruthless nature of some of the tactics used − NAM was heavily involved in political lobbying activity which, alongside syndicating positive features in newspapers, included the hiring of a House of Representatives employee to provide inside information and the use of operatives to waylay Congressmen on their way to the Chamber for important votes. In Germany, the steelmaker Krupp established the first formal commercial press office in 1893 as part of a move to legitimise activities in the face of the rapidly industrialising economy (Edwards 2006), whilst in the UK there are reports of the Marconi Company issuing press releases as early as 1910 to explain its advances in wireless technology (Theaker 2004). There is also evidence of information officers employed by the Gas, Light, and Coke Company, ICI, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), Shell, J. Lyons & Company, Ford Motor Company, Rootes Motors, and Brooklands Racing Track (L’Etang 2004). The Editorial Services agency worked to raise the profile of clients including the Brewers Society, the promotion of canned foods for H.J. Heinz and the marketing of home ownership for the Halifax Building Society in the early 1920s in the UK (L’Etang 2008a). Having set up as a press agent in 1924, Basil Clarke produced one of the first UK examples

22  Public relations history re-imagined of guidance on how public relations should be conducted in the form of his ‘little white book’ which called for transparency of sourcing, forbade the use of leverage with media owners based on advertising spend, prohibited the deception of the public by fraudulent stunts and called for payment by fees, rather than payment for placement of articles (L’Etang 2004).

The positivist-professional frame A third of the texts studied for this chapter support a positivist developmental view of public relations as an increasingly professionalised and evolving industry. Watson (2014) argues that this positivist perspective has been legitimised through the application of Grunig and Hunt’s models in a range of studies which tend to focus on the maturation of the industry, conceptualising its improvement from unilateral press agentry to bilateral relationship management and organisational positioning (Raaz and Wehmeier 2011). Lamme and Russell (2010) are critical of such an overly simplistic periodisation and evolutionary view of public relations development, from unsophisticated and unethical roots to more contemporary ethical campaigns. They argue that the framing of public relations as a progressive profession has tended to privilege corporate accounts and a perspective of gradual improvement. Instead they propose that the function of public relations has been ‘remarkably consistent’ over time and continents, being used by historical figures as varied as Aetholwold, Alexander the Great, Pope Gregory XIII, The Continental Congress, Otto von Bismark, and Grover Cleveland.They dismiss the notion of an evolutionary projection for public relations, suggesting instead that its progress is related to the increasing scale of communications tactics utilised and to the graduate development of structured rules of engagement. Nevertheless, many accounts of positivist public relations history focus heavily on a chronological development of the industry from an ad-hoc and self-serving profession to one of respectability (Davis 2013). Important to such accounts is the charting of the institutionalisation of public relations. In America the first school of public relations was opened at Boston University in 1947, with over 100 colleges offering public relations courses in the US two years later. The Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) was set up in 1948 and it published its first code of ethics in 1954. The Institute of Public Relations (IPR) in the UK, which now has chartered status, was also established in 1948 by a National Association of Local Government Officers (NALGO) working party, and the vast majority of its founding members came from the public sector (Davis 2013). This helps shed light on the strong public service ethos underpinning public relations in the UK (L’Etang 2004:20). Edwards (2006) explains that: key themes emerging from early years of PR practice have permeated the approach taken by the Institute, including: the importance of truth as the ‘ideal’ PR tool; the conception of PR as a public service; and the potential for PR to be used as a means for promotion freedom, democracy and, in particular, the British way of life (2006:12).

Public relations history re-imagined  23 The IPR published its first Code of Professional Conduct and rules for disciplinary proceedings in 1963 which interestingly repeats some of the main themes introduced by Bernays, Clarke and Lee in the early 1900s, stating that members: should not disseminate false or misleading information; should not operate front organisations; should disclose motives; should not corrupt the channels of public communication; and should act in the public interest (L’Etang 2004). The first MA in public relations in the UK was offered by the University of Sterling in 1988 (Davis 2013). McKie and Munshi (2007) suggest that Jacquie L’Etang’s Public Relations in Britain: A History of Professional Practice in the Twentieth Century is a ‘quiet landmark’ because it provides an alternative sociological perspective to the dominant corporate US prototype, demonstrating how public relations practice in the UK was influenced by public administration, the commonwealth, decolonialisation and extensive use of diplomatic techniques, in a way which uniquely reflected national needs and influences (2007). L’Etang (2004) specifically suggests that public relations in the UK did not follow the same pattern as the USA, for example highlighting how public servants based in the UK colonies learnt indigenous languages and strove to understand foreign cultures. She avoids the ‘great men’ approach to historiography (Watson 2014:874) and instead takes a broader view of PR in its social context. Early examples of public relations activity in the UK include the appointment of a British Treasury spokesman in 1809, and the pioneering work of Post Office and local government in supplying regular and reliable information to the public (Fawkes in Theaker 2004). A significant early public relations figure in the UK was Sir Stephen Tallents, who worked for the Empire Marketing Board (EMB) between 1926 and 1933 (Baines et al 2004). The EMB spent over £1 million on campaigns which included posters, films, and exhibitions to promote trade in Empire products (Theaker 2004:14). Tallents’ ideas encompassed imperialism and propaganda, and were encapsulated in his pamphlet, The Projection of England, published in 1932. He developed the idea of projection which he believed was necessary in a broadcast media age in which international relations, based on interpersonal relations, had been surpassed and became the BBC’s public relations director in 1935 (Hajkowski 2010:25). Tallents was the first president of the Institute of Public Relations and he is also credited by many (Theaker 2004, L’Etang 2004) with being a prime mover in the development of the ‘British Documentary Film Movement’ between the two world wars. Post-war industry nationalisation led to film units such as British Transport Films, and the National Coal Board Film Unit, being created for internal training and external promotion (Watson 2017). Perhaps the most famous example is Night Mail (1936), made for the GPO, which included music by Benjamin Britten and a script by the poet W.H. Auden. State-sponsored film units were attached to the Empire Marketing Board, the Post Office (GPO), the Ministry of Information during the Second World War and, following the war, the Central Office of Information. In 1932 cuts in local government spending were proposed and, to counter this, local government press officers, encouraged by NALGO, created a successful publicity campaign including letters to the media and to MPs, syndicated newspaper articles, a centenary book, an essay competition, exhibitions, a Times

24  Public relations history re-imagined supplement and open-access university lectures (L’Etang 2004:23). Many of the UK industry’s early practitioners participated in the development of Second World War propaganda campaigns and L’Etang (2004:45) documents a variety of propaganda activities including:‘managed’ censored news from the BBC; black propaganda leaflets and black radio stations designed to distribute rumour and break morale in Germany; home-front poster campaigns to encourage appropriate behaviour and discourage inappropriate behaviour; donation appeals which persuaded the public to donate their saucepans, ornaments and golf clubs; and morale-boosting films such as London Can Take It (1940) and Millions Like Us (1943). The Labour Government’s public ownership proposals led to the mobilisation of public relations in the private sector too, with the creation of a variety of industry based organisations, such as the Council of Retail Distributors and the Institute of Directors (Miller and Dinan 2008). One of the most visible at the time was ‘Aims of Industry’, set up in 1942 by the Chairman of Ford to protect free enterprise and oppose nationalisation. Selected members of the press were fed carefully chosen material, speakers were provided for radio broadcasts and anti-Labour Party information was created which purported to come from a trade union called ‘Workers Forum’. Following the election of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979, the use of professional public relations grew rapidly in the UK (Davis 2002). In the 1980s, and again in the mid-1990s, the growth rates for consultancies reached 20-40 per cent per annum and the UK public relations industry became the second largest in the world (Miller and Dinan 2000). Part of this growth was due to competitive tendering for communications services by local authorities. Johnson the Cleaners, for example, employed Good Relations, whilst office cleaning company Sketchley, retained Biss Lancaster. The deregulation of financial services following the Financial Services Act of 1986 lead to an expansion of inhouse public relations teams within the banks and building societies, as well as the use of outside public relations consultancies. But it was the privatisation of large national assets, such as British Telecom and British Gas which arguably had most impact. The fees were profitable for this type of work: to privatise the electricity industry £74.2 million was spent on promotional expenses; the marketing budget for the British Gas privatisation, excluding advertising was £15.4 million; and the consultancy Dewe Rogerson, which handled ten privatisations as marketing adviser, received £23 million for promoting the privatisation of British Petroleum (Miller and Dinan 2000).

The sociological frame A key finding from this thematic analysis of PR histories is that over half of the texts studied include themes of civic purpose and public information, and can be interpreted as providing a more sociological perspective of public relations development. These often emerge from terrorities outside the US and the UK. Lamme and Russell (2010) found that there was formal use of public relations type activities by European monarchs, patriots, businessmen, and politicians. Edwards (2006) records that public relations type activities emerged in the early 18th century

Public relations history re-imagined  25 in Germany, with the systematic use of a news office function by Federick the Great. Much effort has been made in recent years to improve understanding of the development of public relations from a global, rather than a US or UK centric perspective. In Prussia, for example, a press bureau was started in 1841 to manage accuracy in press reports, along with the establishment of official governmental newspapers and financial support for government-friendly media (Watson 2017). In mainland Europe steel (Krupp), electronics (Siemens, AEG) and chemical (BASF, Bayer, Hoechst, Agfa) companies used planned corporate and marketing communications to target international markets. As early as 1867 Krupp appointed a manager of corporate communications and a full corporate press department in 1870 to promote the company and its products and monitor the media (Watson 2017:8). In Asia and Africa, however, early origins of recognisable modern public relations practice centre on nation-building and political communication in post-colonial societies (Watson 2017). Nation building was also a feature of early Turkish PR following the creation of the Turkish Republic in 1923. The Anatolia Agency and General Directorate of Press and Information were both set up by The Turkish state in the 1920s to promote government policy and ensure accountability of the government to the public (Bicakci and Hurmeric 2013). In the 1930s, mass media, exhibitions, conferences, events, and theatre-cinema were all used to communicate with domestic audiences but the state also created national events such as the first beauty contest to promote a notion of the civilised Turkey abroad (2013:93). The first agencies in Turkey began to emerge in 1969, supported by fees from international organisations such as Boeing, English Tourism Organisation, Benetton, British Airways, Kodak, and BMW (2013:95). In Australia many historical public relations accounts cite government communications, as in the UK, as the preparation ground for modern public relations, but Fitch argues for a review of this perspective (Fitch 2016). Using an analysis of representations of public relations in Australian newspapers in the 1940s and 1950s, Fitch challenges the view that public relations arrived in Australia along with General Douglas MacArthur and his public relations staff in 1943. There is evidence that public relations did, indeed, develop in the post-war period, with the creation of a wide range of significant state and official public relations posts such as the Director of Public Relations for the New South Wales national emergency service, the Director of Army Public Relations and the Public Relations Officer to the Australian Minister to the Soviet Union (2016:11). However, Fitch also found much evidence of public relations activity prior to this in other spheres and sectors such as voluntary publicity work for hospitals, churches and charities, often formalised into committees such as the Public Relations Group of the Legion of Catholic Women, or the Bureau of Jewish Affairs public relations committee to combat anti-Semitism. Sometimes, these were professional, paid-for services such as the production of films for social advocacy organisation The Brotherhood of St Laurence, which highlighted living conditions in Melbourne slums (2016:13). Like Australia, public relations in Japan has been characterised as being introduced by Allied Occupation forces after World War II, but public relations antecedents can be identified far further back (Koichi et al 2013). In 1903, for example, Kanebo, Japan’s

26  Public relations history re-imagined largest textile company of the time, launched the first Japanese in-house magazine called Kanebo no Kiteki (The Whistle of Kanebou) to disseminate information about its educational and social programmes for workers. The frontier-land South Manchurian Railroad (Mantetsu) established a public relations (Kouhou) department in 1923 which organised journalist and cultural visits, as well as the production of exhibitions, movies and magazines to manage perceptions of the China outpost and encourage emigration of workers (2013:149). Public relations in Japan did undoubtedly benefit from the General Headquarters of the Allied Occupation Army (GHQ), which from 1947 onwards encouraged the appointment of public relations officers in local and national government. In industry, it was employee relations which drove much public relations practice, until social and environmental concerns in the 1970s led many commercial organisations to undertake identity change and management programmes, much encouraged by the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations which set up a committee on social affairs in the 1970s and eventually introduced a Charter of Corporate Behaviour in 1991 (2013:152). International public relations began to develop in the 1950s and 1960s as successful American corporations started to target Western Europe. Public relations agencies began to form alliances with overseas companies or expanded themselves into new markets (Watson 2017). The privatisation of government organisations, and the ensuing rapid expansion of companies into new markets fuelled the growth of international public relations agencies and corporate communications departments during the 1980s and a second boost came from the mid-1990s onwards as technology provided new internet-based tools to support promotional and reputational communications activity (Watson 2017:15). The growth of public relations in Greece in the second half of the 20th century, for example, can be linked to this global expansion with international advertising agencies encouraging the use of public relations, alongside advertising campaigns, for organisations such as banking, retail, textiles and the Greek National Tourism Organization (Theofilou and Watson 2014). Organisations such as Mobile, Shell and Siemens created public relations departments in Greece, and an elite group of 20-25 well-educated, ex-journalists and advertising men, including Manos Pavlidis, the “father” of Greek PR, were at the vanguard of developing the sector and setting up the Hellenic Public Relations Association (HPRA) in 1960 (2014:702-705). Whilst much history of international PR focuses on the corporate context there is much evidence of global activism and international government diplomacy working across borders. Lawniczak for example conceptualises the notion of foreign-imposed and home-grown transitional public relations occurring in the former socialist countries such as the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, and Cuba. In case studies of Poland and Hungary he identifies strong international public relations activity to support the implementation of a specific breed of neoliberal capitalism in the post-socialist era, supported by scholarships, cultural exchange, media and social media programmes and the financial support of specific think tanks and communication campaigns. After time, in Hungary and Poland, Lawniczak found that home-grown transitional public relations emerged to support a more nation-specific view of post-socialism, with considerable and deliberate

Public relations history re-imagined  27 communications support. In Hungary, for example, this included billboards, newspaper adverts, mailshots, slogans, speeches, letter-writing from ambassadors, and web communications (2017: 213-222). In Thailand, the Government Public Relations Department, established in 1933, worked effectively as a mass communications agency of the state, using state run print, radio and television broadcasting to propaganidise the regimes of a series of incumbent governments, but it also focused on international communications, with offices, for example in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, and campaigns which included film documentaries covering both government and royal activities aimed at both domestic Thai and international audiences (Tantivejakul 2018).

The activist frame Despite the strength of the Western positivisit paradigm, this chapter presents a developing record of specific histories of campaigns for social causes, with just under half of the texts falling into this category. This is important because when historical and contemporary examples of non-corporate communications activity remain largely unnamed and unacknowledged this skews our understanding of the scope and range of the concept of public relations (Demetrious 2013). Social communications activity by individuals and organised groups outside the state and business realms such as charities, associations, activists, and trade unions play an important role in nourishing ideas and framing narratives and action for the common good. Traditionally personified as resistant stakeholders who need to be persuaded and managed, such groups might usefully be included in public relations history to understand how communications activity has been purposefully harnessed outside commerce and government. Some of the most creative and effective organisational communication is happening now in activism whose communications practitioners are often driven to inventiveness and acceptance of new communications technologies by budgetary and resource pressures (Demetrious 2013). Campaigning organisations have been able to take advantage of new media technologies such as the internet, digital recording equipment, and digital broadcasting, which provide widening access to media agendas but their accounts are under-recorded (Davis 2002). Examples of pro-active and well-supported communications campaigns include the Terrence Higgins Trust, Friends of the Earth and the UK Police Federation which have all established positive media profiles by providing consistent levels of information, research and news to journalists and, by doing so, have managed to establish themselves in media discourses as legitimate sources (Davis 2002). Demetrious (2013) is highly critical of the appropriation of liberal pluralism by public relations theory and challenges the notion that it provides all actors, including activists, voice and thereby access to power, identifying instead a ‘deep and enduring hostility to activists and the legitimate role they play in civil society’ (2013:26). Her argument is that public relations activity, with its inherent business perspective, hegemonically supports a capitalist status quo and as such can be conceived as a self-centred and politically aggressive practice. Amongst others, she cites the example of James Hardie Industries which used law suits, scientific support,

28  Public relations history re-imagined media relations, publications, and concealment of privileged information during the 70s, 80s, and 90s to systematically deconstruct counter-asbestos arguments and deligitimise activist opposition.The relationship between public relations and activism has hitherto been explored predominantly through the lens of a market-place orientation of stakeholder management, but a realigned perspective may be useful in acknowledging and facing critiques of persuasive communication and propaganda (L’Etang 2016:37). Coombs’ and Holladay (2012), for example, argue that the roots of US public relations history can actually be traced to activist communications activity, for example, during the First Reform Era in the US activists carefully planned and used a variety of media techniques of the day such as books, magazines, newspapers, public meetings and sermons to change public opinion and call for reform on a wide range of social issues. The American Temperance Society (founded in 1826) and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (founded in 1874), as well as the Anti-Saloon League of America (1895-1910) are given as historical examples of activist groups using persuasive techniques to call for reform. In addition, in 1960s and 1970s America there were a large number of activist environmental groups focusing on stopping pollution and ecocide. The groups were successful in influencing the news agenda, driving public policy reform and bringing about environmental legislation and regulation, and yet their contribution remains largely overlooked. Hoffman (2003) identifies a ‘flowering’ of social movements in pursuit of the American dream in the US during the 20th century and charts the communications pursuits of a variety of groups campaigning for healthcare reform. In 1915 the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) produced a manifesto calling for compulsory health insurance and concentrated on lobbying the health profession to support the proposals. In the 1920s the Committee on Costs of Medical Care (CCMC) used a research based approach to try to persuade stakeholders to support reform. In the 1960s the National Council of Senior Citizens was specifically formed to publicly campaign for Medicare, using petition drives, letter-writing campaigns, marches, depositions to political conferences, and the dissemination of ‘millions’ of pieces of literature to successfully secure that Medicare became part of the Social Security Act in 1965 (Hoffman 2003:76-77). Lee (2011), likewise, finds evidence of PR-like activity in the support of non-profit social organisations who learnt early on to circulate annual reports to attract new members and influence public opinion. The 1909 annual meeting of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, for example, included a session on press and publicity and in the mid-1910s the Russell Sage Foundation started a threedecade long campaign to promote the use of PR by social work agencies, including the creation of the Committee on Publicity Methods in 1920 and the publication of Publicity for Social Work in 1928 which included information on techniques such as newspaper and publication production, public speaking, information campaigns and exhibits (2011:324). Examples of environmental activism are documented in the second half of the 20th century in Canada, including successful campaigns such as the Skagit Valley in British Columbia. Here a wide range of US and Canadian environmental

Public relations history re-imagined  29 organisations used a variety of tactics in the 1960s, including a petition campaign, public events, information sessions, debates and widely covered on-location sit-ins involving songs, speeches and guided tours, to prevent the flooding of the Skagit Valley to create a hydro-electric generation dam to service Seattle (Van Huizen 2011). Across Canada, persistent and audacious campaigning through the 1980s and 1990s in a protracted ‘War of the Woods’, involved sophisticated media relations work, legal actions, and road blockades, all of which gained attention and public sympathy and led to an increase in the total area set aside as parks and protected areas from five per cent in 1980 to more than 12 per cent in 2000 (Clayton et al 2011). Much activist communications material is available, but sometimes it is presented as counter-activity to crisis management programmes. When seen from a different perspective, a history of social campaigning begins to emerge. For example, Regester and Larkin (2005) documented the failure of the petrochemical giant Shell to ‘manage’ protest over its decision to decommission the Brent Spar oilrig at sea. Presented as a failure in crisis management, the case study provides a useful record of the highly successful issues-raising public relations activity of the environmental campaigning group, Greenpeace. In 1995, Greenpeace worked to gain the support of influential politicians and administrators in Europe. Activities include writing directly to the Chairman of Shell, sending information to the media and then occupying the Brent Spar oilrig to provide photographic opportunities for international broadcast media. Carroll and Ratner (1999) document a conscious and sophisticated media strategy from Greenpeace from the 1970s onwards, involving media content (magazines, books, and video footage), cultivating friendly journalist relations and creating visually-oriented pseudo-events which entice media coverage. The organisation deliberately recruited professional activists to provide credibility such as applied scientists and professional ecologists, thus using the same third-party endorsement techniques much favoured by the corporate sector. Harter (2004) also provides a history of Greenpeace activity, but this time focusing from the viewpoint of an analysis of the organisation’s sometimes non-democratic nature and middle-class focus. Nevertheless, interesting details can be extracted which provide an insight into the organisation’s use of persuasive campaign tactics. Journalists Robert Hunter (Vancouver Sun), Ben Metcalfe (CBC) and Bob Cummings (Georgia Straight) were amongst the organisation’s founding members and took part in Greenpeace’s first campaign in 1971 against nuclear testing in the Amchitka area of Canada.Their knowledge of news processes enabled the organisation to gain significant media coverage and perhaps explains Greenpeace’s subsequent ability to apply media relations tactics to its advantage. Other techniques included using brand alliances. When Greenpeace began its second anti-whaling campaign in 1976 it sought the endorsement of the United Nations, launching a protest boat at the end of the UN’s Habitat Conference. For its 1977 prevention of seal hunting campaign, the organisation used its own Greenpeace Chronicle publication to produce persuasive propagandistic materials, making purposeful use of arresting visual imagery such as the bright red blood of baby seals contrasted by pristine white snow. The organisation recruited the support of US congressmen and also movie stars like Brigitte Bardot who was helicoptered in to provide a photo opportunity

30  Public relations history re-imagined and who also wrote for the Greenpeace Chronicle. Accounts of Greenpeace’s campaigning techniques are not always positive; it has been accused of sloganeering and generalising complex issues in order to dominate public sphere debate with a one-sided and biased view; a similar charge often laid against corporate public relations (Harter 2004). An example of activist public relations work in the UK might be the way in which since the 1984/5 miners’ strike, the majority of UK trade unions have been forced to adapt the ways in which they talk to the media. Whilst in 1976 the three largest unions, the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU), the Associated Union of Electrical Workers (AUEW), and the General Municipal Workers’ Union (GMWU) had only four press officers between them, by 2002 the average for all unions was two press officers per union (Davis 2002:126). In 1994 the Trades Union Congress (TUC) was re-launched as a ‘campaigning and public affairs’ organisation, raising its communications team from six to ten people, at a time when staffing levels overall within unions was decreasing (Davis 2002:122). The 1994 campaign by the Union of Communication Workers (UCW), to halt the then Conservative Government’s Post Office Privatisation plans, used no industrial action. Instead the UCW focused on saving public services, rather than on employee issues, and orchestrated a campaign which involved media training local representatives and providing them with campaign packs and letter-writing formats so they could galvanise the 160,000 members of the Post Office into action. Other activities included: information cards given to postmen for them to discuss with customers; a series of commissioned polls of the general public, sub-postmasters and Members of Parliaments (MP) by Gallup, Access Opinions and MORI; a financial report from London Economics; a seemingly independent ‘Protect our Postal Services’ campaign made up of charities and pressure groups; and the use of two professional consultancies to provide insider access to Westminster and the Post Office management (Davis 2002:158-164). Such histories of social movements and not-for-profit organisations are often found outside traditional public relations and communications sources and as such have been ‘hidden’ from scrutiny and inclusion by the public relations academy. On uncovering evidence of purposeful and strategic communications approaches it is possible to identify a parallel emergence of organised and structured communications activity developing alongside well-charted evidence of commercial public relations activity. Often the two ‘sides’ are seen in binary opposition in a Grunigian scale of counter-voices, each seeking to support its own agenda. As we settle into the 21st century there is an increasing convergence of these activities in a more mutually co-operative socially-oriented brand communication culture in which different ‘sides’ must co-operate if they are to gain legitimation from stakeholders.

Contesting public relations: A critical view Existing historical public relations accounts suggest that the critique of public relations has its own history, with a quarter of the texts studied for this chapter forming a counter-narrative to historic moments of professionalisation. Early academics

Public relations history re-imagined  31 often came from industry to service new degrees that primarily focused on providing skills, rather than tools for critique, and much research funding also came from industry, in particular the International Association of Business Communicators in America (Edwards 2016). The result has been a disciplinary tension between those academics who believe that the raison d’etre of PR education and research is to understand and improve practice, and others who feel that academic focus should deconstruct and challenge the industry and its impact (Edwards 2016). An emerging body of critical academic literature highlights the problematic nature of much public relations history, highlighting how promotional industries primarily serve those who employ them, predominantly big business and government ­(Davis 2013, Coombs and Holladay 2012). As early as 1960 detailed correspondence appeared in the UK IPR’s Journal, Public Relations, concerning the validity of publicity stunts and whether or not they trivialised public relations (L’Etang 2004). At the time in the UK a lunch club of influential journalists, which was set up by the celebrated reporter Nick Tomalin, chose The Society for the Discouragement of Public Relations as its title (L’Etang 2004:136). In the US, the relationship between public relations and the media was raised by Boorstin (1961) who was highly critical of pre-fabricated media stories which have the dubious ability to acquire an authenticity that competes with real events. He also critically termed the phrase pseudo-events to describe events manufactured by public relations officials which have the capacity to distort and drive the news agenda, and thereby pervade the whole American way of life (Boorstin 1992 [1961]:10-19). Habermas, who published The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in 1962, likewise criticised the way in which business activities were presented as being in the interest of public welfare, suggesting that public relations activities were perverting the public sphere (where free and wide access to diverse information and debate keeps democracy alive) by hiding commercial motives behind communications activity (Habermas 1992:193). If the public sphere facilitates the critical judgement of a public to ‘compel public authority to legitimate itself before public opinion’ (Habermas 1992:24-25), and, he argues, is an essential component of liberal democratic societies, it is possible to see why communications activities that interfere with these processes might come under criticism. For example, Logan explores the emergence of PR in the US in the late 19th century (Logan 2014), arguing that ‘the corporate voice helped shape the public’s ideological perspectives of the corporation, by creating messages that produced certain meanings about the corporation and indicated how members of the public should think about, relate to and experience the corporation’ (2014:662). Spin doctoring, negative campaigning, and the use of powerful lobbyists to manipulate policy are presented as examples of how public relations activity interface with the political process and, it is argued, thereby unduly alter the functioning of the public sphere (Somerville in Theaker 2004). The use of persuasive and propaganda techniques to support public relations activity and commercial objectives is examined in many early texts (Bernays 1928, Boorstin 1961, Lippmann 2007), with later theorists arguing that such activity is directly contrary to the rational, critical enquiry required of citizens capable of contributing to active democracy

32  Public relations history re-imagined (Moloney 2006, Miller and Dinan 2008, Habermas 1992). In the UK, Tony Blair’s communications director, Alistair Campbell, became known as New Labour’s spin doctor when he introduced a technique of pre-briefing the media. He and his team provided comprehensive journalistic source material before major policy announcements, in an attempt to manage the emphasis of media coverage and ensure the delivery of key messages (Somerville in Theaker 2004:36). The review into the documentation provided to the media by the government in September 2002 and February 2003 to justify the decision to enter the 2003 War in Iraq eventually led to intense media scrutiny of the government’s attempts to manipulate media stories and the resignation of Alistair Campbell in August 2003. BBC journalists, in particular, questioned whether the dossiers were a real representation of the views of the British Intelligence Services or whether they had been ‘sexed-up’ (Somerville in Theaker 2004:38) after it transpired that Alistair Campbell had at one point chaired a Joint Intelligence Committee. The term to ‘sex-up’ has since become synonymous with exaggeration by organisations in public relations materials. Understanding the importance of a carefully managed profile, Margaret Thatcher also relied heavily on Sir Bernard Ingham, her Chief Press Secretary for 11 years, to manage relationships using similar ‘spin-doctoring’ techniques. An ex-Guardian journalist, Sir Bernard was renowned for off-the-record briefings which provided journalists with a behind-the-scenes perspective on the issues of the day (Baines et al 2004:231). Many texts expose the workings of public relations from a critical perspective. The shift towards entertainment news and over-stretched, pressurised journalism has provided ever-widening opportunities for public relations teams to provide pre-packed news, in the form of pseudo-events (Boorstin 1961) such as surveys, events, invented institutes, pre-paid, and pre-packaged audio and video feeds and a criticism that public relations does not serve the public interest. The way working news journalists have become increasingly stretched, and casualised, has led to an increased dependency on information and stories provided by PR (Davis 2002). This leaves media audiences confused about the veracity of the information they receive, misled by grassroots lobbying campaigns which are actually controlled by the corporate interests that pay their bills (Stauber and Rampton 1995). The California Raisin Advisory Board, The Council for Tobacco Research and the Coalition for Health Insurance Choices are all presented as examples of pseudo-organisations, developed as part of public relations campaigns to undermine government regulation, industrial reform and customer choice (Davis 2013). Moloney (2006) develops this point further, agreeing that groups use persuasive techniques to voice interests and gain marginal advantage. Activities exposed in such accounts are contrary to the professional image promoted by the public relations industry, and these activities are enabled by the fact that the industry is not sufficiently regulated (Davis 2013). In 1997, Mickey was one of the first public relations theorists to use postmodern theory to critique public relations practice. Mickey uses Baudriallard’s work on simulacra as a framework for analysing the 1990 Hill & Knowlton Citizens for a Free Kuwait campaign in which 15-year old Nayriah al-Sabah’s speech to the US congress about Iraqis taking Kuwaiti babies from hospital incubators was used to

Public relations history re-imagined  33 encourage US military intervention in Kuwait. Mickey argues that the case study represents the ideological use of symbol to create a pseudo, hyperreal event that supports certain powerful views and restricts others. Public relations is thereby conceptualised by Mickey as a powerful sign-making process which needs to be critiqued. Holtzhausen (2002) argues that most existing public relations theory is developed within a modernist acceptance of a meta-narrative which sees public relations as a member of the dominant coalition within a management function, facilitating persuasive communications excellence. In contrast to this, and as a further development of Mickey’s work, Holtzhausen proposes a two-fold approach to a postmodern critique of public relations which might include 1) a deconstruction of management language and its role in promoting organisational ideology and power relations to the detriment of counter-voices; and 2) the proposal of affirmative actions that support a postmodern stance. She calls for researchers to use four specific postmodern constructs as frameworks for research: Lyotard’s (1984) and Foucault’s (1970) interpretations of the links between knowledge and power; Gramsci’s concept of hegemony; Baudrillard’s concept of hyper-reality; and Lyotard’s critique of consensus, and herself puts forward the postmodern notion of the public relations practitioner as ‘organisational activist’ (2002:256), encouraging genuine dialogue and engagement with multiple publics. Responding to this call, Radford (2011) uses Holtzhausen’s postmodern public relations principles to explore public relations as a controlling narrative function used by institutions to legitimate and fix specific versions of knowledge and truth and thereby manage culture in ways that support dominant positions. Radford effectively uses an analysis of philosophical stories to illustrate the hegemonic power of narratives, using a Foucauldian understanding of archaeologies of language to demonstrate how certain views are normalised and others marginalised. Despite many competing, and perhaps thereby postmodern, definitions of public relations practice, Radford suggests, by way of further example, that there is an underlying, undisputed narrative that public relations serves its commissioning organisation. Radford proposes that in a digital world the constant bombardment of multiple messages means that postmodern subjects have begun to question meta-narratives, leaning towards a more relativist view in which issues become a matter of perspective rather than truth and that the role of public relations practitioners should be to facilitate and encourage this incredulity to meta-narratives. The notion of hegemony can be appropriated, as demonstrated by Radford, to expose the role communications plays during different time periods in enabling activist voices or supporting dominant elites and ideologies (Heath and Xifra 2016). In doing so it can help provide a perspective that is different from organisation-centric public relations and also lead to social critique which helps support and find solutions for human social emancipation (Heath and Xifra 2016). Dhanesh (2013) also uses Holtzhausen’s framework, specifically the notion of the organisational activist, in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR) to explore the hypothesis that CSR should offer a variety of opportunities for public relations practitioners to display postmodern behaviour. Dhanesh provides some empirical evidence of Indian CSR practitioners foregrounding the voices of multiple publics,

34  Public relations history re-imagined in order to influence organisational change in specific local contexts, thus enacting ‘the postmodern conceptualization of the boundary-spanning practitioner as an organizational activist’ (2013:400-401). Dhanesh does acknowledge, however, the problem with agency, recognising that, whilst practitioners may facilitate a participatory approach, the unequal power relations in such local communities make genuine participatory and dialogical processes problematic. Benecke and Oksiutycz (2015) further explore Holtzhausen’s public relations activist concept, proposing that if public relations practice can promote change through dialogical conversations, which create a third culture through networked social exchange, then this might provide a feasible postmodern approach for public relations practice. They present Primedia Broadcast Group’s LeadSA project in South Africa as an example of a third culture model, achieved through creating platforms for dialogues and initiating conversations between different social groups. In this concept the problem of agency is tackled by the facilitation of conversations between multiple publics outside the organisation, as well as with, and within it. Holtzhausen herself revisits postmodernism in 2015 when she specifically considers public relations ethics in relation to developing theoretical discussions around postmodern public relations. Holtzhausen identifies a number of problems with national regulatory frameworks which fail to take into account the fact that practitioners’ ethical choices are often restricted by the expectations of their employers and that postmodern agency is a fragmented notion in which agents may encounter different ethical influences from their different identities (worker, mother, etc.). One of the key critiques is that national regulatory codes ‘relieve individual practitioners from their ethical responsibility’ and fail to take into a­ ccount the ‘fragmented and situational nature of ethical decision making in public relations practice’ (2015:771). Holtzhausen proposes that in order to enable multiple voices to influence organisational decision-making individual practitioners must take responsibility and an activist stance which is open to dissensus. Perhaps public relations history, therefore, might be considered less developmentally and more holistically as concurrent planes of activity occurring over time, consisting of 1) corporate and brand marketing communications, 2) hegemonic-inspired government communications and diplomacy, and 3) social activism communications. The ultimate argument and conclusion in this book is that these three planes are converging in the 21st century in a socio-political-cultural conversion in which corporate, campaigning and government organisations are all obliged to consider their physical and communications activities from a tripartite perspective of consumer, political and social issues, communicating in a truly multi-dimensional way, not just bilaterally.

3 The digital public relations turn Understanding how digital media is changing public relations practice

This chapter puts forward an argument for a ‘digital turn’ in public relations, as part of a new understanding of how public relations historiography and practice is progressing. Echoing other turns in PR history, such as the postmodern turn (Benecke and Oksiutycz 2015, Holtzhausen 2002, Mickey 1997), the chapter reflects on academic study of how digital media has changed PR, including consideration of the active consumer and the impact of digital activism. The dialogical nature of digital communications appears to have raised social consciousness among consumers, thereby elevating their role within the process of critique and evaluation of organisational reputation (Prindle 2011). Consumers have always had the ability to boycott products or services and thereby ‘exit’ from brand relationships (Hirschman 1970:9), but now they have a far greater ability to influence others directly through the use of ‘voice’ enabled by the rise of new digital media. Whilst traditional media was premised on a structure of one-to-many broadcasting, consumers now connect horizontally through peer-to-peer networking, blogging, and social media in a dialogical, rhizomatic (Hardt and Negri 2001) form of communication. As a result, the lone consumer has been empowered to respond immediately to broadcast messages and in this way has turned into the citizen marketer who has the power to create either widespread excitement or to disrupt a company’s reputation without needing the assistance of traditional media (McConnell and Huba 2007). Sophisticated internet-based PR campaigns now regularly encourage posting on video sharing and social media sites, and such activities have impacted traditional views of communication models and theories (Wright and Hinson 2008). The internet search engine company Google, for example, has embraced the notion of interactive image symbolism and plays with its own logo constantly, encouraging its users to do the same. In doing so, it is demonstrating the flexibility which is at the core of its browser offering. Google, which is positioned right at the heart of the new media industry, has grasped this concept of interactive corporate image and reputation perfectly, but others have not fared so well. Ignoring the power of instant internet communications, and 24-hour news feeds, can have disastrous consequences, as exemplified by Dell’s well documented blog-crisis (O’Connor 2008). In one of the first instances of a blogger significantly influencing the news agenda, and a corporation’s share price, US communications consultant Jeff Jarvis used his BuzzMachine blog platform to vent his anger at computer company Dell’s

36  The digital public relations turn poor customer service. His post was read by thousands and attracted the attention of national media in both the US and the UK. By the time the media reported on ‘Dell Hell’, the company share price had fallen 42%. The ability of consumers, campaigning organisations, and disgruntled employees, to use digital media to expose the truth about organisations and their working practices is a real issue for reputation management. Digital-based media content can lead to discrepancies in information, which in turn can bring about a loss of confidence and trust in organisations. As well as a reputational threat, however, this also provides communications professionals with an opportunity to put public relations at the heart of corporate governance, stakeholder relationships, reputation promotion, and issues management (Phillips and Young 2009). Many different types of organisation have been able to take advantage of new media technologies such as the internet, digital recording equipment, and digital broadcasting, which provide widening access to media agendas (Davis 2002). Activist groups, for example, have grasped the creative and emotive power of digital media (Duncombe 2007:22), exemplified by Greenpeace’s continuing use of engaging visual stunts, such as its successful halting of Shell’s plans for the Brent Spar Oil Rig, with tiny boats pictured on huge waves protecting the massive oil rig from being dumped out at sea. In addition to this, the growing use of voice by consumers, enabled by 24-hour, intra-global electronic communications, instead of taking ones business quietly elsewhere (Duncombe 2007), has required organisations to develop strategies for anticipating, responding to and managing potential reputational crises. Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) four models of public relations were discussed in the historical chapter and whilst much contemporary academic debate has centred on the fact that the symmetrical model is ideal and rarely seen in practice, it does introduce a dialogical notion to considerations of public relations and brand reputation management practice. James Grunig and L.A. Grunig revisited the models in 1992 after much research suggested that in practice organisations seemed to use many of the models together (Grunig et al 1995). Their focus was on the nature of public relations and persuasion, arguing that the fundamental premise of public relations practice should be responsible and responsive exchange of information (Grunig 1992). Both management and psychological studies suggest that notions such as moral judgement, negotiation, and conflict resolution are useful in philosophizing the nature of such communications exchanges (Grunig 1992). Within this context, the models of PR were reconceptualised as points on two continua (Grunig et al 1995). A craft continuum was proposed with propagandistic press agentry on one side, and journalistic public information on the other, whilst a professional continuum included the two-way models, putting PR based on asymmetrical purposes such as persuasion on one side, and collaborative symmetrical PR on the other. This latter model is described as mixed motive public relations, recognizing that PR practitioners often serve simultaneously as advocates for their own organisations as well as mediators between the organisation and a range of strategic publics (1995:170). In contrast to this philosophical approach to PR as grounded in negotiation, Moloney (2006) makes a case for the conception of public relations as an active

The digital public relations turn  37 persuasion industry which he calls weak propaganda (2006:41). The notion of weak or grey propaganda is situated between Jowett and O’Donnell’s definitions of white propaganda, in which the source is clear and information accurate, and black propaganda which is inherently deceptive. In this understanding of public relations as weak propaganda, the practice is seen as a discipline which intends to use powerful persuasive techniques and manipulative messages in order to achieve compliance. What is more contentious is whether that intention is actually achieved. Moloney argues that whilst public relations activity may aim to ‘manufacture consent’, often hiding the vested interests of governments or big business, there is evidence to suggest that many audiences are able to recognise propaganda and synthesise or reject it (2006:67). Moloney also rejects the popular association of contemporary public relations activity with Grunig’s fourth symmetrical model of PR, urging academics and practitioners alike to accept that PR is based on competitive persuasive messaging with both public good and private advantage as outcomes. This is in significant contrast to Boorstin (1992), writing nearly half a century earlier, whose 1961 guide to ‘pseudo-events’ identified the intended and actual power of persuasive public relations activities and events. Boorstin contends that the creation of reportable events gives the public relations practitioner the power to make experiences, arguing that manufactured events overshadow spontaneous events because they are planned for convenience and are more dramatic, vivid, costly, and repeatable. He is thus uncritical of the effectiveness of such activities, but does raise the need to be conscious and aware of the processes and the potentially damaging impact of cultural mirages. He highlights how corporate images (brands) are deliberately designed to be the ‘more important reality’ (1992:189), in which the emphasis is on credibility rather than truth. For Boorstin the consumer is bewildered, and suffering from social narcissism (1992:257). Taken in by pseudo activities, Boorstin’s cultural dupes cannot distinguish fact or fantasy. For them ‘the image becomes the thing. Its very purpose is to overshadow reality’ (1992:197). Like Moloney (2006), Theunissen and Noordin (2012) also critique an idealised notion of a systems perspective, and symmetrical public relations, highlighting how dialogue has been uncritically equated to two-way symmetrical communication. Theunissen and Noordin use Buber’s concept of dialogue, which is based on the premise of reciprocity, and thus requires predetermined outcomes to be set aside. They theorise that this rarely happens in public relations, where a mixed motive approach means that dialogue still effectively occurs within a framework of focused persuasion (2012:7). Here dialogue is understood as a process, not an outcome. It is a dynamic interaction which may lead to cognitive, affective, or conative changes on both sides. Stakeholders are understood as active and aware participants and therefore not simply audiences targeted, and affected, by a specific messages. Such a view challenges a normative public relations understanding of organisational reputation and brand as fixed, and instead moves closer to a fluid view of brands and reputation, where individualised dialogical interactions lead to individualised perceptions and experiences of what a brand actually means to a user. The advent of digital and social media has received a particularly positivist reception from the public relations industry due to the possibilities afforded for fast, cheap, and interactive

38  The digital public relations turn direct communication and relationship building with publics (Huang et al 2017, Valentini 2015). Growing scholarly interest has tended to take a technologicaldeterminist stance, highlighting the positive opportunities to use dialogical social media in organisational communications.There has been a particular research focus on two-way communication, dialogicity and interactivity from an organisational perspective with less scrutiny given to user perspectives (Huang et al 2017) or critique of intrusive one-way broadcast use of social media (Valentini 2015). One area of focus is how the public relations practitioner as publisher carries a range of additional ethical responsibilities, particularly in terms of transparency and openness (Phillips and Young 2009). Astro-turfing (creating a website or social media platform that acts as a front for hidden organisations), or ghost-writing consumer content, are cited critically as a couple of examples of practitioner generated content that hides intent and purpose. Traditional practices such as the writing of content by public relations practitioners on behalf of senior organisational leaders can be seen as problematically lacking transparency in the ‘unofficial open environment of social media’, with practitioners expressing discomfort with the inauthentic notion of pretending to be someone else (Toledano and Avidar 2016:166). Issues also arise from user-generated content such as inflammatory, racial or libellous comments. Monitoring organisational sites implies approval in the eyes of the law, and so failure to respond or delete illegal comments may actually be illegal, and certainly creates reputational issues. An additional reputational challenge is porosity – the lack of control of organisational communications and messaging when employees are empowered to tweet, email, and blog on behalf of the organisation in an unmonitored way (Phillips and Young 2009). The rise of social media and web-enabled communications has increasingly led to the use of direct communications techniques which enable practitioners to bypass media scrutiny (Watson 2017:4), but a counter view to this is the idea that social media exposes organisations very quickly to public scrutiny enabled by anonymous and immediate social media commentary, and this has encouraged management to seek more help from communications experts (Toledano and Avidar 2016:166).

Uses of digital and social media in PR practice The use of digital and social media communications techniques within public relations campaigns has continued to increase on an annual basis, bringing a dramatic change to the nature and scope of organisational communications for both internal and external audiences (Wright and Hinson 2017). Public relations and communications departments are responsible for managing and monitoring social and emerging media communications in the majority of organisations, whilst others have set up specific digital and/or social media departments. A study of over 4000 PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) practitioners, identified extensive use of Facebook and Twitter for example (Wright and Hinson 2017). Strategically, the planning of organisational social media communications requires a focus on creating and maintaining trust through listening to the conversation marketplace, as well as pushing voice into it. This in turn requires complex and deep processes of

The digital public relations turn  39 setting communications objectives, measuring key words and influence, and analysing results using available internet search software to map web-based reputation and develop a web presence strategy (Charest et al 2016). Practitioners who are planning social media communications talk of customizing content for different platforms, creating an editorial calendar, being prepared to react to the vagaries of current events, and specific targeting of influencers, but the level of truly interactive content is often limited to requesting retweets and answers to questions and opinion polls. In practice early-career junior public relations practitioners tend to be the predominant executors of social media tasks mainly because of the time-consuming nature of social media work and the relative lower billing rates or costs of more junior employees (Lee et al 2015). Sweetser and Kelleher (2011) used a Twitter survey of US PR leaders to establish a connection between motivation and effectiveness in the use of social media in PR practice. The survey found that motivation matters, and that those practitioners who achieved successful social media interactions were more internally motivated to engage with digital environments (2011:428). Neill and Moody (2015) similarly researched mid- to senior-US PR practitioners to gain perceptions on how their roles to have changed. This led to the identification of nine strategic roles for the management of social media: policy maker, technology tester, communications organiser, issues manager, relationship analyser, master of metrics, employee recruiter, policing, and internal collaborator. The research highlighted the emerging requirement for a digital ‘policing’ role and the need for close working relationships between different organisational departments in order to develop social media policies and empower all employees to help protect brand reputations. This in turn has led to an increase in influence and power for public relations practitioners within organisation management, because of their role in online reputation promotion and protection (Neill and Moody 2015). The enabling of interactive communications via social media is another emerging research topic in the public relations field. Studies have looked at how best to maximise such communications through relationship building, highlighting the way in which interactivity has emerged as a dominant theme (Saffer et al 2013). Studies have found that the audiences had better perceptions of the organisation-public relationships when organisations were more interactive with their corporate social media accounts, suggesting that more time and resource should be allocated to maintaining two-way digital and social media communications. Interactivity itself has been classified by Sundar, Kalyanaraman, and Brown as having two fundamental components: functional and contingency where functional interactivity includes the features found on a site that allow users to interact in a number of modes, whilst contingency interactivity occurs when users’ roles are interchangeable and different ‘interactants’ respond to one another (Saffer et al 2013). In an early exploration of the impact of the web on marketing and communications theory Hoffman and Novak (1996) built on Steuer’s Communications Technology model to propose a new model for hypermedia computer-mediated environments in which interactivity is not restricted to the domain of interpersonal relationships, but is also with the medium and through the medium (1996:53). Here the primary relationship is with the mediated environment, rather than between sender and receiver. Hoffman and

40  The digital public relations turn Novak also focus on flow, a notion they expand on from Csikszentmilhalyi, where consumers lose themselves in the fun of the navigation experience, experiencing a gratifying loss of self-consciousness. Flow is most likely to result from experiential or goal driven activities and motives, and this, Hoffman and Novak suggest should warn communications specialists to avoid using marketing approaches which assume a passive and captive consumer. Instead communicators should consider carefully how they construct experiential web-based marketing material. An important way to gain trust and encourage participation in web-based exchange is to aim for a co-operative interaction between an online business and its consumers, in which data might be used to the benefit of both by allowing retailers, for example, to target individualised product ideas. This exemplifies Berry’s (2011) riparian concept of continued interactive, creative data exchange, which in this case leads to a mutually beneficial inter-relationship between provider and consumer. The new digital media environment is completely changing the active persuasion industries, and the nature of persuasion, which has now increased in complexity, with blurred lines between information, entertainment, and influence (Perloff 2014). Brand and reputation managers are now dealing with a world of endless two-way communication and sender-receiver interactions in which the democratisation of persuasive discourse has muddied the boundaries between persuader and persaudee and new digital marketing techniques are being used in a number of ways to engage brand users. One of the earliest examples was the release of an online game and sport community entitled ‘Beat Rugby’ in 2000 for Adidas’s sponsorship of the New Zealand Rugby team. The website included chatrooms, a branded sporting cyber community, and a 3-month online rugby tournament which aimed to capture and bring to life the power and mystique of the All Blacks brand. The project successfully created a hyperreal experience through a simulated technosocial reality which empowered a complex virtual togetherness; however, there were issues with unwelcome or embarrassing comments that threatened to jeopardise Adidas’s marketing goals, thus highlighting the double-edged nature of social media opportunities (Scherer 2007). A key challenge for corporate digital communications is to find an appropriate voice and tone. Content production has become increasingly professionalised involving tailored messages, the creation of online experiences and the gathering of data to inform reputation management and product development (Valentini 2015), but all this must resonate with users in order to be effective. A study of the official tourist destination Facebook pages for Mexico and Brazil indicated that both destinations communicated distinctive brand personalities on their official Facebook pages, but whilst Mexico’s friends used brand traits in their responses, Brazil’s friends did not (De Moya and Jain 2013). This might suggest that those responding to the Brazil Facebook page did not recognise those traits as authentic to their subsequent or expected experience, and points potentially to dissonance between the country’s idea of its own brand image and the view of outside stakeholders. New media methods seem to be enabling a new type of media engagement in which social media are allowing organisations to engage directly with stakeholders, involving both citizens and journalists in dialogical communications, rather than

The digital public relations turn  41 relying on traditional media relations techniques (Yang and Kent 2014). For nonfor-profit organisations a correlation has been found between the total number of digital platforms provided by the organisation, and the number of individual engagements, suggesting that it pays to take a multi-platform approach in which content is shared across different types of digital and social media channels, signposted clearly from a central website (Sembor and Mohammed-Baksh 2017). This of course, requires investment in dedicated resources to produce innovative and focused social media content. Research shows, however, that whilst mainstream media coverage correlates to social media visibility for Fortune 500 companies, interactive social media use did not seem to impact traditional media visibility (Yang and Kent 2014) so public relations professionals still need to focus on media relations skills, as well as new digital media techniques (2014:564). European public relations practitioners still consider dealing with print media as their most important communications channel, followed secondly by online communication in general (Verhoeven et al 2012). However, they do predict many changes, such as the rising importance of content, the increasing value of online communities, the development of increasingly complex and useful digital media measurement techniques, an increased reputation management challenge, particularly from employees using social media, and the need for defined social and digital media policies (2012:164). This change is seen as fundamental by Lipschultz (2018) who believes that previously strong news media gatekeepers have now been weakened. Forward-thinking public relations agencies, like Edelman PR, have set up their own digital newsrooms, staffed by ex-journalists, creating news-reactive creative storyline content for brand clients, which is sent simultaneously to traditional journalists and directly to social media friends and fans. Data analytics are used in these environments to avoid spam and ensure close targeting, and rich content such as video, audio, photography, infographics, and links are provided via interactive web-based platforms. There is so much content, however, being created for social media and traditional media spaces that it is difficult to break through the noise. Successful content must be timely, engaging and newsworthy in the best story-telling tradition. In addition to story-telling content, powerful social media influencers are targeted with relevant and timely content or alternatively, CEOs or other leaders are encouraged into populating brand created thought-leadership social media platforms to exert their own influence on the social brandscape. This is the approach used effectively by US President Trump, who speaks directly in his blunt and controversial style to his social media followers, provoking strong opinions and wide sharing amongst social media networks (Lipschultz 2018). A variety of factors underpin typically successful social media campaigns: use of photography, audio, audio-visual and graphics; content which is easily-visible and configured for mobile media use; timely content updated in real-time from events and other news items/credible sources; stories which encourage and facilitate discussion and debate; and the intelligent application of social media tools such as dashboards which synthesise material and allowed time-release of posts in addition to analytical software to track visibility and influence. Clever and successful practitioners are amending techniques as and when new social media platforms emerge, such as the way Snapchat has changed

42  The digital public relations turn photo-messaging into media story-telling.The ability to respond appropriately, and quickly, to emerging brand conversations, whether good or bad, is presented as an essential component of effective online brand reputation management. Lipschultz highlights that in the main social media branding and marketing relies very heavily on entertainment and this notion is supported by Halliday (2016) who found that most young people are driven to engage in brand content by boredom.

Co-creation and the prosumer One of the most significant changes to professional organisational communications is the way in which digitalisation has fostered new practices and engendered new cultural forms based on participation and interaction. Human communication and interpersonal skills are important antecedents of modern public relations (Russell and Lamme 2016) and in the 21st century the focus on individual branding and image management has brought personal communications and personal branding once more to the fore. Everyone is an image manager, using public relations skills and techniques to his or her advantage. The loss of traditional sources of ­identity, along with the dominance of image in everyday life, leads to behaviours that use image to affirm individual authentic selves alongside desired collective identities, and often these are connected to brands, branded spaces, and brand activities (Beverland 2009). Personal identity is now configured online as well as face-to-face, often involving a recognised belonging to specific virtual groupings (Valentini 2015). This is leading to a convergence of individual and organisational public relations, but genuine two-way communications will only exist if there is a dynamic and interactive flow of communications in which users, as well as organisations, create and share content. In a study of university students, Halliday (2016) found that this self-identification process was more individualistic than group oriented. Individuals are using their online surfing and content creation activities as part of a process of selfaffirmation, in which resources (including brand resources) are used and re-used as part of a personal project of exploring identity and achieving life goals. Young people are using and exploring branded content to create meaning for themselves, beyond their lives as consumers, and as such the user-generated-content process has a cultural as well as a market context. Trust and credibility is endowed upon peer-to-peer virtual networks, rather than brand sources, and thus distorts and upsets the traditional power of brand users. The individualistic nature of this content generation activity is a challenge for organisations seeking to create useful, interactive brand communities (Halliday 2016). Nevertheless, there is recognition that this two-way communications which links identity, and the co-creation of brand values, leads to a greater self-connection to brands (Chatzipanagiotou et al 2016), as stakeholders’ inner experiences interpenetrate brand marketing materials (Hatch 2012). Key targets for the co-creation process are often social media influencers who add value to products and services by participating in engaged community conversations as experts. They also exert powerful influence on decision-making processes (Charest et al 2016). All this has led to the development of notions of the

The digital public relations turn  43 prosumer, premised on an understanding of the participatory nature of culture and a sense of agency in relation to the understanding of consumer motivations (Powell 2013). Organisations are pro-actively using digital platforms to connect users and brands experientially across multiple devices and channels, in which consumers become co-creators in the brand value creation process. Here consumers are seen as resources whose experience of brands and products through digital environments adds to the development of the brand itself through a joint-agency creative process. Digital brand environments can thus be seen as purposefully designed ‘agencial assemblages’, which enable stakeholders and brand managers to co-determine the nature and direction of brand experiences (Ramaswamy and Ozcan 2016). Contemporary examples include MyStarbucksIdea, a micro website which not only encourages users to post ideas for future products and brand experiences, but then engages them in a community of feedback and exchange to explore the development of ideas (Ramaswamy and Ozcan 2016), and Walkers Crisps UK which has run a decade long interactive campaign to encourage consumers to devise and vote for new crisp varieties such as the 2018 regional crisps promotion. These kinds of programmes only work, however, if they provide people with desirable and meaningful experiences through visualisation and dialogue. A good example of this is the NikePlus app which provides running data, but also connections with running buddies, data sharing and running challenge formats via a smartphone or Apple phone, thus integrating off-line and on-line brand experiences in a socially creative and interactive way (Ramaswamy and Ozcan 2016). Liu, Burns and Hou (2016) looked at 1.7 million user-generated branded tweets to identify specific trends in co-created content. Negative brand content outweighs positive branded content by three to one, clearly evidencing the need for fast and effective strategies for managing online reputation. Brand-related tweets tend to be emotional in nature and focus predominantly on product, service, promotions, competitors and news. Understanding the nature of engagements can be highly valuable for brand managers, particularly the development of strategies to harness the excitement users often express when they are happy with products or services, or find promotions and offers that appeal to them (Liu et al 2016). Consumer empowerment, such as the cases described above, is blurring the distinction between producers and consumers toward collaborative, participatory consumption which becomes part of self-expression processes (Verwey 2015). Brands have traditionally provided users with expressive identity cues, often described as conspicuous consumption, but that dynamic is changing. The facilitation of more frequent interaction, and enriched customer experiences, has fuelled collaborative consumption via communities of affinity with a shared experience [or brand]. This new brandscape, or open-source branding, is characterised by a loss of control and may lead to power struggles between user and marketer authors. It is dominated by consumers who are seeking brands committed to creating shared value for their customers, but also society at large. For modern users of digital media ‘the cultural landscape is a seamless continuum from high to low, with commercial and amateur content competing equally for …attention’ (Anderson 2006:3).The growing rise in consumer productivity, manifested in viral, guerrilla and stealth marketing techniques, all aimed at

44  The digital public relations turn engaging consumer involvement, suggests that the internet is an ‘arena for both the production and the consumption of branded content’ and as such brands ‘embody the cross-mediality that marks informational capital in general’ (Arvidsson 2006). Digital public relations and digitally-enabled brand communications thereby arguably require a sea-change in reputation management approaches. Openness to brand co-creation engagement requires a participatory approach from organisations in relation to brand governance which allows brands to co-evolve with stakeholders and users over time (Ramaswamy and Ozcan 2016). This is a notion that goes beyond customer interaction experience and allows customers to truly influence brand development and representation. To achieve this, openness to accepting a multi-sided, multi-stakeholder creative process is required, rather than one-way brand management fuelled by feedback. Brand managers who have previously functioned from the perspective of a control-centric mind-set have had to undertake a complete re-orientation of brand management in order to ‘let-go’ (Wider et al 2018:303) and accept a re-conceptualisation of their brands as complex, dynamic and processual, involved in an on-going engagement with consumer-generated interventions. This means that brand-user communications requires spontaneity in which interaction emerges as a key constituting driver of continuous change. Also key is that brand managers understand the nature of this interaction, which must evolve from a user-centric perspective, providing ‘spheres of sociability’ in which users are encouraged and supported to creatively interpret and re-imagine the brand (Wider et al 2018). The loss of managerial control happens inside as well as outside the organisation. Employees, as well as a variety of outside stakeholders, play an important part in the brand co-creation process in a digital age, suggesting that internal communications has an almost equally important role to play as external marketing and stakeholder communications. As customer satisfaction can be dependent on a single employee interaction, so the importance of pro-active communications to facilitate employees to act as brand ambassadors intensifies (Iglesias and Bonet 2012).The porosity of organisations due to digital media can be challenging, but these media also provide huge opportunities for producing engaging and effective internal communications strategies as well, which can be used to persuade employees to behave in a way which is consistent with the values of the brand (2012:260). Earl and Waddington (2012) suggest that the notion of loss of control is a misnomer and that organisations have never really been in control of reputations, which have traditionally been highly influenced by external factors and actors, particularly influential news journalists and outlets. The key difference, as they see it, is the speed at which information spreads today in our complex online and off-line media environment and the resulting speed at which influence is created. Integrity, credibility and transparency have become increasingly vital to good reputation in a world where influential messages can be shared quickly with millions of people and, what is more, these online messages impact in a powerful and direct way which mimics the power of word-of-worth communications. Earl and Waddington also argue that brand communications is going through a period of ‘disintermediation’ in which traditional gatekeepers can be bypassed in favour of direct

The digital public relations turn  45 communications, facilitated by social media. Whilst brands may not be able to control reputation, they can still take command. Marketers can use sophisticated social media monitoring (and common sense) to be sensitive to the conversational tone, direction and group dynamics of the discussions involving their brands. Having listened sensitively, brands can take part by responding appropriately or creating relevant and newsworthy content, which is not simply self-serving, but instead provides useful, stimulating or entertaining content, suitable for both journalistic influencers and brand followers alike. Generally this will require training, authorizing and enabling a wide range of employees, both inside and outside of traditional public relations and marketing departments, to be able to engage purposively and instantaneously with a wide range of stakeholders in the online media environment. Going forward, communications will need to be the ‘operational oxygen’ of organisations. To facilitate this, organisations will need a Reputation Content Plan which combines a long-term strategy for building reputation, supported by specific details of content campaigns which can engage audiences and influencers, and which communicate in a transparent and honest way, avoiding outright propaganda (Earl and Waddington 2012). Editorial influence on reputation is fast and complex in the digital age. In a world of multi-way online conversations, brand discussion generated outside the brand can often have more influence than the brand’s own content and failure to engage puts organisations at risk of seeming dismissive (Earl and Waddington 2012). Brands therefore need to be prepared to take part, starting with the production of rich, branded editorial material, including audio-visual, interactive and hyperlinked content. They should create and nurture conversation through a mind-set shift which embraces transparent, clear, human and sensitive narratives, and be prepared to give employees the freedom and trained capability to deviate from the corporate script within accepted boundaries. Organisations also need to use the wide range of available software tools to monitor their brand on the wider webscape in order to identify those net-based individuals with most influence on brands and to be alert to potential brand dissatisfaction. Social media has the potential to magnify and perpetuate emerging and crisis issues at breakneck speed, facilitating wide involvement in crisis issues beyond traditional media. To combat and make the most of the opportunities that the significant digital changes present, public relations professionals and teams are now required to become publishers rather than communications conduits, creating and telling authentic stories on behalf of organisations in a way which is familiar and friendly whilst still retaining a relevant corporate persona.

4 Communicating the projective organisation Public relations and digital organisational forms

21st century brands are not just using digital media and technology as communication tools, instead the enabling functions of digital technology are having a fundamental impact on organisational form. Many new organisations exist solely in an online format, and traditional organisational structures and models are being challenged and changed in response to new and different digital opportunities and challenges. This is a fundamental, structural shift, which has significant implications for the relationship between organisations and stakeholders, and which goes beyond the use of digitally enabled communications techniques to influence, engage and interact. This chapter builds on Boltanski and Chiapello’s (2007) notion of a profoundly new organisational type – the projective city – and considers the public relations ­activities and challenges of organisations which have embraced the digital world, to understand how online and projective brands are developing their sense of corporate character and narrative in a way which is authentic to stakeholders.

The projective organisation Based on comparative research into management discourse in the 1960s and the 1990s, Boltanski and Chiapello articulate the emergence of a profoundly new organisational type – the projective city. The projective city is based on the notion of a project understood as ‘a mass of active connections apt to create forms – that is to say, bring objects and subjects into existence – by stabilizing certain connections and making them irreversible’ (2007:105). A project is a nodal point in a networked world, connecting the proliferation of geographically, culturally, and socially distant encounters and temporary connections. This mediating activity is the foundation of the projective city, in which status is measured by network-extending activity and successful connections which facilitate the exchange of information capital. Boltanski and Chiapello’s (2007) model of the firm as a network involves new and distinct characteristics: a distance from hierarchical principles, respect for individual liberties, the use of rapid technological change to facilitate networked working, flexibility and inventiveness, blurred boundaries due to contracted-out activities and services, control by customers and self-motivated workers, and a focus on the importance of information as a route to productivity and profit. Such organisations are lean. They work as networks, bringing together a multitude of participants and

Communicating the projective organisation  47 work is organised through teams or projects. Network organisations are intent on providing good customer satisfaction, and rely on a strong leadership vision to mobilise workers effectively. The new network structures pose particular challenges for professionals attempting to manage organisational reputations in that there is an increasing likelihood of porosity of information. Communications emanating from an organisation are harder to control because individual staff, contractors, and partners have access to 24-hour networked communications systems. In addition, external stakeholders, who also have access to these systems, have a heightened ability to be able to communicate with a variety of access points to the organisation and are thereby better able to use voice as a mechanism for raising concerns. As well as these structural challenges around the nature of communications, there are a couple of additional critical points when considering the implication of this type of networked, projectbased organisation for brand and reputation management. Boltanski and Chiapello (2007) highlight two significant changes to organisational management in the 1990s: 1) the need for a visionary leader to motivate efficiency and commitment in workers (who are now working at a distance, uncoupled from a strictly hierarchical management system, and may not even be salaried employees); and 2) the externalisation of control to autonomous workers, or sections of a business, and to customers. In an era where the critical views of internal and external stakeholders are an important element in enforcing organisational control and driving organisational strategy, then understanding and being able to respond to that critique becomes extremely important. Likewise, if vision is an important element of being able to implement the strategy developed from market-based control, then being able to create and articulate a vision appropriate for the organisation also becomes imperative. It is interesting to note that the discourse of corporate identity management of the time also covers this sense of vision. Van Riel developed the concept of a central ‘vision’ in his notion of Common Starting Points which he considered to be the central values which provide ‘the basis for undertaking any kinds of communication envisaged by an organisation’ (Van Riel 1995:19). In the same year Olins argued that all organisations should have a ‘Central Idea’, or vision, of ‘what the organisation is about, what it stands for, what it believes in’ (Olins 1995:10). The global conglomerate organisation Virgin provides an excellent example of visionary leadership. Virgin’s founder and chief executive officer, Richard Branson, is an important manifestation of the Virgin brand, driving brand activity forward through the projection and materialisation of his own strong, energetic, and entrepreneurial personality. On the virgin.com home page, access to Branson’s Richard blog, and his picture, are given equal prominence as the opportunity to find information about Virgin companies (Virgin 2019). The subjects that Branson contemplates – the environment, his own adventures, his sporting achievements, his organisation’s innovations – provide narrative exemplification of the organisation’s brand values. What is interesting to note from the Virgin example is the way in which Branson’s projected personality serves a function of building trust between the organisation and its workers, as well as with outside stakeholders and brand users. In a networked organisation, and networked world, trust has a unifying

48  Communicating the projective organisation function (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007), uniting team members, but also uniting brands and their users. In the case of the Virgin brand, users are encouraged to trust in Branson’s vision for the future as being a worthy one for the whole organisation, but also in its role in serving a purpose to the benefit of a wider social good. In projective organisations personal fulfilment of workers is connected to the effective participation in a multitude of projects, which liberate flexibility and creativity in the individual worker (the artistic critique), whilst also providing an opportunity to network with potential providers of new projects. According to Boltanski and Chiapello’s (2007) study of management literature, this is a marked change from previous industrial structures which offered workers longevity of service and security of wages. Indeed, as Maslow argues in his Hierarchy of Needs, concepts of self-actualisation and esteem have become more important than the satisfaction of physiological and security needs, suggesting that the intangible benefits of workplace fulfilment for workers or brand associations for brand users can be just as important to users as the physical properties or experience of a product or workplace. Maslow recognised that once individuals satisfied basic physiological needs, they may seek to satisfy social needs. His conceptual model of a hierarchy of needs proposes a motivation system which requires physiological and security needs to be satisfied first, but then suggests that people seek to satisfy needs for love, esteem, and ultimately self-actualisation, a form of inner satisfaction in which a person’s potential is fulfilled (Palmer 2004:91-92). This is a notion that Liu (2004) has explored through his concept of ‘cool’, in which objects are associated with a particular cultural or material superstructure through the use of an assemblage of actors and communications activities. The way in which a networked project, or organisation, constructs immutable mobiles, creating material carriers which do not change as different actors engage and disengage with the network may provide us with a vocabulary and conceptual system for understanding the nature of online brands, which must also be dynamic but stable at the same time. Boltanski and Chiapello’s (2007) concept of the projective city being ‘founded on the mediating activity employed in the creation of networks’ (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007:107) is similar in principle to the way in which brands are understood to build bridges and make connections with users through words (Simmons 2006), communications (Olins 1995), ­relationship building (Duncan 2005), or subjective emotional appeal (Palmer 2004). Lury takes this notion of the connectivity of brands one stage further, conceiving the brand as an assemblage taking on the form of a new logic of space, as an abstract, ‘optimizing object’ that is not simply a social construction, but which ‘plays a part in the production of itself ’, uniting the social, technical, and formal, and thus ‘assembling culture’ (Lury 2009: 67-78). Moor also focuses on the perfomative nature of branding, arguing that branding involves the formulation of abstractions in a performative way because it is ‘contributed in large part through its own practical enactment’ (Moor 2007:9). Linked to these concepts is the growing trend for experiential marketing of brands which, in contrast to the traditional marketing paradigm, where customer satisfaction is key, puts emotional attachment as the primary motivation (McCole 2004). Perhaps the effectiveness of experiential

Communicating the projective organisation  49 events has a different, as yet unexplored, nexus of success. In network worlds people are endeavouring to build their portfolios, looking to grow and connect, seeking profitable network partnerships. It could be that experiential brand connections satisfy this complex new function. In the projective world brands may increasingly have a role to play in providing connective engagement, where the connection is less emotional and more about opening up network opportunities in which both the actor and the brand move and develop as one. Participation in such events is thus rational, rather than emotional. Red Bull, for example, offers a wide range of participation opportunities on its website across a number of activity sectors such as music, gaming, participation events and Red Bull sponsored professional competitions, such as Red Bull Crushed Ice speed skating (Red Bull 2018). The home page tabs invite the viewer to watch live events and browse a wide range of athlete stories, plus music and adventure action videos through its Red Bull TV channels. Using traditional brand theory, it might be argued that what Red Bull is doing is manifesting its brand through behaviour, exemplifying Olins’ (1995) proposition that brands physically present themselves through either products/services, environments, communications, or behaviour, with one of these factors being dominant over the others. But in the case of Red Bull, this behaviour, whilst unquestionably exemplifying the energetic central qualities of the brand, also provides users with social engagement opportunities, in which they are developing their own projective sense of who they are, as well as engaging in an interactive network connection with Red Bull. Presumably they may drink a can of the energy drink whilst they are there as well, thus fulfilling the brand’s economic objectives. In the competitive environment of online retailing the requirement to build a brand which can attract new customers whilst maintaining loyalty is paramount. This requires two specific sets of activities; initiating trust to encourage online ­engagement with the brand; and the development of stable relationships which will engender loyalty, and thus profitability (Wang et al 2004). Building trust in an online environment is complex and particularly challenging because online environments can carry more perceived risks, and trust must be won before users engage in online transactions. Traditional notions of trust in relation to customer purchasing focus on experiential elements of purchase and product satisfaction, but this experiencebased emotional transaction is not initially available for online retailers. From an analysis of 50 online shopping sites, Wang et al develop a notion of ‘cue-based trust’ which is generated during an individual’s initial encounter with an online stimulus and is based on informational cues. They found that trust could be generated through the use of five universal cues: seals of approval, return policy, security disclosures, privacy disclosures, and awards from neutral sources. With s­ecurity and privacy risks being significant trust barriers for online consumers, the study found that awards from neutral sources were particularly powerful in ­reassuring consumers and helping to build trust, which in turn led to a willingness to share financial date for purchase and personal data for shipping (Wang et al 2004). A study of generation Y (millennials) and their experience of using online hotel booking facilities also links trust with legitimisation strategies, identifying specific brand-legitimisation features unique to the online environment (Bilgihan 2016).

50  Communicating the projective organisation Experience has become an important part of the online shopping experience, and evidence suggests that when site users become lost in the immersive pleasurable experience of using websites, a concept identified as ‘flow’ by Huang in 2003, it increases their feelings of loyalty and trust to that brand. Whilst trust is engendered through utilitarian features such as price comparison features, updated information, reviews, and user-friendliness, users also want to be entertained along the way and, if done effectively, this can increase learning about the brand and strengthen brand association. Perhaps unsurprisingly, users researching and booking hotel rooms online seek reassurance from signals such as TripAdvisor scores, certificates of excellence, price guarantees, and integrated user reviews, but less obvious is evidence that users who enjoy their experience of engaging with an attractive and engaging website, or online social media platform, are more likely to purchase from it and more likely to return. Features such as virtual tours and creative design were found to be highly impactful in encouraging online hotel booking. This suggests that public relations practitioners need to remember that websites and virtual environments are the communication bridges between brands and consumers, and that creating a positive online customer experience can be an effective method for developing trust and facilitating e-loyalty. Professionals involved in regenerating site content, and creating content for web based platforms and social media, should focus on fun and playfulness, as well as informational narratives, embracing a bi-dimensional a­pproach which is constructed of both hedonic and utilitarian components (Bilgihan 2016). Research such as this is revealing that online shopping involves a complex decision-making process during which brand and product users navigate uncertainty and risk taking (Hsu et al 2013). Questions of trust and legitimisation are therefore intensified in these online retail environments. To overcome this, potential consumers will look at brand-constructed communications, but they will also seek information and guidance from the wider web environment. Understanding this web of information-seeking activity is an important factor in understanding the reputational and brand-building issues facing web-based organisations. Public relations practitioners have been used to focusing on opinion formers as a useful mechanism for gaining organisational and brand credibility from recognised outside experts, and stakeholder communications has traditionally focused on identifying a range of stakeholders who can influence attitudes towards organisational reputation, supported by well-targeted public relations communications material. The challenge for public relations professionals representing online organisations is to usefully transfer that activity into the online environment. One avenue for study in this area has been an attempt to understand the impact and potential usefulness of bloggers to online organisations. Hsu et al (2013) found that blogging has developed into one of the most popular forums for recording and discussing ideas and opinions, particularly in relation to products and brands. The recommendations of users on blogging platforms is being used as a source of reliable and useful information, and has similar effects to word of mouth recommendations. It is important, therefore for public relations practitioners to understand and engage not only in effective and compelling twoway brand communications between the organisation and users, but to understand

Communicating the projective organisation  51 that interactive two-way, influential communications about the brand is happening outside the brand in the virtual environment as well. In an effort to reduce risk and uncertainty during the online search and buying process, consumers are using blogs as an alternative information channel. Public relations practice has previously provided this type of independent brand verification through targeted communications aimed at influential opinion formers. Whilst this was traditionally achieved through media relations aimed at journalists, and direct communications with other influential stakeholders, online influencers are now an important source of ­knowledge-based trust for brand consumers. Identifying trustworthy and influential online bloggers is therefore an essential part of the public relations toolkit. Bloggers with a high reputation, built up through their own creative content activity, have high credibility with brand users. They play the role of both informant and ­recommender, and can be highly influential on consumer purchasing decisions facilitating trust in brands and products. Public relations professionals and brand marketers should therefore provide these bloggers with sample products or access to services, supported by accessible and compelling information on product benefits and usage instructions. They should also be encouraging bloggers to recommend products and services and then use these recommendations in brand communications (Hsu et al 2013). Whilst some organisations are solely present in an online form, an increasing number of sectors are witnessing the transition from a physical to an online presence, with many brands simultaneously projecting and delivering products and services both virtually and offline. Banking, retailing, travel, publishing, and music have all experienced exponential changes in the nature of service and product delivery and this has required a fundamental mind-shift in terms of the way brands are materialised and communicated. In these environments, the website, as a hub for a range of digital communication portals, has become an increasingly important tool for organisational identity construction. When organisations do not even exist in bricks-and-mortar form then their website and wider web presence represents their entire storefront (Das 2016). The absence of physical interactions means that sellers are unable to use physical experiential influencers such as music, lighting, and customer service, and instead must create a unique online environment which generates experience in a different way. Traditional aspects of branding such as brand awareness, perceived quality, and associations remain important within this conception however and have been conceptualised as having an inter-related tripartite dimensional impact on trust which positively influences purchase intention, repurchase, and recommendation. The particular challenge for brand managers is the loss of control involved in this process, as online brand users will chat with others online, go through product reviews and engage with influencer content from outside the brand before making a purchase decision. The key is to provide favourable associations that are unique to the brand and which imply superiority over other brand choices (Das 2016). Ozdora-Aksak and Atakan-Duman (2015) argue that one of the key roles of public relations practitioners is to support organisational legitimisation through the construction and communication of an organisation’s identity. In an online

52  Communicating the projective organisation environment this means using website and social media narratives to define the organisational brand, and communicate its distinctive characteristics. Through a study of websites and social media accounts, they found that the eight largest banks in Turkey use consistent themes to project and reinforce brand values. Interestingly, these themes focused on non-economic characteristics, particularly on sustainability and corporate social responsibility, rather than core banking functions such as economic outputs.The most commonly emphasised economic factor was customer orientation. This suggests that PR activity is focusing on non-economic, softer characteristics in order to gain trust and legitimisation. Most of the banks used a casual fun tone in generating social media content, focusing narratives around education, environment, sports, and social programmes. They did not share annual reports or other official reports via these mediums. The websites, in contrast, tended to use more formal language, and were used to share important d­ ocuments and information. Interestingly the state owned banks did not emphasise their institutional, government-owned identities, depending, presumably on the state-assurance behind their institutions. The private banks, in contrast, work hard to highlight superiority, ethical principles and future orientation, suggesting that the private banks have to work harder in these online environments to gain public trust. The inference from the study is that the website provides a replacement for the physical presence for brand identity construction, and is used to articulate all aspects of the brand’s legitimisation narratives, whilst social media is used in a more interactive way to build emotional connections and relationships (Ozdora-Aksak and Atakan-Duman 2015). A similar study of a range of banks in Ghana found that online communications plays an essential part in generating trust in a sector where the effectiveness of online relationship marketing has become increasingly important as banks move more and more services to the online environment (Boeteng and Narteh 2016). A survey of banking customers found that personalisation and collaboration are important features in securing successful online customer relations and encouraging customer advocacy. As customer interactions move to the online environment banks are needing to find innovative ways to harness the potential of the proliferation of online platforms and techniques. When customers share their online brand experiences, it enhances their sense of belonging and pride in their customer choices, and hence engenders commitment and loyalty to the bank. The study found that customers particularly enjoy the opportunity to contribute and share ideas relating to the co-production of services, and this type of collaborative, interactive activity helps create an emotional bond between the bank and its customers. Similarly, personalised communications was found to significantly influence the degree of trust towards the banking brand (Boeteng and Narteh 2016). To engage with online brands users go through a knowledge discovery process in which they seek information and make informed choices, before arriving at particular brand sites. Organisations use a range of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) techniques with the aim of ensuring visibility on user search results. A popular recent approach has been Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in which online sites are adapted and edited to facilitate favourable ratings by search engine algorithms which traditionally employ criteria including the age of the website, links from

Communicating the projective organisation  53 external websites, how frequently a site is updated and the ratio of keywords to the site content. From analysis of online shopping websites, Panda and Swar (2013) found that whilst SEO is useful, other paid-for marketing opportunities such as banner ads, search placement, pay-per-click, and viral marketing were equally ­effective, and that sponsored results that appear at the top of a results page actually had a higher probability of being viewed than SEO-empowered organic search results which appeared lower down results pages. The analysis also revealed that consumers are using a wide variety of social media sites to search for product and brand information. This highlights the potentially powerful role for content-driven online public relations activity which uses engaging interactive campaigns to drive existing and potential brand users to social platforms and websites. Practitioners need to think beyond the power of Google, and other search engine algorithms, and focus instead on driving brand users directly to organisationally produced content. This is an old communications technique repackaged for the digital age. As far back as 1886, Coca-Cola was urging consumers to ask for Coca-Cola by name. In the online fashion retailing environment one of the four most popular discussion topics is the status of brands (Rowley 2009), suggesting that well formulated and appealing content has the potential to create resonance with audience groups. Evidence suggests that both brand familiarity, and brand knowledge, can influence online engagement and that online branding activity should build upon, and integrate with, branding work on other channels. Clear online objectives, a well chosen URL for websites, the use of two-way communications, and online brand communities, are all recognised as effective strategies. A review by Rowley (2009) of UK online fashion sites revealed that whilst all retailers use online platforms to provide information on their company and products, very few were fully utilising the interactive possibilities of the online environment. These tend to be limited to contact and communication options, e-newsletters, the opportunity to recommend a product to a friend and loyalty schemes. Some provided detailed sizing guides, but there is a surprising lack of other content on style and fashion, or use of tools to explicitly build brand relationships and communities. Those exploring beyond the limits of product sales were Matalan, which had a customer service survey,TkMaxx which was collecting data on users’ favourite summer fashion trends, and River Island which was running a style-insider competition inviting customers to upload photographs and then vote on style icons (Rowley 2009). Once users have engaged with an online brand the organisation can then focus on more traditional experience-based trust development. Success here depends on the clever and sensitive use of customer data to develop a long-term mutually beneficial relationship. Building on the foundations of direct marketing, and database marketing disciplines, online relationship management requires the production of personal and relevant brand communications messages to keep brand users engaged and interested in the brand and its products. With more and more organisations becoming projective in nature, whether that is through solely online services, or the hybrid interface which is becoming increasingly more common, employee engagement with brands is becoming increasingly important. Phia and Avlonitis (2018) used interviews with senior brand marketing

54  Communicating the projective organisation executives in multinational FMCG organisations to develop a specific conceptualisation of Internal Brand Orientation (IBO) in order to synthesise the internal organisational imperatives that can help turn employees into brand champions. Internal Brand Orientation refers to ‘the extent to which a company is committed to generating the desired brand internalisation across the organization and motivating towards the alignment of staff behavior with brand values’ (2018:379).The new construct includes two dimensions. The first, Shared Brand Values, requires training, communication, brand materials, monitoring, and reward processes to ensure that staff behaviours align with brand values. The second, Top Management Brand Commitment, requires senior leaders to be the first to deliver the brand’s promises through their behaviour and enthusiastic, open commitment to brand values. This means being involved in brand building activities and regarding brands as a top organisational priority. Phia and Avlonitis’ research also revealed that high interfunctional coordination and low interdepartmental conflict were important factors in achieving good Internal Brand Orientation, meaning that facilitation via online collaborative networking to achieve joint activities through combined activities is important. Sievert and Scholz (2017) found that there are two key factors which are important for professional internal brand communications: 1) the challenge of communicating with employees working in disparate locations, and 2) the need to empower all employees to communicate on behalf of the organisation and behave as appropriate brand ambassadors. Social media can be a useful facilitator to support internal efficiency and collaborative knowledge, and when employees feel emotionally connected to their employer organisations, and the work project matches their own self-actualisation needs, they can act as effective brand ambassadors. A survey of 500 German companies found that using social media networks within the organisation improved the flow of communication, accelerated internal processes, and facilitated unobstructed collaboration, albeit the effectiveness of the network depended on flat hierarchies, open interaction, and the embracement of the platform by organisational leaders. When used effectively in this way, organisational social networks can give voice to employees, making them feel that they can play an important role in company decisions and value-adding processes, and ultimately giving them more trust in the organisation (2017:900). This in turn influences the likelihood of them dealing with online and offline customers more effectively (Sievert and Scholz 2017). Effective implementation of an internal social media strategy has become more important with the development of increasingly global and mobile working conditions, typical of projective organisations. Successful use of social media to foster positive and useful internal communications is dependent on an open organisational culture and the embracement of new technologies by senior leaders. A correlation has been found between the number of hours senior leaders spend on internal media platforms, and the number of hours spent by employees (Korzynski 2015). When organisational leaders are active in these environments, they can engender employee trust and encourage engagement. This can be facilitated by training for both senior executives and employees on how to use internal social media to drive business results. Here we are seeing the role of the senior leader changing from

Communicating the projective organisation  55 a traditional manager of schedules and clearly articulated tasks, to a facilitator of online collaboration, supporting networked employees to solve problems and deliver organisational success as part of a project network. The implication for public relations is the realisation that there is a growing disintegration of barriers between internal and external media. Social media can be used to harmonise internal stakeholders and through clear and informative, accessible content production, counter any potential speculation about the brand and its operations (Earl and Waddington 2012).When useful, appealing, and thought-provoking content is produced for employees it can engender loyalty and deter misunderstanding. The result is that the brand is turned into a cohesive asset which enables workers to become better and more convincing brand advocates. Exactly the same principles for creating content apply for internal and external communications. Workers need to be encouraged to participate, and they need to feel that communications materials are authentic. The organisation’s professional communications team also needs to recognise that in today’s digital world that any disseminated content is quite likely to flow outside the organisation, potentially reaching and influencing external audiences as well (Earl and Waddington 2012). Whilst much research into the mechanics of branding within projective organisations takes a particularly positivist stance, the processes of employee brand management is questioned in some critical management literature. Muller (2018) analysed the use of branding metaphors in 89 academic texts, and highlights how branding vocabulary often conceptualises employees as being owned by brands which fundamentally aim to adapt and invade the internal mindsets of employees. Muller found three groups of metaphors relating to internal branding: activation metaphors depict how the brand is put into employees who internalise the brand and identify with it; influence metaphors deal with brand-centred behaviours and attitudes which lead to the delivery and enactment of the brand by loyal employees; and representational metaphors often lean on sporting vocabulary to articulate how employees become brand champions and ambassadors, acting as visual representations and reflections of the brand. Muller argues that these metaphors often work on two levels, presenting different ideas to different stakeholders. Whilst internal branding is depicted to employees as empowering them to take control of the brand in an autonomous and interactive way, the metaphors also euphemistically describe methods of employee control which help deliver brand promises and loyalty by depriving employees of freedom and making them dependent on the brand. At the heart of this dual messaging is a value system which values the brand itself higher than its employees, each of whom are forced into a new flexible way of working and who are dispensable (Muller 2018). Nevertheless, it is clear that social media can be a very useful way of connecting workers within projective organisations and, used effectively, it can also facilitate all employees to operate as ambassadors for brands in a truly projective way. Whilst research suggests that most organisations have not yet responded fully to this ­opportunity and challenge, facilitating employees to act as brand ambassadors on social media can be achieved relatively easily by: empowering a stable of employee advocates; providing a social media policy with social media boundaries; fostering

56  Communicating the projective organisation brand engagement by outlining expectations; providing relevant and easy-to-share brand content; and rewarding employee voice by listening to feedback, responding to suggestions and highlighting employee achievements (Cervellon and Lirio 2017). Alcohol brand producer, Pernod Ricard, for example uses its prfuturevintage Instagram account very effectively as a forum for current graduate employees to share their experiences of working with the organisation. Featuring graduates working across 20 different countries, the site enables employees to visually express different aspects of their working lives in a way which celebrates the organisation’s brand slogan – createurs de convivialite. Global cosmetics giant L’Oreal likewise uses its #lifeatloreal hashtag to encourage employees to share their life and work experiences. With over 14,000 posts at the beginning of 2019, the site visually celebrates a wide range of experiences including internships, new employees and the baby photos of staff members returning from maternity leave, which together serve as an authentic demonstration of the organisation’s stated values of passion, innovation, open-mindedness, entrepreneurisalism, excellence and responsibility. When employees talk privately about their brands and industries their comments often have greater credibility and customer satisfaction is strongly connected to employee attitudes and behaviours (Cervellon and Lirio 2017). What we can see at play here is the polyphonic nature of the projective organisation, which is essentially a dynamic collaboration of networks and individuals. When empowered collectively to exemplify brand values, and co-create content for the organisational brand, the result is dynamic and authentic brand interactions and communications.

5 The riparian brand Exploring polyphonic corporate brand identity and public relations

This chapter explores the theoretical background to a new understanding of how corporate brand identity is emerging in the 21st century, which develops into the book’s central theme of the riparian brand. Traditional perspectives of branding have focused on tangible brand construction as an important element of brand design and marketing (Moor 2007), and have seen public relations as a servant, supporting master brand values (Morris and Goldsworthy 2012). This chapter will instead consider the theoretical origins of a move towards an understanding of identity as projective and dynamic (Lury 2004). It will build on the current emphasis on the co-creation of brands and negotiation (Merz et al 2018) as part of creating authentic brands. It will also concentrate on developing a theoretical understanding of the processes of stabilisation and formatting required to create brands as immutable mobiles: ‘In sum, you have to invent objects which have the properties of being mobile but are also immutable, presentable, readable and combinable with one another’ (Latour 1986:6). Establishing what is at the core of a brand generally involves taking into account an organisation’s history, culture, and capabilities (Groucutt 2005), or the personal needs of consumers (Fill 2005:393). Whilst considering characteristics such as price, quality, availability, and durability, the brand positioning should also reflect the brand’s relationship to a market place and competitive environment (Duncan 2005). Determining these values has generated an entire industry of brand consultancies, each supporting a variety of methodologies, such as the Brand Wheel concept introduced by global brand consultancy Interbrand. The physical construction then contains a variety of elements, such as the logo, which acts as a fast visual trigger to unleash emotions and ideas, whilst encapsulating the organisation’s central idea with impact, brevity, and immediacy (Olins 1995). The brand uses symbolism semiotically in this way as a dynamic sign-process to construct meaning (Lury 2004), and is often legally constituted as intellectual property via, for example, the 1994 UK Trade Marks Act. One of the main roles of the designer, therefore, is to translate abstract ideas, such as brand values, into visual and material form (Moor 2007).The BBC logo, for example, has evolved through a number of executions from a bat’s wing logo, to stripes, to a moveable globe, all incorporating the BBC lettering, but using a variety of colours and used in different ways throughout the organisation.

58  The riparian brand The advent of new digital services, and an increasingly competitive market, led to the introduction of a new monochrome logo in 1997 which could be integrated within both digital and traditional graphics. It was important for the BBC logo to signal changes about the BBC, distinctively reflecting the BBC’s core values of quality, fairness, accuracy and artistic integrity in a modern way which befitted the new digital media environment (Fill 2005). The brand name can also play a powerful role in creating and affirming attitudinal views of brands (Danesi 2006), whilst for some organisations it is the product or service which is at the forefront of how the brand manifests itself. In industries such as motoring, and consumer electronics, organisations like BMW, Mercedes Benz, Sony and Apple are very much represented through the products they sell (Olins 1995). For other organisations, the image is manifested in the industrial or retail environment, and Moor argues that this reflects a shift driven by design consultancies in which branded environments are created to embody the brand, such as Nike stores, or the carefully managed environments of stores and franchises for Starbucks (Moor 2007). Brand image is created and sustained through deliberate and prolonged brand marketing activity including breakthrough advertising ideas, such as those used to promote Apple, Nike, Benetton, and Absolut (Aitchison 2004), and cleverly aligned brand associations which create positive attitudes (Kemp et al 2012). Coca-Cola, one of the world’s most recognisable brands according to Business Week, has invested a significant amount annually in advertising since its first advertisement in 1886 (Coca-Cola 2010). Brand voice is also used to communicate brand philosophies (Simmons 2008). Innocent, for example, reveals its brand values through language and communication which is fun, simplistic and innocently child-like (Simmons 2008). The products have ‘enjoy by’ rather than ‘use by’ dates, and the website and packaging are full of unexpected language such as ‘no colourings, flavourings or nasty things you wouldn’t add yourself ’ (Innocent 2010). This use of language to define brand is sometimes manifested as a slogan which encapsulates the brand image and themes (Duncan 2005). Mastercard’s Priceless campaign, for example, cleverly links the benefit of quick and easy credit, with an emotional concept of value. Emotional aspects of branding are increasingly being acknowledged as an important factor in brand success (Hatch 2012), with brands conceptualised as having both an emotional and a functional realm. Brands can transform the experience of using the product through an evaluative user-process which involves both self and social identification in which individuals are drawn to brands that their significant others like too (Rosenbaum-Elliott et al 2011). One could argue that the AA, for example, forged a new emotional connection with users of its service when it repositioned itself as the Fourth Emergency Service in 1992. Previously marketed as a traditional, reliable organisation, the AA restructured and rebranded, manifesting its vans to appear like police cars, answering the telephone with the words ‘AA Emergency Service’ and prioritising stranded lone women drivers (Aitchison 2004). The result was increased membership and improved retention (Jenkinson and Sain 2003). Here the organisation is constituted as a specific community which embodies its own particular values and activates not only its employees, but also

The riparian brand  59 brand users, to behave in specific ways (Arvidsson 2006). A corporate image is thus created which is dynamic, and which should be considered in the context of time, history, culture and perception, acknowledging the two-way process by which image is manifested as a result of consumer consumption. As stakeholders form these organisational images through time, a corporate reputation is built (Fill 2005).

The postmodern brand as an extensive arc Experiential activities which bring brands to life by engaging all the senses in activities which reflect brand values have gained traction in brand marketing literature (McCole 2004). As highlighted previously, Red Bull is an energy boosting drink at its functional core but its emotional essence is that it gives drinkers enhanced ability or ‘wings’ (McCole 2004). Prominence on the Red Bull website is given to action and activity with videos of sporting endeavours, action photos and interactive games. The Red Bull life is personified through action heroes, with a wide range of sponsored sports stars from traditional and adventure sports, as well as m ­ usicians and DJs, many of whom are feature on its own television channel and online magazine (Red Bull 2018). The brand thus embraces the wider environment and the context of use in a socially collective experience (Lury 2004). Building on three existing elements of brand orientation theory (organisational attitudes, behaviour and capabilities) Gromark and Melin (2011) identify that experiential brand interaction also has a fourth interactive factor characterised by reciprocal influence and interdependence. Moor (2007) likewise considers the active brand, highlighting the importance of ‘flow’ between the consumer, the product, the experience and brand, and specifically noting the way these experiences refer back to each other. New digital methods, and convergence culture, are facilitating these developments in a real time environment, enabling dynamic sets of brand relationships to flourish online between consumers and brands (Powell 2013). In a digital world, consumers have a continuum of choice regarding interaction from posting evaluations and comments, through to determining the nature of brands. This flips the traditional branding paradigm by suggesting a much more nuanced view of non-heterogeneous customers who each individually shape their view of the brand (Erdem et al 2016). Such contemporary conceptualisations of brand construction are less certain of the fixedness of brands, citing their nature as dynamic, evolving, complex and idiosyncratic (Chatzipanagiotou et al 2016). Lyotard’s (1984) investigation into the impact of the postmodern condition on knowledge may provide useful insight into this idea of fractured, rather than traditional identities. For Lyotard the game rules of culture have changed, leading to a crisis of narratives and a dissolution of social bonds. In the postmodern world legitimation is dependent on paralogy, a form of innovation which is based on the sharing of knowledge across previously disparate, but now connected data systems (1984:61). This is not legitimation based on a Habermassian notion of enlightened dialogue and debate, but a dynamic game in which a new logic and legitimation is created. In such a scenario, consensus is ‘a horizon that is never reached’ and instead explanation is destabilised as a process of promulgating new ‘norms

60  The riparian brand of understanding’ (1984:61). When applied to brands this might be considered as much more than an assemblage of different material aspects of a brand, instead we are talking about an ever changing creative process of understanding, between brand user and brand, in which the meaning of a brand is new and different for each new interactive process, and thus fractured. Lyotard’s (1984) approach to modernity is based on a shattering of the idea of reality and is thus far removed from the idea of authenticity as a replication of what is real. Within Lyotard’s view of the ‘unreal’ he suggests that one of the roles of culture might be to make visible the fact that there are entities which can be conceived but which can ‘neither be seen nor made visible’ (1984:78). This might be used to explore the way that brands in flow enable the temporary, perhaps even momentary, creation of the unrepresentable. This is a completely different conception of brand from the 1970s notions of visible, fixed, brand identities and logos, and leans more towards a philosophical notion of branding in which brands in flow are in a constant process of legitimation, responding in real-time to the tests of users. Giddens (1991) also highlights this reflexive, dynamic nature of what he terms as high-modernity arguing that mediated experiences, coupled with the undercutting of traditional habits and customs, means that self-identity becomes a reflexive and problematic endeavour. The search for self-authenticity is prized as a pre-eminent value, and yet is thwarted by the morally stunted process of relying on external actants for guidance. In this view, self-identify becomes a trajectory across different institutional settings. Giddens is suggesting that when time, space and place are disconnected, we search for other socialising processes, such as our free market choice of brands, to help affirm self-identity. Basset’s (2007) notion of the narrative arc may also be helpful in trying to conceptualise a model of 21st century fractured brands. Basset’s argument is that stories still remain central to what we do in an information-saturated world and draws on Ricoeur’s notion of narrative as a configurative act which goes beyond the formal operational aspects of story-telling to include the acts of reading and interpretation, ‘thereby extending the narrative arc from the text into the world’ (Bassett 2007:10). She also cites Barthes’ (1982) idea of narrative as a complex construction, like a ‘fugue’ which radiates in different directions, so that meaning is drawn and understood across the narrative, rather than merely at the end.The Guinness brand, which uses narrative constructions extensively throughout its marketing activities is useful to look at to explore how this might apply to branding. Guinness calls its 250 year history ‘Our Story’ (Guinness 2019a) and its advertising approach is to use large scale, cinematic, narrative based television adverts to tell stories of Guinness and its drinkers to the world, such as the enigmatic Sapeurs (Guinness 2019b). The narrative approach of Guinness links closely to Bassett and Barthes’ notion of an extensive narrative which reaches out beyond its explicit form. The stories in recent Guinness adverts have centred on a message of striving to be ‘Made of More’ (Guinness 2019b). Appealing to Maslow’s belonging, esteem and self-actualisation needs (Palmer 2004), the brand is enticing users to believe that by consuming Guinness they may be capable of achieving more, and encourages them to engage in community-based brand activities. The Guinness Facebook page, for example,

The riparian brand  61 focuses on the notion of community and enjoyment, encouraging users to post pictures of who they will be sharing their #GuinessTime with, or encouraging them to provide visual and audio-visual examples of how they have enjoyed a Guinness with a rival fan in the #GuinnessSixNations (Guinness 2019c). Here the Guinness narrative extends beyond the story of Guinness products into a community-based concept which engages directly with the brand user. For Bassett (2007), narrative involves a process of signification which brings together form and force to explain an artefact in its totality. She is therefore arguing against a reliability on discourse to reveal, building on Voloshinov’s ideas of language and meaning as constantly negotiated in a social context through a continuous process of becoming which involves an ideological contest for meaning. This goes above and beyond discourse as layers of voices to be studied, and away from F ­ oucoult’s notion of grand discourses, towards a more interactive process which might require a different critical methodology. Here Heidegger’s notion of techne as a revealing, or a coming to presence, might be useful in that it conceptualises a form of work that reveals a truth through making, or poesis (Heidegger 1977:10). His concept of bringing-forth encapsulates the idea of something ­concealed coming into unconcealment – ‘the arising of something from out of itself ’ (1977:10). For Heidegger the bringing-forth that technology enables is particularly interesting because of its capacity to give man ‘entry into that which, of himself, he can neither invent nor in any way make’ (1977:31). The vision of a connection between man and machine that leads to a new becoming which might still be conceived of as an authentic truth, merits consideration. Here authenticity is not a central essence to be revealed, but a momentary, constructive process which enframes and at the same time opens up possibilities: ‘That essential space of man’s essential being receives the dimension that unites it to something beyond itself solely from out of the conjoining relation’ (Heidegger 1977:39). Importantly, Heidegger’s idea of techne involves a loss of control to the machine because if identity is electronically mediated and produced it necessarily changes through that mediation process (Bassett 2007). When internet users engage interactively in such processes they become part of the identity exchange within a community environment, engaging in a real-time narrative cycle in which narrative life is ‘lived through the overlaying activation and deactivation of multiple tales’ (Bassett 2007:176).

Real-Time streams To explore this notion of a temporary and yet somehow fixed aggregate further it is useful to look at Berry’s (2011) conception of the web as an ecology of data streams, rather than a page-oriented medium. Berry suggests that real-time streams can be viewed as technological imaginaries and the subject as a computational imaginary, a type of ‘riparian’ citizen who becomes part of the real-time itself, a source of data, publishing and contributing to a disaggregated web, providing a wider computational possibility and economy (2011:44). The concept of real-time streams is a continuation of Berry’s earlier work (2008) in which he explores ideas

62  The riparian brand of the information society and the commons, using an examination of the discourses of the free/libre and open source software movement to question the role of code and explore its relationship to capitalism. Berry identifies two strands of theoretical development – 1) a new ‘model of human productive capabilities (often pre-capitalist, or previously held back by the fetters of capitalism)’ or ‘a new form of collective production that undermines/re-writes capitalism’ (2008:98). Berry’s combined ideas of the new strands of understanding capitalism, and the concept of the riparian, can be linked conceptually to Boltanski and Chiapello’s (2007) notion of the network, and this poses interesting questions for brand managers: In a connexionist world, loyalty to the self looks like inflexibility; resistance to others seems like a refusal to make connections; truth defined by the identity between a representation and an original is regarded as a failure to understand the infinite variability of the beings who circulate in the network, and change every time they enter into relations with different beings, so that none of their manifestations can be taken as a point of origin with which other expressions can be compared. In a network world, the question of authenticity can no longer be formally posed (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007:451). Berry’s notion of the riparian citizen provides a useful framework for a fresh look at two dual aspects of branding: the way in which brand construction might be considered as interactive, mobile and yet somehow fixed; and the way in which brand-user relationships might be reconsidered as interactive, developmental and critical. This is different from traditional views of the fixed material nature of brands and instead visualises brand equity as a more fluid construct, thereby contending that the creation, critique and acceptance of authenticity might be an active process between user and brand. The nature of brands is often described as brand equity, a concept developed by Aaker (1991, 1996), who describes it as a set of assets which are linked to the brand’s name and symbol, and which add value to the central proposition of the product or service on offer (1996:7). The key asset categories proposed by Aaker (1996) are: brand awareness; brand loyalty; perceived quality; brand associations; and other proprietary brand assets. For Aaker, the key challenge is to balance the need to adapt to a changing environment with the fixed power of consistent messages and symbols which help create a brand identity system, the ultimate goal of which is ‘a strong brand-customer relationship’ (1996:77).The strength of such a brand identity system comes from a material understanding of the soul and personality of the brand, its fundamental beliefs and values, the competencies of the providing organisation, and clear self-expressive benefits for users. A different approach for conceiving the fixedness of brands is Danesi’s (2006) notion of brands as mental constructs, in which branding is conceived as a semiotic act which transforms the physical product experience into mental phenomena. Brands are essentially signs that link products and users together in an over-arching meaning system called brand culture. This involves a dynamic synergistic interplay between brands and lifestyle trends, in which the brand is immaterial and unfixed,

The riparian brand  63 responding to, connecting with, and even affecting the environment within which it resides. A riparian-type conception is also articulated by Edwards (2012) who proposes a new definition and understanding of public relations activity as a flow of purposive communication between individuals, formally constituted groups, informally constituted groups, and other social entities. The definition of flow proposed by Edwards conceptualises an aggregate of individual acts in which ‘the aggregate is inseparable from the acts themselves, which create the flow as they are enacted, and merge with other acts to become part of a greater movement’ (2012:22). For Berry (2013) it is computational media in particular which have facilitated new concepts such as flow and real-time streams. Berry conceives of a process of enmediation in which media are absorbed and reconstructed into a new form which is simultaneously a representation but is also ‘transformed, constructed, and made possible in a number of different modes of existence’ (2013:34). Real-time life streams of personal data, are being accessed by organisations for data mining and innovation surfacing purposes, but are also impactful on individual concepts of identity. The patterned usage, or real-time stream, is therefore a dynamic real-time feedback mechanism in terms of providing steers for behaviour, norms, and so forth, but also offering a documentary narcissism that appears to give the user an existential confirmation and status (Berry 2013:44).

The active brand citizen McConnell and Huba’s (2007) notion of the citizen marketer also encapsulates the notion of the facilitating nature of digital technology engaging with and engaged by the human actant. The citizen marketer is an active and rationale consumer ­taking part in a new reality of participatory engagement with brand organisations, and in so doing they reject the old model of the passive consumer. Using new social media techniques, these new citizen marketers are influencing culture and are having a new form of ownership of brands by bypassing traditional cultural filters and promoters. The ‘Dell Hell’ story mentioned in the introduction exemplifies the power of such new consumers, and highlights the challenge for brand owners who have previously been used to stage-managing and controlling their reputations. Technology blogger Jeff Jarvis used his Buzzmachine.com blog to record his struggles to get Dell to repair or replace his new, overheating and ill-functioning lap top. He titled his second post, ‘Dell Hell’, sharing the fact that the returned lap top still did not work and continued to overheat. His continuing Dell Hell diary went viral on social media networks, encouraging the sharing of not only Jeff ’s, but thousands of other, Dell horror stories. It was soon picked up by technology conferences, and traditional media such as the Washington Post, the Guardian and the New York Times. Within a year there were more than 10 million references to Dell Hell on Google, Dell’s stock price had dropped by over 40% and the company decided to invest $100 million to re-engineer its customer service operation (McConnell and Huba 2007). Whilst McConnell and Huba (2007) focus specifically on highly active social media commentators, and particularly bloggers, their ideas about the way these

64  The riparian brand brand users engage, and the very notion of citizen marketers, is helpful for analysing and understanding a new category of brand engagement enabled by digital media. McDonnell and Huba identify the way in which culture is being driven by a desire for building knowledge together in a way which is authentic and transparent, and which democratises engagement. What seems to be different here is the idea that authenticity is coming from outside the brand, being determined by active consumers who are engaging as brand users or citizens on their own terms. In such a view consumers are an antidote to manufactured reality, and themselves become part of the creation of influential authentic brand messages which gain a new kind of dynamic authority because they are created outside of the boundaries of corporate marketing. In putting forward their concept, McDonnell and Huba talk of a sense of empowerment, ownership and citizenship which encourages citizen marketers to get involved with brands, spurred on by a desire to belong and contribute. In doing so they act as a powerful feedback system for brand managers, echoing Hirschman’s (1970) ideas about the power of consumer voice if mechanisms are created by which consumers can speak and organisations can listen, but this new idea seems to go one step further. McDonnell and Huba recount that all the citizen marketers they interviewed emphasised how their work contributed to the common good. They seek transparency and demand more openness tackling corporate secrecy and forcing increased transparency. This premium on transparency is a significant cultural shift for businesses, requiring them to communicate with honesty, integrity, humility, open-mindedness and fairness (Gillan 2007). The positive side of consumers providing each other with product feedback that they can trust and act on through connected digital networks, is that this transparency and authenticity can have a powerful global impact for brands sales and reputation (Van Bellingham 2012). The post-modern consumer is a post-modern nomad who knows how to use his or her emotional impact as a self-appointed part-time marketer. However, social searching via digital networks has become a dominant form. This increases social pressure and can also lead to extreme attitudes towards brands, thus creating new challenges for brand managers. For example, when a Kentucky Fried Chicken customer filmed a video of rats in the dining area of a New York outlet, and put it on YouTube, the video was broadcast on CNN the same evening and within a week the organisation’s stock-market value had dropped by 20%. Van Bellingham (2012) focuses specifically on the need for a conversational approach to branding, but one that is in some way genuine. Brands need to tell authentic stories in order to win consumer trust, and will only be able to facilitate collaboration if consumers are able to fully identify with a brand. It is human voices that consumers find authentic, so brand narratives need to embrace an honest, direct, funny and sometimes shocking approach, which is in vast contrast to the traditional monotone message of corporate broadcasting. Lego, for example, uses customer collaboration to develop new products, giving 5% of royalties to any customer whose idea is successfully developed. Such active consumers can have a real value for brand organisations. Whilst high purchasing customers clearly have a monetary value, equating to the combined profit of the manufactured products

The riparian brand  65 they have bought, the financial value of customers who buy less but recommend products to others is comparable and might be considered as a referral value. In its ultimate manifestation this referral quality is invaluable: ‘the ultimate form of activation is when the consumer develops his own content in support of your message, and spreads that as well’ (Van Bellingham 2012:95). According to McConnell and Huba (2007), active citizen marketer bloggers and vloggers, who create and manage brand sites independently of brand organisations, are often driven by personal relevance, using their sites as a vehicle for self-conceptualisation. Similarly to Alexis de Tocqueville’s notion of bourgeoisie virtue, they are driven by a desire to help, teach, govern and build communities. This goes beyond the idea of brand as an assemblage of different parts, and even beyond well-explored ideas of the representative role of brands in self-identification processes (Rosenbaum-Elliott et al 2011), towards a construction in which there is a merging of brand and user, a new conjoined entity which we might call a riparian brand. Threadless, for example, invites customer-citizens to put forward t-shirt designs, which are discussed and voted on in customer forums before the favourite designs are then printed. Winners receive cash for their designs, so the interaction is not entirely altruistic, but the site is a good example of a new kind of ‘collaborative citizenry’ in which product feasibility, popularity and even direction is tested and ‘lived’ in a real-time flow (McConnell and Huba 2007). The Threadless approach to citizen-customer engagement is far removed from the controlled brand identity constructions that typified marketing and brand activity of the 1970s and 1980s. New highly engaged online consumers create powerful, influential brand communities which have no corporate rules, hierarchy or governing structures (Gillan 2007). The challenge that user-generated content poses in an open-source environment, where brand narratives are continuously re-written is clearly a significant loss of control for brand managers who have to deal with the potential for negative content from hate-holders and disgruntled users which may mobilise unrelated stakeholders (Verwey 2015). The pay off, however, is highly positive brand-building content from enthusiastic pro-sumer influencers which can be extremely rewarding. The new ‘conversation marketing’ can lead to real trust from consumers, and a long- term loyalty that leads to lasting user-brand relationships (Gillan 2007). Flow between brand and user is often manifested and discussed as co-creation, a concept which has now been modelled to enable measurement, for example the Customer Co-Creation Value scale that enables levels of brand user engagement to be determined (Merz et al 2018). The multi-dimensional scale consists of two higher order factors: customer-owned resources (knowledge, persuasion/skills, creativity and network/connectedness); and motivation (passion, commitment and trust) The idea of a multi-faceted, non-controlled, more ‘human’ identity for brands, brings us closer to the notion of weak authenticity that this book seeks to explore. Microsoft provides an example of what might be called weak authenticity in practice, building on the notion of weak propaganda used by Moloney to describe public relations practice (2006:72). In 2003 Microsoft, which had received considerable levels of media and industry criticism for its lack of openness, created a

66  The riparian brand corporate blogging site blogs.technet.com and invited its employees to write openly. By 2006, there were over 3000 Microsoft employee blogs and vlogs covering 250 topics, and the company had also launched Channel 9, a collection of video clips of employees developing products. Microsoft’s openness to engagement, this time from stakeholders inside the organisation, helped make the company more human and accessible, revealing a creative, energetic and playful inner spirit and turning its customer relations into a conversation rather than an obligation (Gillan 2007). The weakness here, one might argue, is in the lack of control. 3000 company blogs would be impossible to monitor for conformity of corporate brand messages, so it is weak in the sense of a loss of control, but authentic in that consumers are given access to what they perceive to be the ‘real’ Microsoft at work.

Finding the authentic For Beverland the ability to be authentic comes from avoiding traditional, polished, representational, top-down controlled branding and instead comes from imbuing brands with ‘a warts and all humanity’ (Beverland 2009:2). This is particularly imperative in the 21st century as brands are being increasingly blamed for a range of society’s problems such as environment degradation, poverty, visual pollution and overconsumption (2009:5). The re-branding of British Petroleum (BP), for example, to ‘Beyond Petroleum’, has been identified as a classic example of ‘green-washing’, a term ‘used to describe the actions of a company, government, or other organisation, which promotes positive environmental practices, whilst acting in a way that is opposite or does not adhere to the claim’ (CIPR 2008:2). In the 21st century brands need to embrace their sociocultural context and understand that what is considered to be authentic in the postmodern era is highly subjective (Beverland 2009:5-6). Scott also agrees with the idea that 21st century authenticity is more likely to be achieved by bringing ‘a human quality to brand marketing’ (2011:4). He is a supporter of Anderson’s (2006) long tail approach to marketing in which individual products and brand messages are developed for individual or small numbers of consumers. This is an alternative to the idea of the original authentic object. Here authenticity has personal meaning and is ‘given’ to an object by consumers based on criteria such as self-identification, creativity and sincerity (Beverland 2009). This approach accepts that authenticity is subjective, dynamic, and socially constructed involving a search for what is real. So Harley Davidson owners, for example, create their own myths and stories around the brand, depending on the focus of the group they belong to, perhaps identifying with themes of freedom, liberalism, or counter-culture, but in each case constructing a sense of what is real and authentic for them. The term ‘authentic’ is derived from the Latin Authenticus and the Greek Authentikos and means ‘worthy of acceptance, authoritative, trustworthy, not imaginary, false or imitation, conforming to an original (Cappannelli and Cappannelli 2004)’ (Beverland 2009:15). If this meaning is taken at face value then the very act of branding might render a person or an object inauthentic. Such a view would derive from the historical understanding of authenticity as something objective and concrete, which has its authenticity decreed

The riparian brand  67 by experts, laws or institutions and which tends to be rare. Here authenticity is seen as something non-personal which conforms to ‘original principles’ and which carries special status – the antithesis of everyday common objects (Beverland 2009). It is possible to see this interpretation of authenticity played out in 20th century normative approaches to branding which focus on the process of creating a fixed and permanent projected image for brands. Many theorists agree (Danesi 2006, Duncan 2005, Olins 1995, van Riel 1995) that successful brands are based on core values, explained variously as brand essence, the central idea, or ‘a compelling, inspirational and transformational idea for the brand – a promise the company can rally behind and deliver on’ (Duncan 2005:68).The smoothie-maker Innocent, for example, provides an example of its values on its website: ‘be natural; be entrepreneurial; be responsible; be commercial; be generous’ and then delivers against these promises by taking an ethical approach to its packaging, production processes, organic ingredients and by aiming to leave a ‘legacy’ through its Innocent Foundation (Innocent 2019). It thus might be described as being authentic to its stated self. Such brands are created by communications and marketing professionals who attempt to imbue products with values and associations, creating an identity by using a variety of different techniques (Fill 2005, Groucutt 2005, Olins 1995, Palmer 2004). Principle theories of brand identity construction focus on manifestations which Olins conceives as products and services, environments, communications and behaviour (2005:3-9). Duncan describes these manifestations as ‘Touch Points’, meaning ‘any situation in which a customer comes into contact with a brand or company’ (Duncan 2005:117). As we have discussed, the visualisation of a brand identity is invariably through the replication of symbols, logos and names in physical and communication environments.Visual imagery often forms a disproportionately powerful component of corporate reputation, taking prominence in the corporate brand construction industry in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s when the UK government undertook a programme of privatising national industries. In addition to the promotion of shares, many of the companies being privatised (BP, the British Airports Authority, British Airways, and BT) employed corporate identity consultants to help reshape their public image and symbolism (Miller and Dinan 2000). In 1991 British Telecom, for example reportedly paid £50 million for its corporate transformation into BT. As the national provider of telephone services, British Telecommunications was created in 1980, when it was split from the General Post Office. The organisation used British in its name and branding deliberately, playing to the echoes of imperialism, and Britain’s pioneering role in the development of cabling and telecommunications technology. As the industrial environment become increasingly challenging for BT, with the convergence between telecommunication, media and technology companies, a new identity was introduced in 1991, reducing British Telecom to BT (Baines et al 2004, Olins 1995). The old T shaped logo was replaced with a piper, heralding the new privatised UK telecoms market, where ‘British’ would have seemed too parochial and ‘telecom’ too limiting. The logo was changed again in 2003, introducing a globe logo, symbolising the worldwide and internet access provided by the company and is due for change again in

68  The riparian brand 2019 to its name in a circle, representing its appeal to all stakeholders, both internal and external (Watson 2019). Theorists focusing on physical brand construction often see branding as a practical exercise in keeping brands in tune with their authentic selves, for example, Palmer (2004) argues that consistency should always be at the heart of branding strategy. Brands, it is argued, require organisational co-ordination to ensure that values are truly understood and lived by its people ensure consistent external communication (Aitchison 2004, Fill 2005, Simmons 2006). They should also reduce the perception gap between how an organisation is represented and its actual behaviour (Olins 1995, Theaker 2004, Van Riel 1995), linking rhetoric and visual representation to the core ideology: The practitioner truly committed to the notion of a stake-holder society… should strive to ensure that identity reflects, rather than conceals, reality. And if an organisation’s ‘reality’ is too undesirable to promote, a two-way symmetrical practitioner would set about counselling management to change the reality rather than designing a corporate identity plan to mask it (Woods in Theaker 2004:101). There are perceived differences between brands that are real (McDonalds, Gillette, or FedEx) because their brand projections are authentic to their intrinsic offer, as opposed to the artificial and superficial nature of fabricated marketing communications. The brand promotion for Bombay Spice, for example, which was launched in 1987 portrays the bourbon’s popularity in India during the British Raj era, whereas the drink is in fact distributed by the Barcardi company in Bermuda (Eggers et al 2012). Holt (2002) had previously explored this concept of the real and the authentic, by highlighting a number of postmodern contradictions concerning authenticity and branding. He notes that brands often look for unexploited historic or cultural associations which might be seen to have authentic qualities, but argues that unused associations are often hard to find. He acknowledges that this specific temporal understanding of authenticity is changing, in part pushed by the anti-branding movement which wishes to reframe authenticity as a quality of the sponsor. Beverland (2009), whilst strongly arguing for the social contingency of authentic brand understanding, nevertheless provides practical solutions for ‘fixing’ brand authenticity, identifying seven habits of good authentic brand: story telling, appearing as artisanal amateurs, sticking to your roots, loving the doing, marketing immersion, being at one with the community, and indoctrinating staff into the brand cult.

Rhizomatic assemblages The exploration of fixed brand authenticity in the previous section considered methodologies for controlling and shaping brand and reputation, with a confidence that these concepts are capable of being moulded into something tangible. Such normative brand theorists convey the way in which brands have ‘a multi-level

The riparian brand  69 ontology - including a technical or physical support, a set of convictions that articulate or work on that support, and an image or logo’ (Lury 2009:67). Like Beverland, Lury (2009) argues that it is also important to recognise that consumers equally have a role to play in making brands through active participation in activities such as recognition, communication and identification. This infers that the brand is a perceptual concept, highlighting a distinction between the brand (identity) and its perception (image) (Merkelssen and Rasmussen 2016). In the 21st century it is not just corporate communications executives, brand managers and public relations staff who have control over brands. A host of other interactions with consumers, employees, distributors, media and other stakeholders means that brands are constantly being used, re-directed, re-appropriated, re-imagined and exploited by a range of actors both internal and external to the organisation (Cova 2014). When considered in this way brands cease to be objects, and can be conceptualised instead as a field of practices that are experienced, transcending the border between the organisation and its environment and providing a locus where content can be shared and generated (Cova 2014). In a similar vein, Lury (2009) proposes the idea of brands as assemblages, arguing that they are, at the very least, a mixture of diverse professional practices such as graphic design, marketing and retail, but equally highlighting that they also involve consumers in an active process of recognition, communication and identification, and thus have an existence beyond a discrete physical product. For Lury the brand is a multi-dimensional ‘new media object’ (2004:6) which brings together social, technical and formal constructions within an assemblage of which there is no fixed internal or central position from which the surface may be viewed. The brand is ‘a platform for the patterning of activity, a mode of organising activities in time and space’ (2004:1). She likewise argues that brands have a value as a forward projection offering ‘a set of possible relations and connections’ (2009:68), and that brands should be viewed as neither amorphous, nor stable, but instead as demanding, open and incomplete. The suggestion is that brands take the form of a new recursive logic of space, as an abstract, optimising object that is not simply a social construction, but which contributes to the production of itself, uniting the social, technical and formal to assemble culture. To deal with this temporality, the brand engages experientially with consumers through fields of action. So Nike, for example, has developed Niketowns, where visitors can test equipment, try on shoes and clothes, enjoy videos and music or perhaps make use of an indoor basketball space (Lury 2009). Arvidsson (2006) also sees brands as multi-dimensional and dialogical, arguing that they can be conceptualised as a form of informational capital, an enabling open-ended logic which works like a platform encouraging and anticipating certain kinds of user actions and attachments. The brand is actualised by the active involvement of consumers who construct links between material objects, media discourses and their own experience of life-world environments. This view of the brand as a set of multi-dimensional relations, or assemblage, has its theoretical roots in Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) conceptualisation of the rhizome and assemblage. In describing different forms of narrative, Deleuze and Guattari propose an antithesis to traditional root and branch structures and instead

70  The riparian brand put forward the idea of an assemblage constituted of dynamic lines, strata and territories moving at different rates of flow. One aspect of the assemblage is a signifying totality, in that it is connected and material, but another aspect is that it is continuously dismantling, leaving traces of intensity, and encompassing realms that are yet to come. Just as Deleuze and Guattari argue that books and writing are more akin to mapping and surveying than signifying, we might likewise consider brands less as fixed significations of particular meanings, and more as a collection of experiences which are dynamic and forward looking. Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome takes us one step further than assemblage. The rhizome has principles of connection, heterogeneity, multiplicity and rupture, which enable it to embrace different regimes of signs and things of differing status. It also embraces the notion of tracing, exemplified by Deleuze and Guattari through the example of the orchid which forms an image, or tracing, of a wasp on its flower, enticing the wasp to land and take its pollen to the next flower. Together the wasp and orchid effectively come together as heterogeneous elements to form a rhizome. So a rhizome, here, is seen as a symbiotic, relational entity. There is not, however, a suggestion of identity exchange or interaction. It is more like a pattern, so the relationship is undynamic here, even if connectionist. This may be useful for understanding how brands and users may connect in a ritualistic way. Banking brands, such as Lloyds for example, enjoy very loyal users who perform a continuous pattern (or dance) of depositing and extracting money from a variety of different products and services. This might be described as rhizomatic, as the money flows back and forth. There is a connection between brand and user, but no sense of dynamic engagement with the brand. Deleuze and Guattari talk of the ‘becoming-wasp of the orchid and a becoming-orchid of the wasp’ (1987:10), but it might be argued that in fact neither entity actually changes – they are simply connected by their pattern (or dance) of interaction. Whilst the rhizomatic concept could be applied to brands because it begins to embrace a multifaceted nature, and even to consider a notion of a ‘flow’ of meaning and interpretation, this concept is still centred on the premise of a central entity which develops independent of its interactions, whilst the core argument of this book is that this is different to the nature of a brand in real-time flow. The final principle of Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) rhizome which may be helpful to consider is that of cartography. A map can be conceptualised as more than a simple representation or tracing. It is an entity that is in touch with reality and takes part in a process of constructing the unconscious. One could use this cartographic approach to consider how brands use extensions and associations to form different connections to brand users in different ways. So the Cadbury brand, for example, can be eaten as a treat (Dairy Milk Bar), enjoyed as a drink (Cadbury Highlights Drinking Chocolate), and consumed as a dessert (Cadbury Mousse). Aspects of the brand can be assimilated through its sponsorship (the 2012 Olympics), users can immerse themselves in an experiential event (The Cadbury Spots and Stripes Children’s Activity Days), or they can visit Cadbury and discover its processes and history at Cadbury World in Birmingham in the UK.This assemblage of entry points and dimensions could be mapped out as a graphic visualisation of manifestations of the Cadbury brand, and it is clear that we could ‘enter’ the brand at any,

The riparian brand  71 or all, of these points. It is also possible to actively engage with Cadbury through its interactive website site and presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram sites (Cadbury 2018). Deleuze and Guattari’s work is culturally and temporally situated in that their ideas are developed before the emergence of the internet. They cite problems with the current state of information science and computer science because they are rooted in antiquated thinking which privileges and grants all power to a central memory or organ. Such a view appears to be a premonition of the networked world, enabled by the interconnectivity of the web, and its lack of a central organ, thus their work hints and leans towards, but does not entirely explain, the phenomena of a more truly interactive rhizome-like entity. They get close when they talk of ‘a model that is perpetually in construction or collapsing, and of a process that is perpetually prolonging itself, breaking off and starting again’ (1987:20). Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the map is a step forward from the ‘fixed’ nature of the authentic object: Unlike the graphic arts, drawing, or photography, unlike tracings, the r­ hizome pertains to a map that must be produced, constructed, a map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible, modifiable, and has multiple entryways and exits and its own lines of flight (1987:21). This book proposes that we might take Deleuze and Guattari’s cartographic concept and apply it to a notion of a riparian, interactive view of branding. Here we begin to situate both Lury’s, and Deleuze and Guattari’s, ideas within the context of a projective or networked world, where brands might be considered to be complex imaginaries. The scientific understanding of riparian is the adaptability of life on the edge of a water source (Cambridge Dictionary 2018). Within a riparian understanding of branding, corporate reputation and brand managers help corporate brands to adapt to the flow of the environment around them by atuning and adjusting a brand’s manifestations, whilst not losing sight of its core identity. ­Galloway’s (2012) concept of the interface threshold between the digital and human environments is a useful way of visualising these corporate public relations and brand management processes. The interface threshold mediates between different realities, but instead of simply being a boundary, it signifies a process and an autonomous zone of activity which produces a result. Galloway visualises the internet as an entirely personal embodiment, arguing that when we engage with the internet, the world will always materialise in our own image through an active process of mediation. In the same way that Galloway urges us to consider the computer as a practice, or a set of actions in relation to a world, we might also think of brands as effects rather than objects, working as an active threshold or interface effect. Such active thresholds and interfaces are places where complex things can happen, providing a fertile nexus for activity. Lury (2004) likewise sees the brand as a flow that enables a two-way exchange between inner and outer environments, facilitating an interactive and performative feedback loop between consumers and the production process. In such a view, brand meanings are not only interpreted by consumers, but also constituted by them (Martens in Powell 2013). When brands

72  The riparian brand are understood as dynamic active thresholds or effects, engaging with brand users in a riparian flow, it could be argued that their authenticity comes from this active engagement which allows users to influence and drive the relationship. Authenticity is thus achieved through a personal and subjective process, rather than a pure, fixed essence. Here brands are seen as mediating processes, rather than aggregate objects. The authenticity created via these processes, or interfaces, is weak, because it is uncontrolled and temporary.

6 Justification and corporate social responsibility Exploring organisational legitimisation processes

This chapter considers the relationship between justification, legitimisation, and brand narratives, particularly focusing on corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a contemporary corner stone for authentic branding and public relations activity. The creative production of communications narratives, and the positioning of organisational brands, requires sensitivity to stakeholder views and an empathic understanding of current trends regarding social, environmental, and political issues. Corporate and brand identities, which link to positive social behaviour, are becoming more important to consumers and stakeholders and provides a potential opportunity for public relations practitioners to take a primary influencing position.

Legitimisation and justification Boltanski and Thevenot (2006) argue that the fundamental structures of judgement are based on a continuous effort of public comparison.This leads to a justifiable order, or agreement of common terms, which provides a framework for justification or criticism. Fundamentally, they are arguing that there is a relationship between classification and judgement. This may be a very useful way of considering how brand users might make decisions about brands. First there is a process of classification in which a brand is positioned in a relative order with competitive products and services (in the mind of the user), and then there follows a process of judgement. If these moments of classification and judgement, and the value frameworks used when decisions are made, could be better understood then it might be possible to comprehend what makes some brands authentic and others not. There is plenty of academic agreement that brand identities should be justifiable, and that images should reflect reality (Baines et al 2004; L’Etang 2008a, 2008b, Olins 1995, Theaker 2004), but little consensus on what justifiable means. Boltanski and Thevenot see two major difficulties in this process of constructing legitimacy: 1) the critical nature of order (which implies hierarchy); and 2) the plurality of forms of agreement (2006:38). To overcome this, they develop a concept of a common polity model, based on a sense of a unifying higher common principle.What is interesting here, from a perspective of attempting to understand authenticity within the justification of brands, is the linkage that Boltanski and Thevenot make between their concept of the common polity model and the need for the model to be linked to

74  Justification and corporate social responsibility a sense of common humanity. They propose that embedded within the concept of the common polity model is an idea that within legitimate orders of worth people share in a common humanity that manifests itself in an ability to act in favour of the common good. If this model is compared to actual tests of brands in the marketplace it is possible to interpret that brand illegitimacy may come from a lack of respect or connection with this idea of common humanity. For example, in 1995 the oil producer Shell UK was forced to abandon its plans to dispose of the Brent Spar North Sea oil storage facility in the deep Atlantic following a high profile media campaign by the pressure group Greenpeace and some European governments. This was despite the fact that two years’ worth of analysis by over 30 independent academic and industrial bodies had concluded that Shell’s plans were the most environmentally friendly course of action (Regester and Larkin 2005). Analysis of the case study by Regester and Larkin (2005) points to Shell’s inability to connect with the viewpoints of Greenpeace and consumers as a major failure on the part of the company. It did not fully appreciate that it needed to justify its activities within a framework of a common humanity: In the aftermath of the Brent Spar incident, commentators have argued that Shell’s failure to successfully present its case to a wide audience base not only damaged a reputation for commercial enterprise and environmental vigilance built over many years but created serious financial consequences for the company (for example, through voluntary relinquishment of tax relief) (Regester and Larkin 2005:100). What Boltanski and Thevenot (2006) are arguing is that justification is not simply a question of principles of equivalence − if this was the case, then surely Shell would have been able to dispose of the Brent Spar in deep water on the basis of sound and pragmatic scientific advice? Instead, by taking into account the range of cultures and value systems which communities share, it is possible to articulate the parameters against which a higher common principle can be accepted and hence measured during a process of justification. Their common polity model positions this idea of common humanity, or a higher common principle, within a framework of six different common worlds: 1) Inspired World, 2) Domestic World, 3) World of Fame, 4) Civic World, 5) Market World, and 6) Industrial World, each of which represent common orders of worth which underpin judgement and justification (2006:65). There are similarities between this concept of a world, in which systems of justification are identified, and the idea of a ‘culture’ for a brand (Brown 2006, Danesi 2006, Haig 2003). As mentioned earlier in this book, brands such as Red Bull focus as much on attempting to create a distinctive brand community, as they do on developing a visual or written representation of the brand. We have noted previously how for Red Bull this is manifested through a whole series of events and activities that provide an experiential sense of what the brand is about, and encourage participation. Red Bull’s brand world (and its justification) is completely experience-based. According to Boltanski and Chiapello (2007), justification uses a process of tests of strength and legitimate tests to evaluate and position worth. Whilst

Justification and corporate social responsibility  75 the first type of test (strength) is based on an axis of power, the second (legitimate) is predicated by agreement as to the nature and validity of the test. The character of the legitimate test is connected to social trends and understanding what society, or a certain section of society, identified by the type of world with which they connect themselves, deems to be important at any given time. This is the kind of boundary spanning work that public relations practitioners have long been used to. It is different from legitimisation which can be defined as an operation of retrospective concealment, which may ultimately be exposed when the truth is unmasked (2007:26). Many organisations find themselves having to legitimise themselves when they have misunderstood or misinterpreted the legitimate tests they face, or have tried to invent their own tests, such as price comparison tests and money-back guarantees. The retailer, Primark, for example, has based its reputation on a platform of providing the latest trends at a price much cheaper than its rivals. The policy has brought economic success to Primark, but in parallel the brand has ‘attracted attention from Panorama [the UK BBC television programme] and antisweat shop protestors who question how its workers are treated in its factories in the developing world’ (Magee 2010:2). Whilst successfully using Facebook, Twitter, and word of mouth to promote its accessible pricing policy, the organisation failed to realise that consumers, and other stakeholder groups, were judging its worth from the viewpoint of a different set of criteria. Primark’s core users are unlikely to be driven to exit as a result of these criticisms, but the use of voice has been marked. An ongoing failure to deal with issues with its supply chain, however, could present Primark with a bigger long-term problem (Magee 2010). Primark has been forced into a series of retrospective legitimisation activities, which can be time-consuming and distracting for the organisation and its management. Its website now contains a home page tab through to an Our Ethics section containing an ethical trading ‘Code of Conduct’, news from the ‘Ethical Trade Team’ and its ethical trading policy: ‘At Primark, suppliers and factories commit to make our products in factories with good working conditions so that people are treated decently and paid a fair wage’ (Primark 2019). According to Boltanski and Chiapello (2007), what Primark has faced here is a radical critique of the test which it used for legitimation, in that it is the validity of the test itself which has been subject to challenge (2007:33). This is completely different to a corrective critique, which is reformist in intent, embracing the principles of worth inherent in a test, but seeking to reinforce it and make it stricter and more conventionalised (2007:33). One might argue that in contrast to Primark, The Co-operative Group is currently in the midst of a corrective critique of the social justification of commercial enterprises – a critique which the organisation has used to establish its sense of worth since its inception.The Co-operative Group positioned itself within a ‘civic’ world when its fore-runner the Rochdale Pioneers Society was established in 1844, on the basis of a set of ethical principles called the eight ‘Rochdale Rules’ (Co-operative Group 2019a). As a social enterprise, which shares its profits with its members, the Co-operative Group runs its businesses according to a set of articulated ethical values – self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity (Co-operative Group 2019b) – and these

76  Justification and corporate social responsibility are operationalised through the structure of the business, but also through a series of campaigns which are currently tackling loneliness, crime and modern slavery (Co-operative Group 2019c). By including its customers as members, along with staff members, the Co-operative is giving power to these close stakeholders. This is a form of contract in which the different actors are conscious, interpretive participants, resistant to persuasion and capable of understanding and judgement.They are ‘free to exercise reflexivity, mobility and choice’ (Sulkunen 2010:501). In addition, because the contractual partnership involves criteria of the common good, social bonds are strengthened. Marquand’s (2004) exploration of the Public Domain and Private Domain is similar in principle to Boltanski and Thevenot’s (2006) conception of worlds in that the private and public domains represent recognisable structures of social and political activity and understanding. Without identifying them as such, Marquand does distinguish judgement criteria for each domain, for example proposing that the Public Domain is symbolically linked to public interest, acknowledging the importance of citizenship, equity and service orientation. He acknowledges the existence of a ‘moral economy’ that instructs actors on how to behave via a set of norms. Critiquing domains from the context of their potential contribution to political life, Marquand does not conceptualise new domains (or worlds), but instead laments the decline of the Public Domain which has been eroded into a culture of distrust by incessant marketisation turning citizens into customers.These notions of contracts and worlds is, of course, to move away from the language of Edward Bernays and psychoanalysis, and the idea of manipulation through the engineering of desire towards a notion of brand relationship that is dialogical.Writing in 1952, Bernays cites the growing complexity of society due to technical media advancements, increased education, democracy which widens the market for ideas, and a growing movement towards equalitarianism which all means that private and public interest must coincide in public relations campaigns; ‘the highest level of adjustment is reached at the point of enlighted self-interest. The public relations counsel must ensure that such enlightenment prevails’ (Bernays 1952:4). In the 21st century we see a growing number of theorists move towards this more societal view of public relations and marketing communication. Kotler (2011), for example, calls for a reinvention of marketing in the light of the ‘environmental imperative’ (2011:132). This he explains as the growing acceptance of a world of finite resources, high environmental costs, and consumers who are seeking ‘corporations that care’, epitomised by ‘LOHAS’ consumers living ‘lifestyles of health and sustainability’ (2011:134). Whilst previous brand selection criteria have been functional (Marketing 1.0), and emotional (Marketing 2.0), nowadays consumers are concerned with how the organisation meets its social responsibilities (Marketing 3.0).The dialogical nature of digital communications, sometimes called the conversation economy, has helped raise this social consciousness among consumers thereby elevating their role within the process of critique and evaluation of brands. Where once third-party endorsement credibility would have come from an opinion former, such as a captain of industry, this role now resides with consumers as members of dynamic, interactive, online social communities (Prindle 2011).

Justification and corporate social responsibility  77 Tension has begun to arise between an existing business-led neo-liberalist discourse and a newer sustainability and ecological modernism discourse (Roper 2012). The Weberian insight that capitalism cannot sustain itself by offering more money, more choice and more pleasure, is at the heart of this crisis (Davies 2011). The ‘spirit’ of capitalism is its promise of not only utility or hedonia, but also of meaning or eudaimonia; not simply psychological economic gratification, but a form of ethical fulfilment and the demonstration of innate self-worth. If a regime of capitalism neglects the latter, it encounters a moral crisis. Public relations has become a means of acquiring and preserving organisational legitimacy through the creation and presentation of believable myths, which successfully justify existing operations (and their associated brands) through socially constructed and accepted principles of legitimisation (Waeraas 2007). As publics grow weary of bureaucracy-based legitimisation messages (legal-rational), Waeraas suggests that public relations activities might engage with stakeholders to promote charismatic organisational traits, citing Harley Davidson and Apple as examples of organisations that do this successfully. These legitimisation processes are a fundamental challenge for public relations practitioners who must balance the legitimate claims of clients with those of publics and such legitimation has emerged as an organisational asset to be gained via negotiation and issues management (Merkelssen 2011). Just as societies use language to co-construct themselves and views of reality, so organisations use language to aim for legitimacy, to ensure they have a moral rationale which supports their right to operate. The challenge for public relations practitioners is to recognise when that legitimation starts to become strained and irrecoverable (Heath and Xifra 2016). The work of Habermas (1992 [1962]) in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is useful to consider in relation to corporate legitimisation strategies in that a genre of public relations critique focuses on its attempts to influence the public sphere and thereby influence justificatory discourses (Davis 2002, Davies 2008, Ewen 1996, Moloney 2006, McChesney 2008, Miller and Dinan 2008). Habermas’ (1992) conception of the modern public sphere depends on the critical judgement of the public, acting as a moral barometer and making use of its reason to compel ‘public authority to legitimate itself before public opinion’ (1992:24-25). The linguistically mediated practice of argumentation which underpins the notion of the public sphere, functions as a counterweight to self-interest, focusing instead on the needs of citizens in a civil society (Muller-Doohm and Bird-Pollan 2010). In a critical review of the activities of public relations opinion management, and the rise of a consumer-orientated culture, Habermas (1992) conceives of a dramatic decline in the functioning of the public sphere, proposing instead that it is special interest groups and political parties who now play the mediating role between state and society. Habermas sees a move from critical to manipulative publicity which manoeuvres the public in order to create a narrative of good will for particular organisational positions and activities. One answer to critique of the public sphere has emerged as a rising enthusiasm for a new utopian concept of digital democracy, enabled by the growing use of networked digital media but this is critiqued by Loader and Mercea (2011) who reveal how such concepts

78  Justification and corporate social responsibility of deliberative democracy often privilege particular high profile actors such as ‘activists, politicians, party workers and those who are already fully committed to political causes’ who are disproportionately connected to ‘a few giant notes such as Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and YouTube’ (2011:758-761). The questions over the interference of public relations activity in the public sphere continue in the 21st century, with recent court cases in America questioning whether public relations activity should be regulated as commercial speech. Rulings found, however, that public relations is a varied practice that combines information, as well as promotional content, and therefore should not be regulated, suggesting that public relations narratives are valued for their potential contribution to society as part of a public sphere debate (Myers 2016).

Corporate social responsibility One of the most popular 21st century legitimisation strategies used by organisations is CSR, and it is therefore important to understand and deconstruct CSR as a growing communications phenomena. A dominant theme of much existing CSR research is the non-reflexive understanding of CSR as an asset. Carroll’s four basic categories of CSR (economic, legal, ethical and discretionary/philanthropic) have been used as a basis for a variety of research projects for over 25 years and describe ‘the expectations placed on the corporation by corporate stakeholders and society as a whole’ (Carroll and Shabana 2010:90). However, Carroll then provides another dimension for these categories by suggesting that the economic and legal responsibilities are required, ethical ones are expected, and that the discretionary/ philanthropic category is desired (2010:90). Carroll is thereby hypothesising that a hierarchy of CSR justification and legitimisation criteria might apply. So some organisations, for example, might be more authentically socially responsible than others. In addition, Carroll talks of the way in which the desired discretionary and philanthropic responsibilities ‘reflect the new, broader social contract between business and society’ (2010:90), raising again the notion that such judgement processes are a kind of negotiated contract between organisations and their stakeholders. To support CSR justification, brands embody information about the chain of production and incorporate these into consumption practices, such as encouraging the choice of Fair Trade products, as a way of counter-acting consumers as activists (Moor 2007). The phenomenon is not new as corporations such as AT&T, General Electric, and General Motors used communications to convince the public that they had good intentions and humane values in the early 1900s (Arvidsson 2006). There is evidence of companies from the beginning of the 20th century joining together to ‘generate stronger and more unified messages promoting social progress as a result of free enterprise’ (Edwards 2006:10) and creating social welfare structures within organisations to avoid regulation (Ewen 1996:34). A variety of studies have sought to establish best practice in the area of CSR communications and findings often reveal benefits of CSR activities such as competitive advantage and enhanced reputational assets (Grigore et al 2010). Disclosure of CSR activities which exceed normal expectations can positively build corporate

Justification and corporate social responsibility  79 legitimacy, even when the persuasive intent of the communications is understood (Bachmann and Ingenhoff 2016). Effective use of the right media channels for CSR communications enhances trust in, and engagement with, organisations, albeit different aspects of CSR are found to be more important for engendering trust in different national contexts: social sustainability is important in China; economic sustainability is more important in Germany; whilst social and economic sustainability is important in the US (Hung-Baesecke et al 2016:593). A high-fit between CSR activities, and an organisation’s main business activities is most likely to have a positive impact, but ill-fitting CSR activities can lead to stakeholder scepticism (Aksak et al 2016). Developing a reputation for being socially responsible can be important for both internal and external stakeholders. The emerging concept of employer brands recognises that potential employees are interested in, and affected by, an organisation’s social policies and programmes, and that this aspect of reputation can influence their choices about where to work. Organisational efforts to address this include the development of ethical policies, codes of conduct and policy or reporting documents which focus on socially responsible practices (Vercic and Ćorić 2018). CSR communication, however, does not always promote organisational transparency. An Australian study from the banking sector revealed a phenomenon of half-truths, in which truthful CSR information is undermined by the deliberate omission of key information (Devin 2016:226). Historic links have been found between the use of corporate voice by corporations and the development of a pro-corporation and capitalist ideology which has facilitated public acceptance of the corporate form, and positioned such organisations as benevolent members of society committed to the public good (Logan 2014). An array of public relations activities have been undertaken to legitimise newly amassed corporate power, by focusing on the creation of a corporate soul in order to restore the social role of organisations (Bourne 2016), but such strategies bear hidden risks. Mass-media coverage, the rise of pressure groups, the development of anti-corporate websites and investigative documentaries have all helped to reveal socially irresponsible company practices. Incidents of corporate hypocrisy will be highlighted when there is inconsistency between an organisation’s own CSR statements and observed and revealed behaviours (Wagner et al 2009). Challenges to CSR claims can erode corporate reputation assets and escalate into a reputational or paracrisis in which the organisation must publicly manage a crisis risk (Coombs and Holladay 2015). A variety of organisations have faced CSR-based challenges in recent times including: Apple, HP, Lego, Adidas, H&M, Dolce & Gabbana, Starbucks, PepsiCo, Nike, Sea World, and GAP. This is not just about exposing hypocrisy or greenwashing, but acknowledging that CSR can be a liability in that poorly executed CSR efforts can be harmful to reputation, and may lead stakeholders to question the organisation’s integrity or sense of responsibility (Coombs and Holladay 2015). CSR communications may increase the attention of stakeholders to crises, raise stakeholders’ expectations of behaviour and response, and affect attributions of blame thus providing a negative effect rather than a buffering provided by a reservoir of goodwill (Janssen et al 2015).

80  Justification and corporate social responsibility Studies show that public concerns over CSR activities and communications is increasing, with growing scepticism of conspicuous advertising messages and business scandals eroding public confidence in the ability of the corporate sector to deliver effective CSR programmes (Rim and Kim 2016). Organisations have been criticised for using CSR campaigns to restore damaged reputations, and this leads to disbelief of CSR messages and activities routed in the fundamental paradox between the nature of philanthropy and the nature of business. If an organisation genuinely cares about a CSR cause, then its motivation is seen as intrinsic and more believable, whereas extrinsic CSR motivation, which is linked merely to reputation and profit enhancement, is received more sceptically. Rim and Kim have conceptualised a number of components of CSR scepticism which they see as situational rather than a predisposition based on inherent cynicism including: ‘skepticism toward a company’s CSR altruism; disbelief on two dimensions (CSR communication and CSR practice); and skepticism toward informativeness’ (2016:262). To avoid CSR scepticism organisations should avoid reactive campaigns, and instead build longterm, proactive and continuous CSR programmes, which are communicated in a transparent, factual way, avoiding hype and conspicuous persuasion (Rim and Kim 2016), and which can therefore be understood and accepted as authentic. Social media might be harnessed much more pro-actively as a way of helping to create long-lasting, empowering and ethical stakeholder relationships which support organisational legitimacy (Kent and Taylor 2016). When CSR is viewed from the perspective of building social, rather than economic capital, then communications resources can be freed creatively to build social capital based on CSR activity, rather than simply selling goods and services. In order to use social media effectively in a truly dialogical way, Kent and Taylor propose a number of requirements: ‘(1) engagement of stakeholders; (2) recognition of the value of others; and (3) empathy with stakeholders and stakeseekers’ (Kent and Taylor 2016:64). This type of communications activity must be reflective and honest and has the potential to be truly innovative, for example, the setting up of organisational specific social media sites, or limited membership sites that encourage active participation by a range of experts and like-minded stakeholders. To facilitate this, communications staff need to be resourced and empowered to respond dialogically, and other employees and managers need communications training. As we can see from this chapter, an organisation’s underlying motivation for engaging in CSR is important if it is to have a positive impact on corporate and brand reputation. These may be self-motivated for increased profits, or borne out of a genuine concern for the CSR issues being addressed. High expectations raised by genuine motivations, and a good fit with the organisation, may trigger a strong contrast effect through which previous CSR activities intensify rather than mitigate negative reactions because of a failure to meet raised expectations (Janssen et al 2015). Reputational harm may result from stakeholders perceiving more hypocrisy than altruistic motives in CSR activity, meaning that honesty, sincerity, genuineness and a no-spin policy is required for CSR communications, rather than using an outcome-based approach (Shim and Yang 2016:76). Lin-Hi and Blumberg (2018) make a distinction between CSR which is aimed at ‘Doing Good’, and programmes

Justification and corporate social responsibility  81 which are about ‘Avoiding Bad’, as a way of trying to articulate and link underlying motives with reputational value. They suggest that the link between CSR programmes and corporate reputation is contingent and possibly controversial in nature. By ‘Doing Good’ organisations go beyond their classical role as providers of goods and services in society, and voluntary provide some of their resources to help drive positive social change. This can greatly benefit how they are perceived by stakeholders. However Avoid Bad is also important, requiring corporations to ensure that basic employment, social, safety and environmental standards are met in such a way that harm is avoided, thus avoiding the violation of basic principles of fairness and justice in society. This is important to avoid strong public criticism, but also to ensure that the benefits of Doing Good do not backfire in the event of irresponsible behaviour. When this occurs stakeholders often assume that the CSR activities are simply being used as a marketing tool (2018:192). Ultimately poor performance related to Doing Good programmes can normally be forgiven by stakeholders, but failing to Avoid Bad can be reputationally disastrous, and far worse for companies that have claimed to be Doing Good (Lin-Hi and Blumberg 2018). The work of authors outlined above are useful counter-voices to an overly positivist approach to CSR research, but do not fundamentally address Logan (2014) and Bourne’s (2016) point that CSR is institutionally bound to hegemonic processes which privilege the corporate voice and the capitalist project. Many organisations try to be reflective, questioning their own roles and identities, and exhibiting responsible behaviours, and yet they remain 19th century capitalists in essence (Bentele and Wehmeier 2007). British Petroleum exemplifies this phenomena. It’s re-imagining as ‘Beyond Petroleum’ was exposed as a half-truth when BP workers died in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of low security standards. Fleming and Jones’ (2013) provocatively entitled text The End of Corporate Social Responsibility is a radical critique of both CSR research and practice. They cite a deep tension between the logic of neo-corporate enterprise which might incorporate socially responsible practices and the fundamentals of capitalism, theorising that CSR is problematic because it perpetuates the meta-narrative myth that social justice and business ontology can co-exist. Whilst the ideological proclamations and practical actions of CSR (democracy, sustainability) are progressive, Fleming and Jones contend that instead of activists dominating the public sphere with a critical stance to multinational capitalism, the language of ethics becomes the servant of capitalist institutions, thus perpetuating capitalist hegemony. Fleming and Jones argue that most CSR is unregulated and that even regulated social disclosures are frequently shown in research to have little effect on genuine operating change, leading to a catastrophic failure to protect large proportions of humankind from armed conflict, poverty and ecological degradation. They conceptualise CSR research as being hitherto unable to provide a catalyst for social change, and silent in terms of providing a counter-narrative to the anti-social nature of the current accepted socio-economic paradigm. Instead they call for a rupture of current orthodoxy, which might be achieved via a political economy approach, highlighting corporate social irresponsibility, and re-scripting economic rationality in the direction of justice-sensitive outcomes (Fleming and Jones 2013).

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Brand communications history and practice To help understand how brands might create justificatory brand narratives which respond to the 21st century social positioning challenge outlined in this chapter, let us briefly consider how branding has evolved.The challenge of clearly pin-pointing branding origins are highlighted by Lury who explains that ‘the brand stands at the intersection of the diverse histories of computing, information technology and media as well as those of economics, marketing and design’ (Lury 2004:6). Branding appears to have a long history: 11th century merchant guilds used branded signs and livery to distinguish themselves; and branding was used by early American settlers to identify cattle (Groucutt 2005:120). Historical figures such as St Augustine of Hippo, or San Bernandino of Sienna, have also been argued to use branding principles (Davcik and da Silva 2015). The word brand is believed to be derived from the old Norse word brandir, which translates as ‘to burn’, but the modern concept of brand derives from the late 19th century, when companies such as Campbell’s, Heinz, Coco-Cola, and Quaker Oats introduced brand identities to identify manufacturing origins (Groucutt 2005:120). In short, brands provided reassurance to customers accustomed to buying local goods, and hence introduced an element of trust, playing a representative role via packaging and other media (Lury 2009). The introduction of mass production techniques and media, the mobility of people and goods, and increasing national wealth, all contributed to a significant increase in the use of branding (Groucutt 2005). In particular the development of commercial packaging and printing from the 1890s onwards facilitated standardised packaging and pricing which allowed the surface of the product to be used communicatively to gain competitive advantage (Moor 2007). Later post-Fordist production techniques, improved industrial design, and marketing-led product development all led towards the ‘blurring of object and image that characterises contemporary branding’ (Moor 2007). It was in the 1990s in particular that a range of previously diffuse practices such as product design, retail design and point-of-purchase marketing became integrated to form a new task of strategic branding which led to the institutionalisation of branding via specific brand agencies, many of which developed out of design agencies, such as that run by Wally Olins. Designers like Olins called for a multi-disciplinary approach which incorporated the co-ordination of corporate design across all media, the articulation of ‘corporate culture’ (including the management of employee presentation and behaviour) and a more general effort to use all interactions with customers as communicative opportunities for the brand (Moor 2007). Products were related to needs and benefits, rather than just inherent qualities, and this foregrounds the way brands link to values and abstract qualities (Palmer 2004). Digital media convergence, and the proliferation of promotional techniques has led to a seismic shift in brand communications with public relations becoming increasingly important, because practitioners are accustomed to using both dialogue and the interrelationship of promotional forms (Powell 2013). Public relations is perfectly placed to develop narrative content for new digital and social media platforms because of the discipline’s focus on dialogical relationship building with a

Justification and corporate social responsibility  83 variety of both internal and external stakeholders (Mikacova and Gavlakova 2014). PR practitioners are able to reposition themselves at the heart of online conversations, gathering useful market research data to help identify attitudinal trends, and facilitating greater brand transparency to help build trust (Powell 2013). There is a view, however, that the public relations industry is losing the legitimisation battle due to the frequent sub-ordination of public relations to the role of free publicity in the promotional mix and this poses a threat to progressive public relations functions (Merkelssen 2011). Such an approach ignores its strategic value in using informed intermediaries as advocates to help with the positioning of organisations and products with responsibility and credibility (Bourne 2016). Public relations practitioners have worked hard on the idea of influencing stakeholders in order to create an environment in which mutual understanding between sender and receiver can be achieved: ‘what we are trying to do in public relations is shift the balance of opinion of the various ‘publics’ we interact with in favour of our organisation’ (Gregory 2000:101).The concept of publics is based on the idea of mass community, rather than mass communications, in which the audience is not characterised as an amorphous mass, but instead consists of a variety of highly differentiated communities which each has its own values, ideas and interests, and in which peer influence is high (Littlejohn 1992). Dissemination of ideas in such a process is not a simple two-step process, but a multiple-step model of diffusion (Littlejohn 1992) or Profile Strategy in which continual dialogue encourages stakeholders to act favourably towards an organisation, thus enabling its strategies to flourish (Gregory, 2000). In such a scenario, public relations professionals perform a boundary-spanning (Kitchen 1997) role to process information and inform external representation: ‘The public relations specialist will investigate and analyse internal and external pressures, diagnose problems confronting the organisation, suggest future trends and developments, and propose or counsel prescriptions for future actions’ (Oliver 2010:30). To take an illustrative example, the Co-operative retail group manages its reputation in this issues-led way.The Co-operative is transparent about its core ethical values of openness, honesty, social responsibility and caring for others which are clearly signposted on its website (Co-operative Group 2019b), and these are demonstrated through a broad range of issues-related activities and campaigns including funding for a joint community-based loneliness programme with the British Red Cross, lobbying campaigns to raise awareness of retail crime and modern slavery issues, and a Bright Futures programme to offer paid-work placements, followed by job interviews for victims of modern slavery (Co-operative Group 2019b). The Co-operative provides a good example of embedded CSR activity being promoted by public relations discourse workers (L’Etang 2004), using rhetorical strategies to support managerial aims. L’Etang talks of public relations practitioners in terms of ‘discourse workers specialising in communications and the presentation of arguments….employing rhetorical strategies to achieve managerial aims’ (2004:3). Whichever discipline takes control, the Co-operative demonstrates the nature of a brand-orientated organisation in which branding is accorded high relevance by top management, there is continuous innovation and consistency and clear core values which are articulated through compelling brand narratives (Harrison-Walker 2014).

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Reputation Boltanski and Chiapello (2007) proposed that a key characteristic of networked organisations is the externalisation of control and this is an important notion to consider in relation to justificatory brand narratives and authenticity. We can immediately relate this to contemporary brand issues in which organisations such as Primark (as mentioned earlier) and Nike (Theaker 2004) have faced criticism for manufacturing processes carried out by their sub-contractors in third world countries. Indeed, on a more catastrophic scale, the reputational damage to BP (Lean 2010) caused by the explosion, and subsequent oil leak, on one of its deep sea drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, operated by its sub-contractor Transocean, is a clear example of the challenges of managing organisational processes and reputations within a connectionist framework. For Boltanski and Chiapello (2007) the notion of reputation has a specific meaning in relation to the construction of worth represented in the world of fame. In the polity of fame, worth is dependent on the opinion and esteem of others, and therefore reputation as the summary of people’s attributes has a specific role to play in shaping public opinion. The prioritising of outward representation, so important to the world of fame, was a central tenet of the design-led corporate branding approaches of the 1970s and early 1980s, where a number of new privatised brands presented new visual identities to the world such as British Telecom, British Gas, Rolls Royce, BAA, and the water industries (Gordon 2011). In contemporary practice, and indeed academic discussion, reputation management seems to be presented as the process of presenting, protecting and preserving the corporate brand. Oliver (2010), in discussing reputation management, systematically covers a variety of elements including: corporate image; image and branding; corporate identity; visual identity; logos and livery; substance versus style; and reputation indices, thus seeing reputation management as a process. Much focus is placed on the fragility of this process, taking us back to our central concern here about how brands are critiqued and stabilised: A good reputation is not something that is earned overnight. It has to be carefully and considerately cultivated. It is something that is earned over a period of time as understanding and support develop for an organisation.The management of reputation has to be meticulously undertaken with integrity and honesty. It is something that is very fragile and can be lost quickly if words or actions are found to be out of sympathy with reality, or if careless talk gets out of hand (Gregory 2000:3). Gerald Ratner is an example of a brand leader who managed to destroy his own company’s reputation in an instant. He joked in a speech to the Institute of Directors in London in 1991 that many items of the products sold through his eponymous jewellery shops were crap. The story was picked up by the UK’s biggest daily circulation newspaper, The Sun, leading to devastating brand decline. Group profits for the Ratner organisation fell from profits of £112 million to losses of £122 million a year later (Haig 2003). Ratner was eventually forced to resign as chief executive in 1994 and the business changed its name to Signet (Shah 2005). Ratner did

Justification and corporate social responsibility  85 eventually successfully return to the jewellery business, setting up Geraldonline in 2003, which now turns over £25million and is the UK’s biggest online jewellery retailer (Ratner 2011), but Signet refused to let him use the Ratner name for his new venture (Moore 2010).The Body Shop is a contrasting example of an organisation which has constructed a strong brand image for its products (in this case linked to a specific ethical proposition), and which has then provided sustained support for that proposition in everything the organisation says and does, such as: recycling product containers; responsible sourcing; not testing on animals; and campaigning on issues such as access to menstrual products for women (Body Shop 2019). Here we can see the Body Shop embodying L’Etang’s cross-disciplinary interpretation of reputation management in which public relations practitioners are required to liaise with ‘risk managers, ethicists and organisational strategists’ in an ongoing systematic way in order to identify and deal with areas where future issues may impact on reputation, as well as devising proactive philanthropic or charitable activities to enhance reputation (L’Etang 2008a, 2008b:70). The result is that the organisation has successfully managed and supported its reputation over time, which in turn supports the constructed brand presentation. However, in purchasing the Body Shop in 2006 for £652 m, the French cosmetics organisation L’Oreal, underestimated the risk of trying to align two very different brands (one focused on ethical production and one focused on unethical practice linked to luxury cosmetics).Within a month, satisfaction with the Body Shop had fallen by half (Milmo 2006) and five years later the Body Shop’s annual sales were below 2007 levels every year (Roberts 2011). The justification of worth upon which the Body Shop established its principles and its modus operandi continues to face a considerable test of strength, challenging its legitimacy now that it is part of an organisation which appears to operate according to a very different value system. In selling to L’Oreal, Body Shop’s founding owner, Anita Roddick, had hoped that her organisation would be a Trojan Horse and that ‘the ethical stance of the smaller group she founded would infiltrate the multinational’ (Mortished and Judge 2009). On the contrary, the result has been both consumer voice and exit and it is hard to see how the two different justification systems of Body Shop and L’Oreal can be combined. Woods summarises the divergence in views on reputation well in arguing for a distinction between conceptualisations of reputation, defined as a deliberate promotional construction to support product brands, and relationship management, which centres on notions of dialogue and negotiation in order to create mutual understanding between organisations and a broad range of stakeholders (Woods 2006:542). This is an interesting distinction, linking to moments of critique and stabilisation which calls to mind questions of whether a reputation is fixed, or part of an ongoing relationship in which the process of critique and stabilisation is dynamic and continuing. The connectionist world depends greatly on the activity of networking in linking to effective partners in the first place (which in itself entails a process of critique and justification) but also on ‘trust and reputational qualities’ which ‘are the cement of projects’ (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007:115). When structures are mobile and less certain we can argue that trust becomes as important as quality, and brands therefore need to be able to inspire trust because ‘ultimately,

86  Justification and corporate social responsibility business will go to vendors whose reputation is good – that is to say, vendors whose trustworthiness is regularly tested and just as regularly confirmed’ (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007:129).

Branding and society The consideration of the relationship between branding, public relations and CSR links to contemporary academic debates about promotional culture conceptualised by Wernick in 1991. He uses the development of Wedgwood products and promotional techniques to demonstrate the historical development of a mutual entanglement of market-orientated design, production and image-making which he calls artificial semiosis, whereby the object for sale has a value as a promotional sign in itself, working alongside its supporting web of promotional activity. He argues that this leads to a mutation in the relation between the economic base and the cultural superstructure, so that production becomes a major cultural apparatus. Alongside this, he uses historical advertising to illustrate the way in which brandimaging is often symbolically connected to social values, and thus naturalises certain social views. In particular he highlights the standpoint of consumption which is built into the design of advertising texts, thus supporting an ideological capitalist view, alongside a cultural homogenisation which occurs because in most ­advertising there is a deep bias towards conventionalism. One of Wernick’s core arguments is that advertising does not just take symbolism from common culture, but it also recirculates it and re-works the symbolic universe, with some high profile advertising becoming a point of cultural discourse and reference in its own right. Coupled with the deeply self-promotional nature of much commercial entertainment this leads to a ‘vortex of promotional signs’ in which promotion is embedded within the processes of cultural, social and political worlds (1991:121). Nowadays promotional practices are common not just in the promotional industries (public relations, lobbying, advertising, marketing and branding), but also in many areas of politics, civil society, media and culture (Davis 2013). L’Etang argues that this phenomena is embedded across a variety of disciplines including public relations: ‘cultural studies theorists have tended to incorporate public relations into the general category of cultural intermediaries in their critical discussions of promotional work’s negative effects on authentic communication’ (L’Etang 2008a, 2008b:216). People have been turned into promotional commodities, either as employees personifying and selling brands, or in using CVs, blogs and social networking to ‘consciously present the individual self to a wider audience’ (Davis 2013:5). A body of academic work is highly critical of the impact of product and organisational branding on society pointing to a counter-culture formed around the idea that global branded goods have led to a societally destructive consumer culture (Holt 2002). A number of problematic societal issues relating to branding are cited such as: fears of cultural homogenisation; the use of brands as important resources for fashioning individual identities; and the use of the spaces and surfaces of everyday life as points of promotional communication (Moor 2007). Brands are seen as institutionally capitalist (Arvidsson 2006), connected to the globalisation of

Justification and corporate social responsibility  87 labour markets and to ‘the broader framework of a neo-liberal society in which, at a global level, deregulation and free trade are prioritised over other concerns’ (Moor 2007:7-9). This neo-liberal hegemony is expressed in the way in which major corporations appear to offer greater agency to consumers by encouraging participation in brand decisions, whereas in reality they are gaining free market research in return (Powell 2013). Consumers are, however, beginning to erode the control of marketers through the use of digital media, creating social spaces in which they produce their own culture (Holt 2002). Likewise the extended scope of branding into charities and non-for-profit organisations means that commercial branding techniques are now being used to raise the profile of educational and advocacy programmes, thus gaining political and social leverage (Moor 2007). This book accepts the idea that branding is characterised by informational practices which are social in nature making the brand ‘a compelling object of sociological concern’ (Lury 2004:150). Consumers use goods, and therefore brands, productively to ‘construct social relations, shared emotions, personal identity or forms of community’ and they are thus social, constructivist and powerful at the same time (Arvidsson 2006). It is therefore important that we understand the consequences of their impact. There is little doubt that the synchronisation of brands across global markets can contribute to cultural homogenisation and the eradication of cultural differences in public spaces and habits (Moor 2007). It is also clear that stakeholders are besieged by promotional images (Davis 2013). Celebrity brand names and images, for example, arguably become cultural texts, which are economically valuable, but are also part of society’s cultural heritage (Moor 2007). Not only that, but promotional culture has become increasingly pervasive, with promotional practices now widespread and systematic (Davis 2013:3). Advertising and marketing activities are a key site of negotiation between the economic and cultural spheres and they tend to focus on perceived customer product choices, thereby obfuscating forms of power (Bourne 2016:120-121) and hiding the ‘extreme inequalities generated by capitalist democracies’ by generating false images of stakeholders and everyday social relationships (Davis 2013:28). There is critical scholarship in public relations which responds to this critique of promotional culture and hegemonic CSR practices. The rejection of positivism in favour of postmodernism, poststructuralism and critical theory has attempted to provide alternative frameworks for the use of public relations within society. The notion of taking into account the public interest remains problematic, however, despite the fact that it is very much connected with conceptualisations of contemporary public relations practice (Johnston 2016). It can be found in 31 national codes of ethics for public relations but in reality is hard to define. The public interest could be a majority view, a prevailing feeling for the common good or a negotiated consensus, for example. Clearly finding an authentic voice for brands is problematic, given the complexities of this debate. Fombrun (2005) suggests that one way to maximise legitimacy is by using expert brand associations, so that standards are set outside the organisation. The use of third-party accreditation groups can protect organisations from activists and help with differentiation processes (2005). What is important is that public relations activity should engage with the public interest in a way which is acceptable

88  Justification and corporate social responsibility to society (Johnston 2016). When authentic narratives are constructed in this way activities are undoubtedly supporting management objectives, and might be argued to be conforming to an excellence view of PR which supports management strategies. However, the focus on outside concerns and stakeholders, which is often the centrepiece of public relations activity, is based on the premise that public relations activity can provide a wider reality-shaping role. We could therefore argue that when corporate branding, and corporate reputation management processes, are led by public relations professionals, social, environmental and other stakeholder concerns are often naturalised within corporate identity and legitimation processes and are therefore more likely to be perceived as authentic and legitimised.

7 Public relations for digital media brands Authentic brand narratives in a digital age

It is clear that digital media, and a heightened focus on corporate social responsibility, are bringing new challenges and opportunities for reputation management, but how do the digital media companies themselves manage their own brand representation? The following chapter uses a broad analysis of corporate communications materials, academic papers and media coverage, to explore the legitimisation strategies of a variety of media companies in order to understand how their brand positionings are created and contextualised. The brand narrative approaches of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Apple are compared to the reception of those narratives in the media during the past few decades, and the chapter also looks at how Google and Facebook have projected their brands in the face of stakeholder criticism.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) The constitution of the BBC was formed in 1926 and its responsibilities and powers were articulated in its Charter and Licence, which positioned it as ultimately responsible to the British Parliament and Government (Burns 1977). Every ten years the BBC’s Charter is renewed and this forms a focus for a debate about its role, management, government relationship and financial resources (Stevenson 1993).The latest charter came into effect at the end of 2017.The BBC was initially developed within an environment of public fear about the potential social, cultural, and political influence of mass media (Burns 1977), and this has led to an ­ongoing debate about the nature and purpose of public service broadcasting, themes which have been considered and debated by successive UK governments throughout the existence of the BBC up to the present day (O’Malley and Jones 2009). The ­organisation faces a fundamental dilemma of needing to be controlled, because it is powerful, whilst also enabling democracy by facilitating minority voices (Burns 1977). The BBC’s relationship with the British Government is an ongoing source of tension, due to the challenge of reconciling operational independence alongside an uneasy relationship with political parties, politics and government officials. The BBC’s raison d’etre has included: providing access to cultural heritage and to educate; determining what was fit and proper for the nation to view; reflecting public opinion; a focus on entertainment in the 1960s driven by the arrival of commercial

90  Public relations for digital media brands competition; and Reith’s original desire to present the best of British to the British people (Burns 1977). A key task of the BBC has been to reflect, define and project a sense of British national identity, helping to create an imagined British community (Hajkowski 2010), and a symbolic unity for the nation out of its diversity of conflicting identities and differences (in Stevenson 1993). It can therefore be argued that it is involved in a constitutive relationship with its publics, helping to form their identities as it addresses them (in Stevenson 1993). The BBC also works as a promotional tool for Britain, evidenced in war-time morale-boosting propagandistic activity, in which it employed the monarchy and the Empire as symbols of British unity (Hajkowski 2010). The corporation is also seen as central to the cultural life of Britain, constantly working to improve and increase the range of tastes (Smith in Stevenson 1993). It sets standards and extends choice, and is recognised throughout the world for its quality programming and impartial news coverage, providing a flow of independent and reliable political and international information (Stevenson 1993). This integrity and honesty is an important legitimating factor, linked to the organisation’s editorial impartiality and fairness (Hodgson in Stevenson 1993). Nevertheless, the BBC has faced significant legitimisation challenges over the years. The 1962 Pilkington Committee, for example, accused the BBC of trivialisation due to the homogenising effect of making programmes for an audience of millions and internally its own staff have often seemed dismayed at the vulgar or tedious uses to which highly technical, advanced equipment is put (Burns 1977). In the 1930s the organisation was accused of over bureaucracy, unadventurous programming and high-mindedness and later, during discussions about licence fee rises, it was criticised for financial mismanagement and extravagance (Burns 1977), specifically at the time of the Peacock committee in 1985 when there was a wide ‘belief that the BBC was high cost, inefficient and ridden with restrictive practices’ (Brittan in O’Malley and Jones 2009:101). The Annan Committee of 1997 put forward several measures encouraging openness and interactivity, including public hearings, a public enquiry board and an Independent Broadcasting Complaints Commission (Collins in O’Malley and Jones 2009). It was the arrival of commercial television which put the BBC operation into the framework of brand-image making (Burns 1977) and here we see the organisation responding to a strong liberal economics critique which emerged during the latter part of the 20th century and which asserted the need for a funding and operational system for the BBC linked to market forces (O’Malley and Jones 2009). A more current issue is that of a new media ecology in which public service broadcasting is refocused as communication, embodying the user-citizen at its centre. This new BBC fosters and supports public media spaces and engages with consumers and producers, rather than audiences. A study of BBC annual reports and news media coverage during its charter renewal years reveals a range of interesting legitimisation themes. Looking firstly at how the BBC projects itself through its annual reports, the major justificatory discourse used by the BBC focuses on its civic purpose. The BBC works hard to show how it is enabling democracy by maximizing opportunities for politicians to put their case directly to television and radio audiences, facilitating full and serious

Public relations for digital media brands  91 reporting of parliamentary affairs (BBC Annual Report 1985), as well as public discussion and debate on topical issues (BBC Annual Report 2013/14). The BBC’s corporate communications significantly focuses on its educative purpose repeatedly highlighting, through the use of numbers, the take-up of its services by UK educational and general audiences. It is likewise ‘critical to the cultural health of the UK, finding, training, developing and supporting new talent: writers, actors, artists, musicians, journalists and technical staff ’ (BBC Annual Report 2013/14:58). It sees itself as bringing the nation together culturally for big occasions, but also representing and celebrating the rich range of cultures and communities which make up the pluralistic nature of British identity. The BBC specifically addresses the fact that its serves the public interest and defends its work in this area vociferously, highlighting its civic role particularly in the UK, but also across the globe in helping people in all aspects of their lives.The public interest is divided into three broad areas: supporting people throughout the world via its media services, such as providing news coverage in conflict areas; charitable giving, such as its work on Children in Need; and contributing to society. By 2006/7 the BBC is using the terminology Corporate Social Responsibility, and provides several pages of examples in that year’s annual report.The BBC also positions itself as progressive and future orientated, with technical excellence seen as a duty for the BBC. The ability of the organisation to listen, understand and respond to its audience is a further strong narrative. Extensive details are given of the ways in which the BBC listens to its audience groups, whether through study groups, pages listing the details and contents of public letters and phone calls, detailed descriptions of public meetings or numerous pages outlining the BBC’s different advisory bodies (BBC Annual Report 1985). The organisation highlights how it seeks to interactively ‘understand some of the underlying concerns of its audience’ (BBC Annual Report 1995/96:2), through public meetings, roadshows, outside events and competitions, as well as audience research processes and innovations (BBC Annual Report 1985). By 2013/14 the discourse has moved to a completely interactive approach where the audience is fundamentally embedded within the Corporation’s delivery strategy: ‘We have started along the road of changing the way we interact with our audiences. We want not just to listen but to actively engage with them. That relationship should no longer simply be about the BBC, but my BBC – and work is underway for audiences to become their own schedulers, our next creators, our future innovators’ (BBC Annual Report 2013/14:47). Interestingly one of the themes least used by the BBC itself to justify its existence is its reputation for impartial, honest and independent news coverage. This is referenced consistently and clearly; ‘The BBC must always stand for, and stand by, courageous journalism, vigorously pursued…..fair and decent journalism, and the BBC’s reputation, demands no less’ (BBC Annual Report 1985:21), but it is almost as if the BBC does not need to remind us extensively of its expertise in this area. It is mentioned in BBC reports, but is not overemphasised by the use of examples. Media coverage of the BBC brand for the same charter renewal years reveals a number of specific reputational themes. In the 1980s, the BBC comes under fierce criticism of being beholden to the government of the day, centred around

92  Public relations for digital media brands a dominant story about the BBC governors over-riding the director-general and pulling a programme on Northern Ireland under alleged pressure from the Thatcher government. Interestingly, throughout the criticism of the decision to pull the Northern Ireland programme, there is emphasis on the BBC’s worldrecognised independence and editorial integrity which is unquestioned and seen as needing to be protected. The debate instead tends to focus on over bureaucracy and partisanship of governors at the BBC, and the way in which the governors’ actions have led to a scandal which has tarnished the BBC’s reputation. In the 1990s there is a significant media critique around the commercialisation of the BBC, and a strong emerging theme of the value of the BBC’s brand name, particularly in international market places. The brand name is seen as a trusted, respected and valuable commodity. Indeed BBC programmes must work hard to be ‘worthy of the BBC’s reputation’ (Clarke and Webster 1994) and there is a sense of the need for protection, for example fears that the BBC’s reputation might be hurt by London parochialism (Ballantyne 1995), or by news presenters’ personal activities. Evidence emerges of the BBC’s systematic attempts to control and be in a position to exploit the BBC brand: ‘The BBC has registered its initials and logo with the Patent Office to prevent other companies using them for commercial purposes. As part of plans to expand its commercial activities, the BBC has also applied to register its initials in more than 50 countries around the world’ (Frean 1995). In more recent years (2013/14) the media focus has been on poor reputation management. The BBC is seen to have brought a number of scandals and reputation damage upon itself as a result of mismanagement, specifically relating to failure to identify and respond to Jimmy Savile’s crimes, and the discovery of fat-cat pay-offs to retiring executives, alongside bullying claims. There is a sense that the BBC’s reputation has been ‘badly tarnished’ (Dominiczak 2013) and even ‘poisoned’ (Osley 2013) by such scandals, with many BBC management practices condemned predominantly on the basis that they bring the corporation’s reputation into disrepute. There is much talk of enhancing the BBC’s reputation being justification enough for taking on new approaches and programmes. Throughout the media coverage, there is unwavering acceptance of the BBC’s valuable international reputation for independent news journalism and overall, whilst a number of clear critical themes are identified, the media coverage studied is unwaveringly positive. Most negative stories provide counter-balancing reminders of the BBC’s global reputation for editorial integrity. Academic critic, however, points to the way investment in the BBC’s 24-hour news service has been to the detriment of broader programming excellence, and that the news service itself is pro-business and pro-market, lacking the journalistic enquiry required to provide a balanced political and world view (Lewis 2016). The new 2017 charter requires the BBC to be distinctive, and whilst this embodies the recognition that the organization is a successful universal broadcaster of quality programmes, the implied critique is that its popular light entertainment programmes might impinge on the profitability of competitors (Goddard 2017). In comparing how the BBC projects itself versus its representation in the media, it is clear that there is a mismatch between the justificatory narratives of the BBC

Public relations for digital media brands  93 and the areas of critique highlighted by the media. Whilst the BBC focuses heavily on its civic purpose, its future-orientated management and technological leadership, and the scale of its services, the key themes for the media are the high value of the BBC brand itself, which needs to be protected, and which is inextricably linked to its independent news coverage. The BBC’s editorial independence and integrity is the essence of its authenticity, characteristics which are embedded in its structures and which thus provide a powerful legitimizing affirmation that out-weighs shortterm critique. The reputation challenges facing the BBC seem to change little over time. In 2019 concerns have been raised in the media around fat cat pay for stars, inappropriate racist or violent language used by comedians on air, Government interference over alleged xenophobic remarks by prime ministerial candidate Boris Johnson, accusations of lack of governance regarding sexual harassment claims, and questions over the handling of tax systems for freelancers. The key change here seems to be the additional challenge of managing these issues on social media. In April 2019, the corporation issued a warning to staff not to tweet their personal views after staff members reacted publicly to BBC programmes debating the rights and wrongs of teaching school children LGBT tolerance (Waterson 2019). Despite these challenges, the BBC works hard at its own PR and invests heavily, for example, spending £2.5 m in 2019 on outside PR agencies to promote the licence fee (Moore 2019).The corporation has its own corporate social media sites such as Twitter, Instragram, and Facebook, but far more popular are its programme driven sites such as @bbcnews, @bbcstrictly, and @bbcdoctorwho, which attract millions more followers than the organisation’s own sites. The BBC cleverly enabled its producers and journalists from early on to be active content producers, repurposing programme material for social media dissemination and encouraging interaction. It issued a report on embracing digitisation for public sector broadcasting in 2004, which encouraged the inclusion of viewer produced content, and social media guidelines were provided to all employees in 2010 (van Dijck and Poell 2015). The policy has worked well. Landmark programmes, and landmark presenters, like David Attenborough and his wildlife series (Life on Earth, Planet Earth, Frozen Planet, Blue Planet, and Dynasties), help personify and manifest the BBC brand. Its values of education, quality programming and civic purpose, are represented in this way, in traditional and online global media, through the use of the BBCEarth sub-brand, the @BBCEarth hashtag and accompanying imagery and audio-visual material. The formatting and creation of programmes like the Earth series are carefully constructed for international markets, and thereby convey the BBC brand internationally in both reputation and commercial terms (Richards 2013).

Apple Inc Apple has developed over a 40-year period from a computer producer to a powerful multi-media company (Schneiders 2011), which now tops the brand agency Interbrand’s global rankings (Interbrand 2018). Whilst Apple’s initial aim was to transform personal computing, it then moved into the wider media industry,

94  Public relations for digital media brands revolutionising not only music players, mobile phones, apps and tablet computers, but also arguably changing the business model for the music and publishing industries (Isaacson 2011). In terms of its global impact, on 10 February 2015 Apple became the first US company to achieve a market value of $700 billion (Wakabayashi 2015). From its initial inception, Apple’s brand positioning has attempted to link it with the idea that its products are ground-breaking and worldchanging. There is a constant focus on the notion that Apple products will change the course of computer history and that working on new product design is an exalted mission. Apple founder, Steve Jobs, had a conviction that the world should be a better place with Apple in it, positioning the company as an innovator at the vanguard of the new Information Age (Isaacson 2011). Apple is a champion of research and development having often started new technologies and introduced a series of firsts, such as easy-to-use graphical icons, pull-down menus, and trackballs. Its engineers make up about half of its workforce and at one stage it had an Advanced Technology Group of 500 engineers whose mission was to explore future technologies (Carlton 1997). A further focus for Apple was the idea that its products would empower ordinary people and even perhaps affect collective thought processes. The company had an underlying desire to develop elegant, really beautiful solutions (Levy 2000) that would ‘increase the productivity and creativity of people’ (Kawasaki 1991:6). Such products became an escape and ‘a symbol for self-empowerment’ (Schneiders 2011:52) and even Apple Stores were conceived as spaces where ‘one can unleash one’s creative potential’ (Yang 2014:76). Apple used an open systems approach, working synergistically alongside other organizations, rather than resolving all technical and product issues itself. For example, Apple set about inspiring other organizations to focus their intellectual and commercial resources on creating a software library for the Macintosh, rather than developing all the software itself (Levy 2000). Like its industry relationships, interaction was also a characteristic of the connection between Apple and its fans. Today there are ‘hundreds, perhaps thousands, of active, regularly updated Mac websites, collectively known as the Mac web’ (Schneiders 2011:20). At the first MacWorld Expo in Boston the atmosphere was like a ‘high-tech Mardi Gras, a celebration so steeped in excitement that even the most pessimistic pundits began hedging their bets’ (Levy 2000:220). In recovering from near bankruptcy the company’s current success has been born out of a policy of open consultation with customers (Van Bellingham 2012:45), which gives Apple a powerful market research tool: It is remarkable to witness how the Apple management team and Apple fans work together to further develop their chosen brand. If Apple announces a new product during a press conference, within hours thousands of Apple addicts are already spreading the message. The most fanatical Apple lovers even brainstorm about potential new ideas on the site Macrumors.com. In effect, these people pre-design new products for the Apple brand. They keep a watchful eye on patent offices to gain useful information for further product development (Van Bellingham 2012:37).

Public relations for digital media brands  95 Apple consciously used a technique which might be described as secular evangelism. It created an evangelism department and job positions called evangelists: ‘Macintosh started as a vision; then it became a product supported by a cult; finally, it became a cause – propagated by thousands of Macintosh evangelists’ (Kawasaki 1991:8). Apple also created global user group events, including the User Group Universities where 100 user-group leaders would participate in a day of workshops and discussions about latest products (Schneiders 2011).When considering the way in which users interpret brands from an emotional or rational perspective it is interesting to note that Apple consumers are often referred in terms of a cult. Within weeks of the Macintosh going on sale it had attracted a ‘joyous cult’ of customer evangelists (Levy 2000:198) and had ignited ‘a wave of fervor and zeal in early adopters’ (Kawasaki 1991:6). Such ‘cultish diehards’ were useful to Apple when it was doing less well because they would ‘sooner jump off a cliff as switch from their beloved Macs’ (Carlton 1997:374). According to Duncan (2005) cult brands are created when a genuine two-way interactive relationship is created between brands and individual buyers and relationship building is at the core of successful branding. This ability to inspire interactive evangelism seems to work for Apple within its development community too, with independent developers sometimes solving its software problems, such as developer Metrowerks producing CodeWarrier software in 1994 to enable developers to write programmes for the PowerMac (Carlton 1997). This theme also carries across into the workforce. The Apple Stores lure ‘brand loyalists into its service network and turns them into even more devout spokespersons for the brand’ (Yang 2014:80). Another strong legitimisation message used by Apple is creativity. In jointly starting and leading Apple, Steve Jobs aimed to create an organization that was ‘so imbued with creativity’ (Isaacson 2011:xvii) it would outlive him. Now we recognise this as a prophecy.This was a ‘cool, rebellious and heroic company’ (2011:162) that would always create ‘distinctive’ products in which history-changing technology would be married to great design and elegance (Isaacson 2011). As an example the Power Mac G4 Cube was considered so alluring that one was put on display in New York’s Museum of Modern Art (2011:445), and Apple Stores ‘have surfaced in urban centres around the world as architectural icons, if not tourist attractions in their own right’ (Yang 2014:74). A recurrent, and highly promoted theme, appears to be one of simplicity, tied to the notion that Apple products are intuitive to use, summarised in its design mantra ‘simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’ which appeared on its first brochure (Isaacson 2011:127). The notion of simplicity was carried through to later integrated web-based products that embraced a simple concept that ‘everything would just work seamlessly’ (2011:533). This simplicity was part of the enabling of Apple’s successful premium price positioning as individuals and companies were willing to pay more for products which were easier to use (Carlton 1997), and which were clearly designed from the customers’ point of view (Schneiders 2011). Apple deliberately focused on marketing and brand representation in a careful and controlled manner. Working practices included a weekly 3-hour scheduled brainstorm every Wednesday to discuss messaging strategy, a level of control which extends as far as

96  Public relations for digital media brands the unique shop environments, designed to impart the ethos of Apple as playful, easy and creative by organising products around things people might like to do, rather than product lines. In terms of justificatory discourse, Apple is often depicted as a symbol of America’s economic renaissance by racing into the Fortune 500 faster than any other company in history and becoming one of the biggest stories of American business (Isaacson 2011). When the company went through difficulties in the 1990s this early success, and its entrepreneurial spirit, provided the organisation with support: ‘The business press had been increasingly critical of Apple….but as a whole the reporters who followed the company wanted it to succeed because Apple’s had always been such a colourful and intriguing story to follow’ (1997:370). Those that chronicle Apple’s story (Carlton 1997, Isaacson 2011, Kawasaki 1991, Levy 2000) also highlight sources of critique. Apple misjudged the reaction of the business community with the launch of the Macintosh and was unable to break into the closed shop of Fortune 100 company buyers who saw ‘incoherence, ugliness, and a steep learning curve’ as indicators that a machine was powerful (Levy 2000:198). Similarly misjudgement was a problem in 1989 when it had focused so much on bringing out improved versions of its Macintosh computer that it had ignored ‘a groundswell of demand from customers for a laptop computer’ (Carlton 1997:104). Contrary to Levy’s (2000) positioning of Apple as open, a recurring counter-critique is that Apple was in fact very closed to working with industry, manifested in its product principle, which was that Apple technology would essentially be ‘a closed and controlled system’ (Isaacson 2011:163). Apple, for example, was criticised for tightly controlling which apps could appear on the iStore (Isaacson 2011:516) and was accused of ‘intransigence’ by software and app developers over its integrated technology approach (Carlton 1997:258). Despite the focus on innovation and technological superiority, Apple has been beset with recurrent technical issues, often leading to disappointing sales of new products in particular. Macintosh sales, for example, slowed at the end of 1984 and were only 10% of the budget forecast by 1985 because even though it was ‘dazzling’ it was also ‘woefully slow and underpowered’ (Isaacson 2011). When the Newton MessagePad launched in August 1993, just days later a public relations nightmare began and ‘customers were complaining like crazy about the handwriting system’ (Carlton 1997:236). Worse still, in August 1995, Apple was forced into a product recall of the Powerbook 5300 as a result of machines that had ‘burst into flames’ (1997:33). Later, the iPhone 4, whilst looking ‘awesome’, soon became embroiled in an ‘antennagate’ issue because users lost connection if they held the phone in a certain way (Isaacson 2011). Whilst heralded as part of its success, Apple’s maverick approach to business has brought it into many expensive conflict situations. In 1988 when Microsoft launched its Windows 2.0, Apple aggressively sued the organization for copying design principles; Apple eventually lost the case in 1997, the year it forged a deal to share software with Microsoft. Apple Computers was sued in 1978, 1991 and 2003 by the Beatles’ former recording label Apple Corps for using its name and eventually Apple Computers paid $500 million for worldwide branding rights, licensing back

Public relations for digital media brands  97 the name to the original record company (Isaacson 2011). An apparently arrogant attitude also led to difficult trading conditions and ‘abysmal’ dealer relations for Apple. It developed a reputation amongst software developers for being difficult to deal with, born out of a culture that ‘if it wasn’t invented at Apple, the smartest place in the universe, Apple’s engineers wanted no part of it’ (Carlton 1997:51). This was reinforced by a lack of technical support for developers. Chroniclers of the Apple story frequently highlight a history of chaotic management decisions, where reorganizations were commonplace. There is a narrative thread of maverick staff succeeding despite management incompetency, for example ‘PowerBook and QuickTime took place only after some renegades in the trenches usurped the company’s Byzantine organization and chartered their own paths’ (1997:181). At the core of management critique was founding partner Steve Jobs who was intensely aligned with the brand itself, leading to both positive and negative connotations. Apple’s distinctive logo works to succinctly present the central proposition of the organisation, simultaneously signifying friendliness, simplicity and a sense of being off-beat (Isaacson 2011), along with an implied link to Sir Isaac Newton (Carlton 1997). Stephen Jobs, however, also acted as a symbol for the brand representing ‘American innovation and entrepreneurial cunning’ (Levy 2000:17). His exacting standards, even when misguided, reminded the Mac People that they were not salary workers but revolutionaries on a mission. Jobs’ difficult nature and ‘reality distortion field’ are often cited as management challenges (Isaacson 2011:117) and ultimately when diagnosed with cancer his deteriorating condition became a distraction and cause for financial market concern. His emaciated appearance at the launch of the iPhone 3G in June 2008 overshadowed the product announcement and led to the fall in Apple’s stock price from $188 in June 2008 to $97 by early October 2008 (Isaacson 2011). The development and launch of some of its iconic products have been test points for the Apple brand. New product launches at Apple are theatrical productions, presented with ‘fanfare and flourishes’ (Isaacson 2011:167). The Apple II launch in 1977 was the company’s first significant product which was argued to have launched the personal computer industry (Isaacson 2011). Following on from this the Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, has since been described as ‘the most important consumer product in the last half of the twentieth century’ (Levy 2000:7). It combined technology with ‘magic’ to create a product which became a symbol of intellectual freedom made by ‘young wizards’ (2000:20). This launch was supported by an advert that was as ‘revolutionary and astonishing as the product they had created’ (Isaacson 2011:162). Produced by film director Ridley Scott, the commercial targeted the highest prime time television slot, the third quarter of the American Superbowl final, and linked directly to contemporary cult fiction by depicting a girl in red shorts being chased by guards through a throng of drably dressed men and shattering the screen with a sledgehammer to reveal the words ‘you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984’ (Kawasaki 1991). After its first viewing, the advert was discussed on all three TV networks in the US and ‘fifty local stations aired news stories about the ad, giving it a viral life unprecedented in the pre-You Tube era’ (Isaacson 2011:165). In 1992 the PowerBook ‘flew off the store shelves’

98  Public relations for digital media brands and contributed to a record $7.1 billion of revenues (Carlton 1997:181) and in 1998 the iMac, was seen as another ‘iconic new product, this one a harbinger of a new millennium’ (Isaacson 2011:355). It is the iPod launch in 2001, however, that provides another pivotal moment for Apple in transforming the organisation from ‘a computer maker into being the world’s most valuable company’ (Isaacson 2011:384). By January 2007 sales of the iPod were generating half of Apple’s revenues and brands such as the global rock group U2 were keen to be associated with it. A further turning point for Apple was the launch of the iPhone at Macworld in San Francisco in January 2007 (Isaacson 2011). Just three years later, 90 million iPhones had been sold, providing Apple with more than ‘half of the total profits generated in the global cell phone market’ (2011:474), but the impact of the iPad may be argued to be even greater. Launched in April 2010, 15 million iPads had been sold within nine months making it possibly ‘the most successful consumer product launch in history’ (Isaacson 2011:498). Its reach is argued to be beyond consumer electronics. With 500,000 apps developed for the iPhone and iPad by July 2011 (2011:502) the access to music, books and news media meant that Apple had ‘begun to transform all media, from publishing to journalism to television and movies’ (2011:503). Analysis of speeches from Apple’s product launch events reveals that Apple has emphasised the ease of use of its products from the very beginning. Adverts for the Apple II state that Apple is introducing a new level of simplicity. Later products are described as so ‘radically easy-to-use’ and in demonstrating, the iPad, for example in 2010, Steve Jobs repeatedly uses the phrase ‘It’s that simple’. A second distinctive justificatory discourse for Apple is its mantra of leading the consumer electronics industry in outstanding stylish design. The launch narrative for the iPod in 2001, for example, states that the team wanted to design something that was ‘really gorgeous’ and that ‘could become an icon’. Apple products are consistently presented as innovative, ground-breaking, and world-changing and superlatives are often used. Apple’s research and development work is positioned as an exalted mission and the results are ‘amazing’ – a word which gets 26 and 27 uses respectively in the 2001 and 2010 iPod and iPad launch speeches. Excitement is a similarly consistent narrative. Apple personnel often talk about their own work being ‘exciting’ or impart a sense of anticipation around the new product launches. The use of specific words as brand associations is clearly deliberate, and there is likewise evidence of Apple intentionally promoting and developing Apple as a brand asset, spending, for example, 50 million dollars on TV advertising in 1984: ‘We think the Apple brand is going to be fantastic, because people trust the Apple brand to get their digital electronics from’. This brand confidence often came from Steve Jobs himself, who actively demonstrated the products during all the launch speeches. One of the most compelling narratives which emerges from analysis of launch speeches is the popularity of the brand. The organisation was boasting of this as early as 1977: ‘No wonder tens of thousands have already chosen Apple’. By 2010 the statistics remained impressive, and the organisation used them frequently for effect: ‘A few weeks ago we sold our 250 millionth iPod’ and ‘already our customers have downloaded over three billion apps’.

Public relations for digital media brands  99 In 1984 and 2010 Apple appears to be aware of critique and counter-acts messages proactively. In 1984 it talks about ‘introducing the Macintosh at a mainstream price’ and it acknowledges some of its management issues in admitting that ‘this may have been the most difficult period in Apple’s history’. The idea that Apple is closed to partnerships is counteracted by discussion of the way that dealers are ‘turning back to Apple [away from IBM] as the only force that can ensure their freedom’. Such defensive narratives also come through another theme of economic success. Here foci of economic success, global reach and entrepreneurialism are frequent messages, with the company taking pride in how it became ‘the fastest growing company in American history’. Alongside its corporate narratives, there is plenty of evidence that Apple has been highly pro-active in managing media relations. For example, there is talk of how Jobs went to New York to do ‘another round of one-on-one press interviews’ (Isaacson 2011:188) and how he ‘found ways to ignite blasts of publicity that were so powerful the frenzy would feed ­itself ’ (Isaacson 2011:165). Other senior managers were also courted by the media: ‘when Apple was riding high in 1987, John Sculley was inundated with so many interview requests from the media that his staff could barely keep up with them all’ (Carlton 1997:62) and he made it his strategy ‘to conduct as many speeches and media interviews as he could to build awareness of the Apple brand’ (1997:225). Between the year 2000 and 2014, the organisation issued 1,124 press releases to the media, an average of 75 per year (Apple 2015). Analysis of global press media coverage of the launches of the Macintosh (1984), iPod (2001), and iPad (2010) reveals an impressive level of re-iteration of some of Apple’s core brand messages. The media frequently pick up on Apple’s innovation and ground-breaking discourse, repeating brand vocabulary such as world-changing, consistent research and development investment, and Apple being the world’s best. The media position Apple as a top-brand and report on the intense loyalty it enjoys (Shoebridge 2010). Steve Jobs is perceived as an important part of this successful Apple brand system, depicted as ‘the best showman in American business’ who would get ‘ready for a keynote much the way that Oscar Wilde prepped for a dinner party’ (Deutschman 2000). The design-focus of Apple is also celebrated, including themes of elegant, simple-to-use and stylish designs and coverage of Apple’s commercial accomplishments is particularly strong, emphasizing how Apple is entrepreneurial, global and a symbol of American success. The second highest individual theme emerging from media analysis is the way in which Apple inspires a cult following in loyal users. This media discourse emerges very strongly in 2010, revealing particular interest in the growing fanaticism with Apple, including talk of ‘mania’, long queues outside Apple stores (Perez 2010) and the way in which Steve Jobs and the brand have ‘a group of devoted customers who are willing to tattoo the Apple brand on their bottom. Thousands of them have done that’ (Doesburg 2010). Words such as excitement, amazing and exalted mission are consistently re-iterated by the media, however, the brand also experiences some specific areas of brand critique, with considerable media coverage of Apple’s product problems, corporate mismanagement, arrogance, bad industry relationships, narrow focus, misjudgement

100  Public relations for digital media brands of markets, not meeting demand, expensive pricing, and incompatibility with other technologies and programmes. It is clear that Apple itself has focused primarily on justificatory criteria that are resonant of Boltanski and Thevenot’s (2006) inspired world, starting with creativity and moving through ground-breaking to amazing. The sense of cult and excitement that is often uncritically reported around its products suggests that this narrative is accepted to some degree as authentic, perhaps because the dominant underlying theme across the decades is the company’s physical design focus and product innovation, which arguably support the superlative brand message. If these themes are connected to Boltanski and Thevenot’s worlds then it seems the media supports a strong justificatory case for Apple based on industrial and market criteria. The media coverage was positive about the fact that Apple is a successful commercial organisation that continually innovates and advances technology, something it has managed to achieve despite a series of management blunders. Important aspects to note are the clear consistency and repetition of Apple’s core justificatory themes and philosophies, the strong link between justificatory brand messages and the organisation’s ability to deliver (which is what the media focus on) and the emergent sense that this is a brand that truly focuses on customers: its products are easy to use; it aims to inspire and enable customers; it has a vision of a higher purpose of serving customers and the world; and in addition to all this, it is commercially successful. This consistency of messaging is no surprise when we look at Apple’s reputation management processes. At Apple, Steve Dowling is Vice President Communications, reporting to CEO Tim Cook. He is responsible for Apple’s worldwide media relations and communications strategy, leading the public relations team as well as employee communications and corporate events (Apple 2019a). Apple also has a Vice President of Marketing Communications, Tor Myhren, who also reports to CEO Tim Cook. Myhren is responsible for Apple’s advertising, internet presence, package design and other consumer-facing marketing. In addition to these two roles, is veteran Apple marketer, Philip W. Schiller who is Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, who also reports into CEO Tim Cook (Apple 2019a). This suggests a rather complex arrangement of different perspectives; however, they all report into the most senior executive, who ultimately has an overview of the brand, and this might indicate ‘a brand-orientated’ organisation (Harrison-Walker 2014:205). Apple remains a prolific producer of corporate news, which mainly focuses on product news, but also incorporates education programmes, sponsorship (such as a tie in between the Apple watch and the Australian women’s cricket team), music performances and technological news for app developers. News is released via an online newsroom, as well as Apple’s social media. In addition, the corporation has a clear values section on its website covering, Accessibility, Environment, Privacy, and Supplier Responsibility. Clear information and case study material is underpinned by annual Progress and Transparency Reports. The company reaches out experientially in many ways, from the continuation of its focus on large scale industry keynote addresses, to micro consumer interactive events such as creativity session in stores, video walks and summer camps for children, all with clearly searchable information geo-located for enquirers.

Public relations for digital media brands  101

Facebook The social networking platform Facebook started as a Harvard-based college network in 2004, quickly growing to a value of $100 billion at the time of its public floatation in 2012 (Van Dijck 2013). In the first quarter of 2019 it had 2.38 billion active users (Statistica 2019). Facebook is currently positioned at number nine in the Interbrand global brand rankings, having not even featured in the top 100 brands ten years ago (Interbrand 2018). Its brand is exceptionally strong, with ­organisational terminology, such as liking and friending, evolving into everyday discourse (Van Dijck 2013). Facebook’s mission is to ‘make the world more open and connected’ (Van Dijck 2013:45), but in 2018 Facebook found itself dealing with one of the biggest crises in its reputation history after admitting that the organisation was aware that from 2015 onwards Cambridge Analytica had been improperly accessing data on 87 million of its users (Lotrea 2018). The challenge for Facebook has been facilitating openness and sharing (arguably its key Unique Selling Point), and monetising access to data, when data protection has become an increasingly regulated and public issue. The brand has faced increasing criticism in relation to its default settings, which enable Facebook, and other third parties, to access data (Van Dijck 2013). It has also faced controversy over tax payments, and the alleged circulation of Russian-placed fake news articles during the 2016 US presidential election campaign.This has meant that Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has been forced to take a more central and defensive role in terms of reputation management, such as appearing in front of the US congress to defend the organisation’s actions (Moran 2018). Facebook is a highly active content producer, issuing information from its online newsroom and social media platforms daily. This content is highly issues-oriented in nature, focusing specifically on reputational programmes and its corporate s­ ocial responsibilities. In one two-week period in 2019 its content covered a variety of product-led information alongside: updates on its Terms of Service; a Zuckerberg interview as part of his series on the future of technology and society; an Update on the creation of the Facebook Oversight Board for Content Decisions; Social Media and Conflict; Transparency Tools for Social Issues, Electoral or Political Ads, an Update on Facebook’s Civil Rights Audit; training sessions for entrepreneurs, small business owners and job seekers; an app to increase blood donation in the US; and a feature on health sensationalism (Facebook 2019). Supporting its mission ‘to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected’ its own Facebook page celebrates friends and friendship, with clear use of campaigning such as an initiative to use audio-visual vignettes to celebrate inspirational young people. Alongside online engagement, the organisation actively seeks stakeholder input, for example running workshops and roundtables with 650 people from 88 different countries in order to consider the function, purpose and organisation of its Facebook Oversight Board for Content Decisions (Facebook 2019). Facebook is interesting in terms of its brand construction in that it is manifested through daily interactions with users, in a way which encourages intimacy and connectedness due to the personal nature of the content shared (Van Dijck 2013). This close

102  Public relations for digital media brands relationship evokes vocal reactions from users when the organisation introduces even subtle new changes to the brand. Criticism and suspicion regarding the release of information, and exposure to unsolicited advertising, has also roused discontent with advertisers and users alike, leading to a variety of reputational and legal challenges from government agencies, pressure groups and users in the USA, Germany and Canada. When the News Feed feature was changed in 2009, for example, the ‘Change Facebook Back to Normal’ group quickly gained over one million members, and in 2011 the Europe v Facebook group called for political and legal action (Van Dijck 2013). Facebook’s response has been to make amendments required by law, operating at the lowest tier of corporate social responsibility (Carroll and Shabana 2010). Facebook’s positioning as everyone’s friend is challenged by concerns over the control social networking sites (SNS) have over information delivery, and Facebook has become particularly dominant, developing into a key node in the technology network of digital capitalism, instigating and directing many of its tools, goals and values (Moran 2018). As discussed earlier in this book, the networked organisation, and networked self, are part of a new value system, which celebrates and rewards those who are mobile, engaged, flexible and constantly hunting new connections (Rider and Murakami Wood 2018). However, whilst Facebook promotes the way it facilitates this type of success it also has addictive qualities, raises questions about personal identity and insecurity, and has helped create the crimes of cyber stalking and bullying (Patterson 2012). This powerful and potentially problematic position makes brand legitimisation difficult, and the company has been implicated in a range of controversies since its inception. In responding to criticism, Mark Zuckerberg consistently emphasises a number of themes including: listening to and responding to users’ feedback; evidencing where users have contributed to the evolution of the product; reinforcing the message that Facebook cares what users think; and positioning Facebook as a ‘beneficial invigilator’, which uses analysis of user behaviour data to make improvements (Hoffman et al 2018). In addition, the declaration and pursuit of philanthropic aims is one of Facebook’s key strategic narratives aimed at combatting brand negativity. Analysis of Mark Zuckerberg’s public discourse reveals a careful positioning of the company as a utility in the service of a broad social mission, and a critical social infrastructure for connecting the world (Hoffman et al 2018). As the owner of these narratives, Zuckerberg is a key component of Facebook’s brand presence, strongly connected symbolically to the brand itself, and helping to drive its success through strong leadership, management and creative vision (Moran 2018). Little and Winch describe this as the Zuckerberg-Facebook assemblage, comprising the company of Facebook, the platform itself, Facebook content and Zuckerberg as a mediated man ‘producing an affective intimate and political paternalism’ (Little and Winch 2017:420). Zuckerberg uses a public facing blog to share his vision, including the work of his non-profit entity the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (2019), which aims to solve issues through the creative and innovative use of technology. On the birth of his daughter, Zuckerberg and his wife Pricilla Chan, pledged to donate 99% of their Facebook shares over the course of their lifetime, valued at $45 billion dollars,

Public relations for digital media brands  103 in order to help create a better world for the future. Their open letter was commented on, or liked, by over two million Facebook users (Zhao and Dale 2019). By engaging in such acts of personal visual philanthropy, and public rhetoric, both Zuckerberg, and Facebook, gain positive reputational and cultural capital. Analysis of the response to the large-scale personal donation announcement by Zuckerberg and Chan in social media reveals that it evoked transcendence-related emotions and hope in users, thus building a strong personal and positive emotional connection. It also demonstrated the ability of Facebook, and other social media, to provide a venue for the expression and experience of positivity (Zhao and Dale 2019). Moran (2018) argues that Zuckerberg is following a trend for ‘virtuous leadership’ exhibited by the large technology leaders such as Bill Gates, and the late Steve Jobs. Zuckerberg used a speech to developers in April 2019 to highlight how the organization planned to encode privacy across the firm’s infrastructure and bring in a range of changes in response to concerns over data protection, pledging to put privacy first in a bid to rebuild trust by putting greater emphasis on groups and private interactions (Kleinman 2019).This leadership yields emblematic power, which brings further significant brand connections, such as Zuckerberg being invited to the United Nationals to help bring internet connections to refugee camps. Whilst such actions and foundations may be altruistic at heart, and can build connections via social media, they clearly also support a fundamental connexionist agenda which justifies and normifies the projective, networked world, by appealing to values of inclusivity, connection and community, and thereby benefits the major computing and networking corporations (Rider and Murakami Wood 2018). The core brand narrative here is the connection between technology and humanitarianism, with technical solutions being sought for societal problems (Moran 2018). This narrative was emphasised by Zuckerberg in an extensive open letter in 2017 which outlined his vision for ‘Building Global Community’ and presented Facebook as the answer to authoritarianism. The public relations technique of open letters is one which has been used frequently, and deliberately, by Zuckerberg (Rider and Murakami Wood 2018). Other techniques include media interviews, and considered use of his own carefully crafted Facebook page to present an alternative narrative vision of capitalism linked to diversity, democracy and close connections with friends and family (Little and Winch 2017). Consistent audio-visual content of his close family see Zuckerberg providing a caring, paternalistic role model which helps legitimise his, and his company’s, significant digital and global power. Such deliberate and intimate public declarations provide access to Zuckerberg, and his family, as a modern-day CEO celebrity, bypassing the traditional gatekeeping role of public relations practitioners and corporate publicists. This direct access sends a signal of openness and transparency (Little and Winch 2017) and is a clear strategic policy on the part of Zuckerberg, and Facebook, to control public perception of the brand and its intentions. The repeated framing of Facebook as a benevolent social infrastructure seems to position Facebook effectively as a facilitator of natural human interaction. Facebook is presented not as a content producer or media company, but as a tool which provides an inclusive platform for diverse content, social equality and global connections, and this offers

104  Public relations for digital media brands a strong counterbalancing narrative, legitimising the organisation as prosocial rather than market-orientated (Rider and Murakami Wood 2018).

Google Founded in September 1998 by two 25-year olds, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google is now the world’s busiest stand-alone search engine and second place in Interbrand’s 2018 global rankings (Interbrand 2018). Within two years of the ­company’s start-up, the verb ‘to google’ had entered every day parlance and in August 2004 the company floated with a value of $1.2 billion (Arthur 2014). Originally named in connection with the maths term googol (the number one with 100 zeros), Google has evolved with core brand values of engineering excellence and empiricism. Now its mission is to ‘organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful’ (Google 2019a). Its focus on creativity, and its determination to ensure continuing product excellence, is reflected in organisational structures and policies such as small, well-resourced innovation teams and a strategy of recruiting the smartest engineers possible (Arthur 2014). This concept of innovation, which is at the core of Google’s brand messaging, was even reinforced by its public flotation as an internet auction which Fleischer describes as a ‘branding moment’. The flotation connected Google with notions of corporate integrity and entrepreneurship, reinforcing the image of the organisation as innovative, egalitarian, playful and trustworthy. Choosing the unusual auction technique emphasised the democratic and non-elitist nature of the Google search and service principles, whilst selling 14,159,265 follow-on shares – representing the first eight digits following the decimal in pi –conveyed its fun and geek-based nature (Fleischer 2006-7:39). Google’s brand image and reputation has been carefully managed and constructed over time, despite a lack of overt marketing activity. Brand recognition is unusually reinforced by the daily interaction of users with the search engine itself, and brand perception therefore is connected to the personalisation of individual user searches. This unique connection is supported by the brand’s monetisation strategy in which the AdWords tool facilitates personalised advertising by linking adverts to individual search terms. There is evidence that Google has worked hard on its external identity with clear brand guidelines for staff explaining how the organisation should be presented. This is necessary as the brand is at risk of genericide in which brands can lose their legal trade mark protections when their brand name becomes a generic term for a category of products or services (Cova 2014). Internally, it operates an open communications system, providing free access to project databases to encourage the free flow of information and ideas throughout the company (Arthur 2014). Like Zuckerberg and Facebook, Google co-founder Larry Page also acts as a representative brand symbol for the organization. Regarded as its ‘locomotive’, Page developed the Google search process with fellow PhD student and Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Page was the Google CEO until 2001, retaking control in 2015 when he became CEO of Alphabet Inc, owner of Google (Braha 2018).Whilst it was Page’s aggressive and competitive leadership style which

Public relations for digital media brands  105 led to him being replaced by Eric Schmidt as CEO in 2001, Page’s vision to create an unconventional company, which encourages and incentives employees to explore and utilise their innovation and creativity skills underpins, the brand’s ability to deliver on its excellence brand narrative (Braha 2018). Providing a vast range of social, as well as work facilities (food, gyms, parties, pub-style lounges, swimming pools, green spaces, white boards, networking spaces etc.), which encourage a ­collaborative and informal culture, the brand’s physical environments work as part of its brand persona, helping facilitate brand promise delivery. This aspect of the company is formalised into the role of the Vice President, People Operations, and Chief Culture Officer, thus systemising the protection of the cultural uniqueness of the organisation. Externally the brand content approach of Google helps distinguish its search engine product from other competitors and from genericisation. Seen as a brand with highly energised differentiation, Google is able to evoke curiosity and drives consumer interest (Uggla 2014). The use of the ‘doodle’, the colourful transformative logo adaption which particularly distinguishes Google, works to connect the organisation with emotive, trending topics, positioning the brand as intrinsically connected to individualised search content. Google legally protects the use of the capitalised pronoun Google, whilst encouraging the term googling, as a way of engendering customer loyalty to a service, which is essentially free at the point of use. At the same, a strong brand signposting approach for products (Google Maps, Google News, Google Earth, Google Chromebook etc) reinforces the brand name and presence (Cova 2014). Google relies on creating buzz through informal networks more than traditional above the line advertising. It uses its blog to share information on new product developments (Google 2019b) and is active on Facebook, but rather than engaging in significant two-way communications with publics, it is the users themselves who interact together to keep the site active (Hong et al 2016). User interactivity is encouraged through comments on social media platforms, but also through invitations to take part in Google user experience studies. Google’s approach to reputational challenges provides an interesting insight into its overall public relations philosophy and approach. When Google chose to enter the Chinese market in 2006 with a local search version called Google.cn, it agreed to censor and restrict access to material deemed sensitive by the Chinese government (such as information on banned religious cult Falun Gong, the Tibet independent movement or Tiananmen Square protests). This led to a significant outcry from human rights groups and Western politicians, media, shareholders and customers citing that corporate greed had trumped Google’s stated democratic, open and socially responsible principles (Wu, 2007). Google eventually bowed to public criticism, pulling the service in 2010 although the organisation continues to conduct development work on a China-based search service (Cook and Archer 2018). Google bought YouTube for US$1.6 billion in October 2016 having recognised the significance of the growing trend for video sharing and searching (Arthur 2014).Whilst this was a clever move, indicative of the organisation’s willingness and ability to move swiftly in response to market changes and customer preferences,

106  Public relations for digital media brands it has recently been dealing with a YouTube advertising scandal, which continues to widen as more brands drop advertising after finding their adverts automatically placed next to offensive content. Google’s response has been technical again, removing adverts situated by offensive material, and giving more power to advertisers in terms of advertising placement. It is also quick to respond to specific crisis such as a quick and decisive use of a blog to counter negative publicity about an employee generated anti-diversity manifesto in 2017. In terms of its public relations activity the organisation has a prolific content production regime, manifested in its web site and multiple press releases published each day and replicated in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube format which exemplifies the broad range of brand manifestations and values upon which the company is founded. The focus is on emotionally charged and visually captured employee (Googlers) activities and engagement with topical issues (such as the LGBTQ community), CSR programmes, products, and playfulness – such as encouraging users to laugh with Assistance on International Joke Day. Strategic and socially-orientated partnerships are key to underpinning a strong message of caring and community involvement such as the creation of a new Digital Adventure badge with the GirlGuiding organization. Likewise, the YouTube channel and the thinkwithGoogle micro-site provide advice, guidance and on-line learning tools to help grow skills, careers and businesses, providing case study examples of how Google analytics and data can support business acumen and efficiency. The branding and public relations management of media organisations working in the digital environment has particular challenges. The multi-faceted nature of media organisations often means that there are a myriad of ways in which information is disseminated from organisations, but likewise multifaceted opportunities for stakeholder engagement. Organising and managing communications consistency is challenging in these environments but the BBC, Apple, Google, and Facebook all achieve some level of authenticity in this area by strongly connecting brand narratives and public relations communications to their core brand values. In each case these include a strong focus on technical excellence in terms of product delivery, supported by organisational infrastructure which embeds and structuralises brand values. In addition, each of these organisations has a strong focus on corporate social responsibility, often personified through celebrity CEOs, or other role models, such as David Attenborough for the BBC.This gives these organisations a human quality which helps support legitimisation attempts, and involves stakeholders in an emotional as well as rational relationship with the organisations.

8 Crisis management in the digital age Harnessing the reputational influence of social media

The digital evolution that has impacted general public relations practice is just as significant for specialist crisis and risk communications work (Coombs 2017), but to some extent it remains an underutilised resource (Lin et al 2016). Crucially, the internet has empowered stakeholders with the ability to force organisations into transparency. Engaged netizens are taking the opportunity to reveal previously private corporate practices, and are demanding greater organisational integrity in relation to ethics and social responsibility (Taekke 2017). The advent of new digital media also means that crises can now emerge from non-organisational sources, as anyone with a smart phone can share information of emerging events as they unfold. Expectations of professional organisational communications are high in this new environment and organisations are expected to reply and respond to emerging crises very quickly (Coombs 2017). This is different to pre-internet times when unhappy stakeholders would typically challenge an organisation in private, providing both time and privacy for issues to be resolved. Nowadays these challenges often happen in public via social media, and organisations are scrutinised for the timeliness and manner of their responses (Coombs 2017). In 2008, Canadian Country singer Dave Carroll’s song ‘United Breaks Guitars’ became a YouTube sensation. The song was written in frustration after his $3,500 guitar was broken during a flight to Chicago O’Hare airport. The carrier, United Airlines, reacted indifferently, only offering compensation after the song achieved 150,000 views in one day. To date the music video has been viewed 18.7m times, sparking manifold and negative mass media publicity. Such case studies reveal that public relations practitioners must concern themselves not only with emergency communications relating to crisis situations, but also with the ensuing communications environment in which the organisation may need to defend itself rhetorically (Taekke 2017). As we can see, the user-centred nature of social media platforms can bring reputational risk and presents unique challenges for crisis communications management and strategies (Zhu et al 2017). Discontented brand influencers have the power to either build or destroy reputations (Verwey 2015:324) and negative social media stories and images remain easily accessible and searchable and therefore permanent (Fearn-Banks 2017). Disparaging commentary and imagery can also come from disgruntled employees inside the organisation (Fearn-Banks 2017) and organisations are also capable of creating problems themselves through digital media

108  Crisis management in the digital age misuse. Walmart, L’Oreal, and Sony, for example, have found that they can easily be exposed if content is corporately ghost-written, rather than incorporating genuine stakeholder views (Valentini 2015:173). Likewise, the rise in public concern about protection of privacy and data means that data-mining digital content can also bring reputational risks (2015:174). The communications aspects of crisis management have received considerable practical and academic attention, and the fundamental principles of good crisis response, and good ethical behaviour, have not changed (Fearn-Banks 2017). Well-managed organisations will attempt to identify and engage with potential issues before they become detrimental to reputation or influential on government policy or legislation (Theaker 2004). However, if changes in popular opinion are not anticipated, or monitored closely, it can mean that the opportunity to engage with likeminded individuals and groups during the emerging phase of an issue can be lost. Changing perceptions once an issue has been established in the media can be very difficult, and may put the organisation at risk from stakeholder activity such as boycotts, law suits, media campaigns, demonstrations and negative shareholder resolutions (Regester and Larkin 2005:49). Best practice guidelines generally urge organisations to manage the response to emerging issues quickly, take the public view into account, and provide a clearly articulated position and action plan which is communicated effectively to a wide range of internal and external stakeholders, including the media (Coombs in Tench and Yeomans 2017). Organisations are likewise urged to respond to crisis situations quickly. A crisis is perceived as an unexpected disruptive event that poses a reputational, operational and potential financial threat to the organisation (Coombs 2007) and communications professionals need to understand the nature of both mass and social media which find news value in organisational accidents, misdeeds and wrongdoing (Taekke 2017). The advice is to talk openly with the media and other stakeholders, establishing the organisation itself as the central authoritative source (Regester and Larkin 2005). In 2007 Coombs developed the Situational Crisis Communications Theory (SCCT), using an evidence-based approach to conceptualise how to maximise reputational protection by strategically planning and executing post-crisis communications (2007). The first priority for any organisation is to use instructional information to protect stakeholders from physical harm (by recommending the avoidance of certain foods for example), followed by adapting information which provides protection from the psychological threat of stress due to the uncertainty of the crisis. Stakeholders want to know what has happened, what is being done to protect them from similar crises in the future, and they seek reassurance that the organisation is concerned for any victims. Coombs’ crisis situation theory then provides a model for post-crisis communications suggesting that the reputational threat posed by the crisis is dependent on: 1) the level of responsibility for the crisis, 2) the crisis history of the organisation, and 3) its prior reputation relationship with stakeholders. It is important to gauge the level of blame and anger towards an organisation, and this depends on whether it is one of three types of crises. Firstly, natural disasters, rumour, and product tampering place the organisation as victim and can induce feelings of sympathy. Secondly, accidents and technical errors can be

Crisis management in the digital age  109 considered as unintentional and uncontrollable. Thirdly, if the type of crisis involves organisational misdeeds, human-error accidents or product harm, it will be seen as purposeful and will induce strong attributions of crisis responsibility and blame (Coombs 2007). Coombs’ theory posits three distinct groupings for crisis response strategies. Deny strategies attack the accuser, assert there is no crisis, or scapegoat a person or group outside the organisation. Diminish response strategies provide excuses on the basis of no intention to do harm, and provide a justification for any actions involved, providing specific evidence to support claims. Finally rebuild strategies offer compensation, provide a full apology, ask for forgiveness, or aim to bolster reputation by reminding stakeholders of past good works, and positioning the organisation as an equal victim. The overall aim is to reduce the negative affect upon reputation generated by the crisis, and to generate new reputational assets by presenting new, positive information about the organisation (Coombs 2007). Different research approaches have found that the source of information may be as influential as the message itself. The Social-Mediated Crisis Communication Model (SMCC), developed by Jin and Liu (2010), builds on Coombs’ SCCT theory and provides a framework for crisis communication management in the digital age, demonstrating how social media can work to protect and restore reputation during crises. It works on the premise that publics spend even more time on line than normal during times of crisis motivated by: issue relevance; the quest for information knowledge and sharing; and the need for emotional venting and support. The model identifies three types of publics active during moments of crisis: 1) Influential Social Media Creators who generate content for others to engage with, 2) Social Media Followers who engage with the created information, and 3) Social Media Inactives who may consume information indirectly through word-of-mouth or traditional media. Like Coombs, Jin and Liu recognise the importance of crisis origin, crisis type and message strategy but they also focus on message form (Liu et al 2011). In the immediate aftermath of a crisis, evidence suggests that publics are more likely to believe and accept the organisation’s defensive crisis messages when they are received through traditional media, or through direct word-of-mouth, however, publics are more likely to turn to social media to help them share their feelings and gain emotional support. A later study involving the same authors indicates the important role of crisis origin in affecting publics’ preferred information form and source (Jin et al 2014). When an organisation is to blame for a crisis it leads to stronger crisis emotions, which are often negative. Crisis managers will succeed best if they use accommodative responses, working collaboratively with publics in a difficult situation and responding quickly to anti-organisation information spread through social media. If the crisis has arisen externally to the organisation, then crisis managers should consider using defensive strategies to deflect blame, partnering with publics and third parties to cope with the crisis situation and social media content collectively (Jin et al 2014). In a globalised, digitally enabled world, the degree of connectedness between people increases not only the ability to communicate positively, but also the possibilities of offending people through cultural misunderstanding. Publics are empowered to voice their views by digital media in a way that can quickly gain

110  Crisis management in the digital age momentum (Zhao et al 2018) and social media platforms can be a source of crises in themselves when, for example, a negative comment on social media goes viral (Du Plessis 2018). Examples of this include Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, who inadvertently offended Muslim leaders during a lecture which was mistranslated on social media, or the Danish Prime Minister and the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005 who struggled to apologise for cartoons which caused offence to Muslims (Frandsen and Johansen 2010). Important social, political and religious differences mean that linguistic and rhetorical misunderstandings can be destructive if inadequately handled. Often in such cases the media play a role in stoking news stories which gain momentum, demonstrating that the original crisis communication is only the start in a process of public sphere discussion, creating a rhetorical arena in which many voices contribute to crisis message creation. To cope with this, organisations need to understand global sociocultural expectations, and accept that they may need to apologise for something they would not normally apologise for, or even give a ‘meta-apology’ for the negative effects caused, as well as the original event (2010:362). A route to identifying potential cultural differences is to identify sub-sets of the rhetorical arena which develop during a crisis situation (Coombs and Holladay 2014). This means shifting to a receiver orientation, rather than focusing on the communications messaging work of the organisation itself. To achieve the desired effects of minimising reputational damage, and preventing negative word-of-mouth, crisis managers should understand that multiple crisis voices can emerge during a crisis, contributing to the rhetorical arena debate and impacting the eventual outcome for the organisation. Both traditional news media, and different social media channels, can create distinct sub-arenas in a developing crisis discussion. The reactions of message receivers in these sub-sets may either support or contest the organisation’s crisis response, and can therefore either contribute to mitigation, or enhance potential reputational damage. Social media therefore has a role to play in either fermenting or managing crises, and it may be clearly advantageous for organisations to locate and communicate with favourably predisposed publics, most likely to be found in existing organisation-sponsored social media outlets (Coombs and Holladay 2014). These favourably predisposed publics are especially useful if they are social media influencers. Identifying them may help organisations prioritise stretched crisis management resources by providing a conduit to wide-ranging sub-sets of followers and different rhetorical arenas. Building on the Social-Mediated Crisis Communication Model (SMCC) from Jin and Liu (2010), Zhao et al (2018) have conceptualised the nature of social media influencers in the crisis communication context as being measurable through their outputs, reactive outtakes, proactive outtakes and network positioning. They argue that the fast-paced and complex dynamic nature of social media crises requires a new model of social media influence which recognises that influentials will be producing more output, receiving more responses, and have a more central social network positioning than other social media participants. In terms of output, a social media user who has high social media influence will typically communicate frequently about a crisis. They will engage in reactive outtakes, such

Crisis management in the digital age  111 as tweets, retweets and likes, which can serve as amplifiers and endorsers of original social media crisis messages. More importantly, they will also use proactive outtakes which involve a higher level of cognitive, emotional and behavioural input such as replies, mentions and positive comments which serve as stronger social endorsements than reactive outtakes. The final characteristic of powerful social media influencers is the quality and quantity of their network connections. Because they have presence in dispersed communities they can provide a useful conduit to different sub-sets of consumers who have different crisis information needs. This can be an effective way of bringing emotional components into crisis communications content (Zhao et al 2018). Favourable social media creators were particularly useful for McDonalds in March 2012 when China Central Television used hidden cameras to reveal employees selling expired food in its Sanlitun branch (Zhu et al 2017). McDonald’s acted quickly, suspending operations at the Sanlitun branch within half an hour of the programme being aired, and apologising 90 minutes later on its official microblog site. The company received thousands of positive comments and influential social media creators in China, such as popular TV host Ma Zhihai, posted positive content about McDonald’s overall food hygiene standards. In contrast KFC was accused by China Economic Net in November 2012 of using chickens raised to maturity in just 45 days from the Shangzi Lihai Group poultry provider. KFC used a diffusion and denial strategy, saying the group only provided 1% of all poultry used by KFC in China, and arguing that 45 days was the industry norm. Negative social media coverage was worsened by further media coverage in December revealing that another supplier, Liuhe group, was also using growth hormones to unnaturally force chicken development. KFC eventually apologised via its microblog on 10 January 2013, after growing consumer dissatisfaction, six weeks after the initial crisis, but its initial denial strategy had caused significant reputational damage. KFC failed to take into account China’s collectivist culture, whereas McDonald’s actually improved its reputation by apologising and exceeding customer expectations in its crisis response (Zhu et al 2017). The intensive nature of secondary crisis communications (SCC), produced by social media creators, can be a real challenge for crisis managers, evidenced by a further food crisis in China involving the same companies in 2014. When KFC, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, Burger King, and Starbucks were exposed in July 2014 for using expired meat in China, nearly 27 million people took part in discussions, mainly on Weibo (Zheng et al 2018). The broadcast and networking functions clearly empower consumers to engage in SCC and to spread messages to thousands or even millions of people within hours, thus strengthening and activating the voices of the public. A study of SCC in the immediate wake of the July 2014 incident reveals that in the case of this product-harm crisis in China a previously good reputation for product quality actually led to higher expectations of behaviour and thus less favourable messages from consumers on social media. The research reveals that the climate of opinion on social media is important. Favourably disposed publics were likely to stay silent, whilst negative comments tended to snowball, putting organisations in greater reputational danger during the crisis situation (Zheng et al 2018).

112  Crisis management in the digital age According to Jin et al, the growing importance of social media in effective crisis management is clear: ‘organizations no longer have a choice about whether to integrate social media into crisis management; the only choice is how to do so’ (2014:76). From a systematic overview of academic research studies into the strategic communications use of social media in times of crisis, Eriksson (2018) identifies five specific best practice themes. First social media should be used to develop dialogue in times of crisis to demonstrate that the organisation is listening to affected or critical publics. This is important as a wide variety of stakeholders are now able to have an immediate and often exaggerated role in online crisis conversations (Lin et al 2016). According to Eriksson choosing the right source for engaging in this dialogue is crucial. Evidence suggests that communication from individual employees has a more positive effect on reputation than more general organisational communication and that social media devices, such as hashtags, can be used to create a feeling of unity (Eriksson 2018). Dialogical content can however, emerge from users outside the organisation. For example, during the 2010 Colorado wildfires in the United States, a map of the fires highlighting evacuation areas, which was created by a Colorado university student, received nearly two million views, demonstrating how engaging social media content creators can be highly effective (Jin et al 2014). According to Eriksson (2018) pre-crisis work in which social media is used strategically as a communications tool is the second most important theme and can help ensure the organisation is already set up to become a hub for crisis information. Social media planning, resource allocation, proactive campaigns, and social media guidelines for employees, are all an important part of ensuring that a digital connection and relationship is formed with key audience groups before a crisis occurs. The third best practice theme identified from Eriksson’s research is the significant potential for social media to be used for monitoring as part of crisis management to identify what important publics are discussing in different emerging sub-arenas. His research also reveals that whilst social media is growing in importance, it is still essential to prioritise traditional media during times of crisis, as these news outlets are still seen as more credible information sources. Lastly, research emphasises that social media has become a crucial element in effective crisis management in its own right, providing a fast and direct avenue of communication (Eriksson 2018). A previous systematic review by Rasmussen and Ihlen in 2017 acknowledges this new power of social media, but highlights the digital divide which works at global, social and democratic levels, often disadvantaging the most vulnerable who either do not have access to digital media at all, or who have lower levels of connectivity. The victims of Hurricane Katrina in the USA, or indeed other natural disasters, are given as examples of publics who may not have wide-scale access to digital communications platforms. The approach taken by the software development organisation GitLab in 2017 however, when a data loss incident interrupted the projects of more than 5000 clients, provides an example of how dialogical communication can be used very effectively to defuse negativity and strengthen organisational-­public ­relations (Du Plessis 2018). GitLab made immediate use of its existing Twitter, blog and YouTube platforms to post precise and reliable content about the crisis,

Crisis management in the digital age  113 including frequent updates, live notes on Google docs, a hash-tag and live-streaming on YouTube to provide real-time updates. GitLab treated the crisis like a learning process, taking positive actions to recover and engage directly with stakeholders through its social media platforms. The use of open, interactive, responsive and transparent content enabled the organisation to maintain its credibility, demonstrating that dialogic content can be used to support a discourse of renewal, helping to protect and even further reputational capital (Du Plessis 2018). Similarly in 2010 when Grimsvotn, Iceland’s most active volcano, erupted the travel operator TUI used interactive, web-based media as the lynch-pin of its crisis response activity. The public relations team set up a 24-hour rota to issue regular web and news media updates, posting information bi-hourly on the websites of all the organisation’s sub-brands including Thomson, First Choice, Thomson Airways, and Island Cruises (Wallace 2010). The 2012 McDonald’s China Crisis, the GitLab 2017, and TUI’s crisis response activity all show that digital media provides a significant opportunity in a crisis, as well as a threat. The variety of different social media platforms provides a good range of options for disseminating information at speed, and useful background information can be prepared in advance in a professionally presentable form ready to publish on websites and social media sites at a moment’s notice should a crisis arise (Coombs 2017). The targeted nature of social media makes it possible to deliver to such messages to very precise, selected groups of people (Fearn-Banks 2017) and whilst social media can be used to convey information it is also highly valuable as a tool for receiving feedback and responses from the public in order to understand and evaluate public opinion during a crisis (Derani and Naidu 2016). What an organisation actually says in response to a crisis, and how it says it, are also important, particularly in the internet environment. The language and culture of the internet and social media is more casual than most typical corporate voices. Organisations should therefore be aiming for a style of voice that is collaborative and conversational, and which expresses humanness (Crijns et al 2017). One way of achieving this is through personalisation, which can be more meaningful and persuasive. Crijns et al conceptualised the Sequential Mediation Model in which a relationship is argued to form between a personalised organisational response, conversational human voice, consumer scepticism and organisational reputation. The argument is that if organisations can utilise a believable conversational human voice they are more likely to make a connection with stakeholders. It can be particularly powerful to use a personalised response when replying to negative comments in a crisis situation. Conversely, however, personalisation is viewed with suspicion if used to reply to positive comments in a crisis as consumers start to think they are being targeted with persuasive propaganda (Crijns et al 2017). Finding a human voice is even more important in emergency crisis situations according to Lin et al (2016) who developed principles for incorporating social media into crisis communications planning. It is best practice to enhance crisis response capabilities by integrating social media into communications policy development. A good example of this is the Red Cross which has produced policies and guidelines for different crisis scenarios, supported by regular training in social media technologies. Emergency organisations need to interactively seek the attention of affected publics

114  Crisis management in the digital age to encourage them to choose the emergency agency as their primary information source. Using expert names helps establish social media accounts as credible, and the use of a specific hash-tag can help organisations maintain control of online conversations thereby avoiding misinformation and rumour. Monitoring emerging influential gatekeepers in a crisis situation is also important and it is likewise essential to facilitate and motivate the sharing of useful and accurate on the ground information which may come from outside the organisation at the centre of the crisis (Lin et al 2016). The type of messages that organisations post during a crisis tend to be either a status update or a response to a stakeholder message, and the nature of the content is very much dependent on the type of crisis. In keeping with Coombs’ situation theory, Roshan et al (2016) found from researching organisational crisis responses in Australia, that organisations adjust social media posts to provide instruction. For example, when facing a natural disaster where social media is used to provide information on how stakeholders can get in touch, organisations can use social media to explain service or product disruptions, and explain how affected stakeholders can be helped. When organisations are not perceived to be at fault they are likely to ingratiate themselves with stakeholders by explaining how much money they have donated to victims and thanking stakeholders for their support and understanding. Where organisations are deemed to be at fault their posts are more likely to provide contact and compensation information and apologies. Stakeholders likewise post different types of messages, depending on crisis scenarios. If organisations are at fault then stakeholders are quick to highlight any previous reputational failures and they will use social media to ask questions about service disruptions and compensation etc. Stakeholders can, however, be a useful part of the information process, retweeting and sharing organisations’ status updates, or providing their own first hand updates, experiences and suggestions and even resorting to humour to relieve the stress of a crisis situation (Roshan et al 2016). Many organisations in crisis are still not maximising the use of social media to post crisis updates and respond to stakeholder concerns and much content lacks a human element.

BP and the Deepwater Horizon disaster A look at studies concentrating on BP’s reputation management and legitimation processes in relation to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 in which 11 people died provides insight into how traditional brands are coping with crises in a digital world. Research into BP’s web-based Deepwater Horizon response statements in 2010 reveals that BP’s initial image repair strategy focused on ‘describing how it would correct the problem and describing how it would compensate the victims’ (Harlow et al 2011:82). BP has been seen to be aspirational in its brand positioning in the light of the disaster and Balmer highlights dissonance between the organisation’s brand positioning which ‘emphasized BP’s environmental, good corporate citizen and green credentials’ (Balmer 2010:97), embodied in its sunburst logo (2010:99), and its real life actions which were misaligned with this ‘brand exuberance’ (2010:97). A study of UK media

Crisis management in the digital age  115 coverage between 27 July 2009 and 18 October 2011 reveals that the predominant narratives emerging from these articles were the value growth of the organisation’s operations, the development of new oil fields, and BP’s focus on safety. The latter did not just emerge as a result of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, as one might expect, but rather all three of these narratives were consistently covered across the three years covered in the analysis (2009, 2010, and 2011). Despite the fact that environmental disaster, or environmental impact, was a consistent theme, being covered in 60% of coverage, the media were equivocal in their judgement of BP with 42.5% of coverage studied being neutral in tone, 22.5% positive in tone and a third of the cuttings (35%) negative. Many of the articles focused on BP’s financial performance, with this often being seen in a positive light. BP is described as the ‘Britain’s largest company by market value’ (Pagnamenta 2009) and 40% of cuttings discuss financial results. Other significant corporate descriptors for BP were its use of advanced technology (17.5%) and its sponsorship of the 2012 London Olympic games (7.5%). In particular, articles focused on BP’s expertise in ‘frontier, difficult drilling’ as being a positive aspect of the industry which nationalised petroleum organisations would not undertake (King 2010), with BP being praised as ‘a world leader in technically challenging deepwater drilling’ (Arnott 2010b). An analysis of BP’s own discourse from the third edition of Our Industry, a hard-backed, bound volume presented to University College of Swansea by BP (Llandarcy) Ltd in July 1958 helps situate these narratives historically. First produced in 1947 by BP, the object of the text is to describe the functions of both the industry, and an integrated oil company, and to show employees ‘how their individual effort fits into the wider picture’ (BP 1958:1). Throughout the book, the language used is inclusive and there is significant use of superlative and hyperbole, positioning the industry, and the organisations within it, as technically advanced, for example there is reference to BP as ‘a very highly scientific business (1958:8) with ‘the most highly technical processes in modern industry’ (1958:9). Two distinct themes emerge from this textbook: the supremacy of the oil industry as being vital to global survival; and the fact that market orientation is accepted and unquestioned. The industry, and by implication BP, is seen as successful because it adheres to market demands and a continuous sub narrative emphasises the way in which the industry is ‘essential’ (1958:6) and a ‘godsend’ (1958:89), impinging on the ‘daily life of men and women throughout the world’ (1958:173). An analysis of BP advertising from 1922 to 2012 shows that whilst the symbolism changes from smart, clever people choosing BP, to motor racing supremacy and sporting analogies, there is some consistency of message. Historically the company progresses from a focus on British innovation, financing and products, to a late 20th century focus on corporate social responsibility. Cutting across the decades, however, there is a consistent representation of the organisation as highly technical and advanced, international and benefitting from continued investment. The predominant message is that BP is the best (or premium). Overall this research reveals a surprising consistency of narrative and message for BP over 100 years of the organisation’s existence, with four major themes. The first theme is investment which first emerged in early 1920s adverts. It is

116  Crisis management in the digital age consistently referenced in the company’s 1958 handbook and is emphasised, often as value growth, throughout the last five years. The second theme is technology and science, appearing first in 1930s adverts, reappearing in the handbook and being used throughout adverts and communications in the 21st century. A third theme is the international nature of the organisation, explicitly emphasised in 1940s adverts about tanker haulage, threaded throughout the structure and text of the 1958 handbook, and re-iterated consistently in latter day messages about the development of new and emerging global oil fields. The final theme is that of the market orientation of the organisation, manifested in 1950s adverts about product supremacy, the market orientation evident in the handbook and in ongoing advanced product advertising in the last five years. It is evident that BP’s actions are justified in the light of the common good, or the system. BP’s financial investment is frequently seen as a necessity for global advancement, to secure energy and fuel efficiency for the future, linked to the identified meta-discourse of the vital nature of the industry. Even after the organisation’s flotation, the message is clear that the company is not just operating for shareholders. This is not a question of simple utility or hedonia, but eudaimonia (meaning) (Davies 2011). In addition to investment, at the end of the 20th century a new focus on corporate social responsibility emerges in the form of Olympic, community action and renewable energy advertising. This might also be aligned with a civic justificatory framework. In the 1958 manual the company highlights its infrastructure and social investments (1958:410) and the satisfaction for employees of enjoying ‘the best living and working conditions’, along with ‘a sense of enthusiasm in a job worth doing and a spirit of progress’ (1958:12). This links to Kotler’s notion of Marketing 3.0 (2011) and the technique is not new for BP, evidenced by a consistent long-term messaging strategy from the organisation over the last century. Theme two, technological advancement, sits clearly within the justification framework of Boltanski and Thevenot’s industrial world (2006). Here being the best, highly advanced and innovative, with a continued focus on opening up new oil fields is seen as admirable behaviour within a technologically determinist global framework. The third theme of internationalisation can also be argued to sit within this judgement criteria. The final consistent theme for BP, market orientation, is justified within the concept of the market world in which actions which support the market are seen as right and justifiable. Here BP excels with its highly systematic, product and customer-orientated approach. BP’s brand legitimisation processes are revealed here as more long term and historical in nature, rather than driven by short-term consumer demands and concerns, nevertheless the digital environment provided significant challenges and opportunities for the company. These narratives provided a bedrock of reputational capital which BP was able to lean on when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. Despite some obvious mistakes, such as ex-CEO Tony Hayward’s ill-advised comment that he wanted his life back (Kollewe 2014), BP made some highly effective use of new media resources as part of its crisis communications strategy. The biggest opportunity was the joint creation of the Deepwater Horizon Response website and Facebook page with the US government’s Unified Incident Command, which took on management of the disaster. BP benefited from the fact

Crisis management in the digital age  117 that in US law the US Coast Guard is officially required to co-ordinate a multiagency response to an oil spill, which effectively institutionalised the response (Allen and Elia 2015). This partnership approach positioned the disaster as an industry problem, not just an issue for BP, moving crisis discourse from a corporate to a political arena, even culminating in a meeting with President of the United States at the time, Barack Obama (Schultz et al 2012). Weekly updates were provided, as well as a vast range of reports, stories and videos to bring the relief effort to life. BP ran its own Gulf of Mexico response section for many years on its website and actively used Twitter and Facebook during the days, weeks and months following the disaster, alongside press releases, statements and a major incident report (Harlow et al 2011) to share information and to respond to consumers. BP bowed to public pressure and set up a $20billion repair fund despite never fully admitting responsibility for the explosion on the rig, which was managed by its partner Transocean (Harlow et al 2011). Arguably, however, this was part of its response framing. The explosion happened on the 22 April 2010 and the leak was finally capped on 19 September 2010 and during this time BP focused on technical solutions for the oil spill with strong symbolic names (top kill, static kill, etc.), rather than the causes and consequences (Schultz et al 2012). To manage this messaging, BP made clever use of earned and paid social media. As well as issuing information via its Facebook, YouTube and Twitter feeds, it paid for advertising targeted at Google and YouTube searches about the oil spill, linking searchers to its own microsite explaining its efforts to clean up the oil spill. Interactive elements included a twice-daily real-time results update on the amount of oil collected and videos concerning congressional hearings and health concerns for clean-up workers. It did, however, turn off comments on its You Tube channel (Morrissey 2010) and Derani and Naidu (2016) argue that it could have made much more regular updates. According to Arora and Lodhia (2017), in creating crisis response content, BP focused on the strength of its financial position, its ability to sell assets to free up cash for the relief effort, its use of world-class resources and expertise to handle the oil spill operation, and its concern for the safety of relief workers. CEO, Tony Hayward openly committed to provide clear and transparent information and this was achieved through regular press releases, data, infographics and photography. Use of audio-visual material was prolific, providing a human narrative which exemplified BP’s expertise in beach-cleaning, off-shore oil-spill management and the harmonious combined effort of BP with a wide range of authorities and services. Stories of employees and those affected by the spill were highlighted on the BP website, applying a bolstering approach (Benoit 1997) which also involved focusing on the global need for energy. BP constantly repeated information about its corrective action, as well as transcendental messages about lessons learnt. By doing so, Arora and Lodhia (2017) argue that BP was aiming to regain legitimacy and show that its organisational values were still in line with the beliefs of society at large. In fact BP was so successful at focusing on a technical response to the oil spill, and its efforts to save natural science, that saving pelicans received more media attention than the significant emotional consequences experienced by human coastal communities. To support this approach the company initiated a $500billion grant

118  Crisis management in the digital age programme to fund long-term research into the environmental impact of the spill. However, mindful of significant reputational challenge from the coastal states of America, it also funded services and programmes to support coastal mental health services (Allen and Elia 2015). Chewning (2015) also found that BP’s focus on action and recovery in its corporately-produced online crisis communication content was successful. BP used Facebook to provide photographic updates and links to an oil-spill map and other online sources. Facebook was also used to provide more people-orientated stories, whilst traditional press releases contained more technical detail about recovery actions. Chewning suggests that this enabled BP to present itself as concerned and proactive, rather than negligent. The overall result was that traditional media outlets focused on large-scale environment and government impacts, and Facebook provided a form for stakeholders to vent emotion. Perhaps one of the most effective outcomes was that social media enabled stakeholders to engage in inter-stakeholder dialogue, sharing ideas, thoughts and resources, while BP continued to disseminate its own corporate story using social media platforms to bypass traditional media gatekeepers. This suggests that in a crisis situation online media can provide an opportunity for a myriad of stakeholder views to be heard, enabling a diverse range of stakeholder narratives. It is therefore important, according to Chewning that crises should be studied concurrently from the perspective of organisations, media and stakeholders, recognising that multiple authors are using multiple multi-media formats concurrently to produce content and perspectives (Chewning 2015).

Greenpeace, Facebook, and United Airlines The true reputational dangers of social media in relation to crisis management became clear in 2017 when United Airlines became embroiled in a passenger ‘dragging incident’ (Czarnecki 2017). The airline company was involved in what has been described as ‘the mother of all social media crises’ when on 9 April 2017, 69-year old Vietnemese-American Doctor, David Dao, was violently removed from United Airlines flight 3411 bound for Louiseville by four Chicago Department of Aviation security officers. He and three other passengers had been randomly selected to forsake their seats in order to make room for four United Airlines crew members (Ma et al 2019). Footage of a bloodied Dr Dao being dragged down the aisle of the plane quickly went viral on social media. The reputation effects of this for United Airlines was made significantly worse by United Airlines CEO, Oscar Munoz, who issued a statement which apologised for having to ‘re-accommodate’ customers. United Airlines might have managed to escape too much criticism for this rather insensitive euphemism, but this was followed by the sharing of a leaked internal letter which supported employees’ actions: ‘Pundits, PR pros and meme-makers alike savaged the tone-deaf statements’ (Czarnecki 2017). Two days later Munoz issued another, more sensitive apology, and on 12 April 2017 he appeared on Good Morning America to issue yet another apology. Meanwhile nearly US$ 1 billion had been wiped from the market value of United Continental Holdings, United Airlines’ parent company and the social media sphere was awash

Crisis management in the digital age  119 with hashtags such as #boycottUnited Airlines (Ma et al 2019). Within a week the company amended its overbooking policy. Clearly one of the key issues here is that United Airlines underestimated the power and speed of customer-generated video footage, and associated social media commentary, and the episode demonstrates the power of social media to escalate an incident out of control (Ma et al 2019). However, Witzel (2017) argues that the organisation also failed to understand that its brand values are articulated not only through corporate messages, but by employee behavior and stakeholder created stories as well. United Airlines prioritised its employees over its customers in a message that came loudly and clearly from the top (Witzel 2017). This behavior was in direct contrast to the organisation’s stated brand values, articulated by Munoz (2017) himself in a company blog post just two months earlier, and still visible on the organisation’s Purpose and Values section on its website. These ‘shared values’ are: ‘We Fly Right; We Fly Together; We Fly Above and Beyond’ and most pertinently, ‘We Fly Friendly: Warm and welcoming is who we are’ (United Airlines 2019). The difference between the airline’s stated corporate values and its actual corporate behaviour rendered its defensive ‘insincere’ communications strategy ineffective (Ma et al 2019). Arguably, as one of two airlines involved in the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States, United Airlines should have been in a perpetual ‘pre-crisis’ mode, acutely aware of the visibility of airline crises in a digital media environment (Greer and Moreland 2003). United Airlines responded quickly to the 2001 attacks, expressing sympathy via a statement from the CEO at the time, Jim Goodwin, issuing regular official updates and providing a variety of links and supporting information on a rapidly produced micro website. Throughout the following days when releasing information, United also included expressions of sympathy and focused on helping families, so it is surprising that the organisation did not continue to follow this protocol in April 2017. However, when a dog died after being stowed in an overhead locker at the request of an air stewardess on a United Airlines flight some months later, United Airlines apologised unreservedly, taking full responsibility and instigating an immediate investigation to stop such a ‘tragic accident’ happening again. This suggests that the organisation has effectively learnt lessons about effective crisis management (Ascierto 2018), and demonstrates a growing trend for enlightened contemporary organisations to use social media communications tools, and big data analytics, to manage crisis communications risks and processes effectively (Ma et al 2019). From the United Airlines case study it is clear that managing reputation on social media has become an increasingly important aspect of crisis management, and this intensifies when social media content itself becomes the form of crisis. In late 2010 and early 2011 Greenpeace targeted Facebook as part of a wider campaign to encourage the IT industry to use more renewable energies. Greenpeace made use of blog posts, messages on Facebook pages, and direct emails to Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook engaged in very minimal direct responses, instead choosing to publish occasional statements and continue with regular posts focusing on its energy efficiency policies and activities, via the creation of a special Green page. The company publicly communicated that it was changing its energy plans. This

120  Crisis management in the digital age approach managed to diffuse Greenpeace’s direct approach and eventually led to the two organisations working in partnership (Ott and Theunissen 2015). Whilst dialogue is often recommended, traditional denial and justification responses, coupled with negotiation with negative stakeholders can be effective in a social media crisis. Ott and Theunissen highlight the fact that a reaction does not necessarily have to be a stream of interactive debate on live social media, but it is important that the organisation is seen to be accommodating and relationship building to protect and future build reputation (2015:101). What the case studies in this chapter have revealed is that reputation management must now include strategic social media activities before, during and after a crisis situation. Whilst traditional crisis communications management approaches are still valid, organisations need to embrace and deal with the speed and emotionally-charged reactions that social media facilitates in order to harness the potential of fast digital responses and minimise the threat of a viral meta-crisis.

9 Public relations industry perceptions The impact of digital media on reputation management practices

This chapter provides an overview of a thematic analysis of 15 interviews with senior public relations and marketing industry personnel regarding their ideas about brand authenticity and public relations. The result of the interviews are divergent, but reveal recurrent views about the nature of authenticity as it relates to brands, as well as some consistency of opinion about how to manage and protect brand authenticity in the long term. In particular, the aim was to question practitioners about the impact of new digital media on brand construction and management practices, and to see if the characteristics of digital media use have changed brand justificatory approaches. An initial list of potential participants was identified through compiling a database of relevant industry representative organisations, such as the Association of Measurement and Evaluation in Communications (AMEC), the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. In addition, PR Week’s survey of the Top 100 PR consultancies was used as a guide, as well as some contacts from the author’s own personal experience of working in the PR and branding industries. A question was then added inviting all interviewees to recommend further participants, thus implementing a snowball approach to further sampling. Interviewee responses were anonymised, but the range includes senior representatives from three public relations industry bodies, managers of in-house public relations departments, as well as managing directors from public relations and brand marketing agencies. The interviewees provide a broad spread across both commercial and non-commercial branding and reputation management activities. A number of deductive themes from existing academic literature were used within the survey questionnaire design which inevitably led to their appearance as variables, however, a number of inductive variables and their sub-themes also emerged. To avoid non-supportable distinctions between some very similar concepts and to ensure that ‘meaningful concepts and information were grouped under the selected themes’ (Halkoaho et al 2012:3) a number of powerful conceptual categories were identified (Joffe and Yardley 2004:61). In total seven categories, or major discourses, were identified from the interviews as being inherent to brand authenticity. These were: Atunement; Authentic Behaviour and Actions; Integrity; Fixed Vision and Values; Corporate Social Responsibility; Real-Time Interaction; and Customer Power.

122  Public relations industry perceptions The concept of atunement encompasses the way brands must actively monitor the environment to enable them to understand changing customer values, and adapt to those values over time. Failure to do this runs the risk of brand failure and a loss of authenticity. It could be argued that this is similar to articulated notions of boundary spanning, seen as a key role for public relations practitioners, in which the environment is scanned in order to be able to identify and respond to the attitudes of stakeholders (Gregory in Theaker 2004). A similar concept likewise exists in brand marketing where environmental analysis is undertaken in order to identify market gaps and opportunities to ascertain profitable product niches for development and exploitation (Palmer 2004:41). Indeed, some of the comments analysed do cover these scenarios, acknowledging the fact that new digital media tools have made this process much easier: ‘The social web provides us with the biggest free market research exercise ever. There are also a proliferation of third party tools to help us figure out what people are thinking and what they know about brands’ (Interview 15). Several of the interviewees talk about how this must be an active process, and is often a new job function: ‘successful brands have a team monitoring the environment in its widest sense, meaning business, natural and trading’ (Interview 2). The process involves listening actively, and not necessarily just to their own brands, but to trends: ‘we monitor blogs regularly, for example if fashion bloggers say it is a trend, it is. We need to influence the influencers’ (Interview 9). But the practitioners seem to identify and explore a more interactive process than market research, in which it is important not just to know what brand users think, but to be ‘in-tune’ with them and to be actively involved: ‘It’s about listening, the ability to tune in to what people care about. It’s vital. It’s a massive component of how a brand is seen’ (Interview 5). A strong aspect of this emerging concept of atunement is the ability of the brands to adapt and change. This is not about boundary spanning to develop a more compelling messaging strategy, but about actually changing the brand in response to consumer interaction. Such changes are not seen by practitioners as necessarily dramatic. Good brands ‘take baby steps that keep them abreast of change taking place and keep them in front’ (Interview 2). Excellence in terms of brand positioning arises because brands ‘have evolved and responded without changing basic principles’ (Interview 3). They have ‘adaptive resilience’ (Interview 12). The practitioners highlight that core values need to stay the same, but good authentic brands atune to the prevailing environment by ‘demonstrating adaptability in style, delivery mode/channels, social impact and values’ (Interview 8). This type of atunement is interactive in nature: The initial market research from an organisation like Forrester can give brand insight into the marketing environment. So the brand can be developed and built to meet the needs of that market gap or squeeze into a niche. But it is the ongoing listening or seeing target audience reaction to the brand via social media that gives the marketer an opportunity to ‘atune’ and shape the brand to changing reactions and tastes (Interview 10).

Public relations industry perceptions  123 The imperative for change is linked to changing values: ‘The big challenge for any brand is an awareness of changing consumption habits’. This brings new foci for brands and their brand managers: ‘For example, in the 80s it was all about “greed is good”, and that has changed and commercial organisations had to change’ (Interview 1). Not adapting to such altering perceptions can be fatal for brands, particularly in a world of rising expectations: ‘As a consumer seeing something new is important, otherwise you get bored. Brands have to keep it fresh, with new products, and they have to expand the product range’ (Interview 5). The second emergent meta-discourse is the link between behaviour and action and brand authenticity. In today’s digital media environment, the way a brand behaves, relative to its values, is increasingly important. Authentic brands, it is suggested, need to communicate consistently, actively safeguard their reputations and develop relevant associations to support the brand.The questionnaire did not tackle brand behaviours at all, but the importance of behaviour and actions was brought up spontaneously in response to what makes a brand authentic by half of the interviewees. Practitioners are in agreement that ‘in today’s media world, behaviour is important’ (Interview 13), and that ‘a brand’s moment of truth is determined through its actions; the incidents where it really lives its values’ (Interview 14). Often brand consultants and public relations professionals are the people who have to make this part of branding implicit:‘We often debate with clients about positioning on what you can deliver. Clients push to re-brand but, the question is always, can you deliver it? Do you have the resources to support the position? We’ve just finished a branding campaign and we actually waited six months to launch it until the client had sorted out their customer service, because the brand was all about delivery… Authenticity derives from the experience of the brand’ (Interview 6). There is also a sense which emerges of the importance of this area of branding forging a more interactive, emotional connection with users; ‘the most profound form of communication is action. I call it the new school of PR’ (Interview 14). Practitioners then identify that authentic brand behaviour, which is true to the brand proposition or core values, is supported by consistency and integrity of messaging, whether verbal or visual. A number of interviewees highlighted the importance of visual continuity, acknowledging that ‘the logo and presentation of a brand are still extremely effective at influencing customer choices’ (Interview 5), but there is also a recognition of the need for behavioural consistency too: ‘take Heinz, who are very conservative. They do nothing to rock the tomato cart, for example their activity on social media. They are who they are’ (Interview 3). Practitioners emphasise the need for consistent communications, linking to the idea that a good reputation is an important aspect of brand authenticity, and this is something that needs to be actively nurtured and protected. The value of a good reputation can be exponential, as one practitioner explained: ‘Take a look at my football team, Man United, which is taking a beating. It is only managing to hold firm, despite a loss on the New York Stock Exchange and a drop in share price, because of its reputation’ (Interview 2). Reputation is something that needs to be actively maintained because ‘it can be damaged. The basic values for a university are set, for example - education. It has automatic authenticity, but you still have

124  Public relations industry perceptions to safeguard it’ (Interview 1). Practitioners explain that this can be done through atunement and clear messaging, or also by associations which help with positioning by the ‘alignment with other brands, causes, themes, purposes, that matter [to the user]’ (Interview 8).Value can also be built: ‘we expect so much from brands, so any extra value they can add to the brand is important to make me as the user feel valued’ (Interview 5). Many of the practitioners talked of the importance of integrity and honesty to brand authenticity and this emerges as the third strong meta-discourse. Integrity is characterised by the need for brands to be open and honest, particularly as the digital media environment provides no hiding place for dishonest brands or those that fail to live up to their promises. This can mean ‘being honest with aspirations’ (Interview 4), but predominantly it seems that brands that are seen to be authentic are those that ‘are what they say they are’ (Interview 5) and who deliver against their promises: ‘How real, how relevant is the brand and how well does it deliver against its promise?’ (Interview 8).There is a sense that this is not just about ­product delivery: ‘For something to be authentic it has to have a sense of reality and be meaningful to stakeholders interacting with the brand. If the brand lies, it betrays key audiences and authenticity is eroded as those audiences lose trust in the brand’ (Interview 10). Here interviewees are beginning to touch on the concept of the ‘riparian’ brand which is core to this book. A real-time interaction between brand and user can help develop, nurture and support the notion of brand authenticity. The second variable in the ‘Integrity’ category relates specifically to the way in which new digital media have made brand honesty and transparency even more important, if not essential: ‘It makes it harder. It goes back to credibility. Having a brand that’s authentic through words, as well as visuals. The truthfulness of social media means you can be outed if you are not honourable’ (Interview 4). It is the nature of media that is impactful: ‘the immediacy and scale of social / digital media means there are no places for brands to hide – brands must now do the right thing’ (Interview 8). The complexities of operating in the new media environment are clear: We work with BMW and I heard a great statistic the other day. In the past if you were going to buy a car, the sales team would have 12 opportunities to convert you into a sale. Now they only have four opportunities. Google confirms this. There is no purchase funnel. The average consumer uses 24 different touch points. They might take a recommendation from a friend on Facebook, look at YouTube video content, they might read an Autocar review. People use all these things to shape their idea of a brand. So effectively brands have to be everywhere. There is no one route to market. So the requirement to be transparent and authentic is more important than ever. With all those access points the mask will pretty soon slip if you don’t know who you are (Interview 13). Practitioners identify that success in this environment requires a new approach, and that getting it right can have powerful, positive results for brands: ‘consumers are

Public relations industry perceptions  125 open to branded content done properly and professionally. They want an open and transparent approach. They are open to receiving and sharing content if it is cool, interesting or valuable’ (Interview 6). In the digital media environment the tone of discourse and the approach are vital to get right: ‘Tone is important – having their own language on line’ (Interview 9) and being ‘distinctive’ (Interview 11). ‘Marketers need to be open with audiences and interact rather than push promotions’ (Interview 10) and this opens up opportunities: ‘successful brands are those which turn customers into advocates’ (Interview 11). Such brand fans can be incredibly useful because they independently create positive brand content (Interview 14). This requires organisations to be open in a very real way: ‘authentic brands are those brands who are making this transition. Social media is intrinsic. They are going beyond PR and communications as a silo, and completely opening up the business. P&G and IBM that I work for are doing this. There is an excellent piece in Ad Age, where P&G talk about removing marketing people and turning them all into community managers’. The continuing importance of a more traditional view of brand management is confirmed by the notion of Fixed Vision and Values, where clearly articulated values are supported by a strong vision, which is often routed in the heritage of the brand. Three quarters of interviewees agree that brands are successfully built on the notion of a fixed core of vision and values: ‘brands don’t change. The core values stay the same’ (Interview 1). The sense of being able to identify and understand the brand is recognised as important: ‘you know exactly what Virgin and Richard Branson stand for, even when their trains aren’t great, people accept them, because they know it’s a maverick brand, willing to try things’ (Interview 6). Thus the recognisable core is seen to be connected to the development of trust and loyalty: ‘Apple has this absolute, creative and innovative core and clarity of design. Even if people don’t like a product they still buy the next one, they trust Apple. They trust Steve Job’s original vision’ (Interview 6). Apple’s success in this area was spontaneously identified by more than one of the practitioners: ‘we talk about two different types of brands: Conviction brands; and Confection brands. Conviction brands lead, they are confident in what they are about, they rely on vision. Apple is a good example of this. Confection brands go with the ebb and flow of consumer opinion. They rely heavily on research. Sony is a good example of this – a brand that lost its way’ (Interview 13).This study data suggests that core values are often fixed for authentic brands, but there is a need for adaptability and gradual change, which may be intrinsic or extrinsic: ‘the vision, purpose and values are fixed. How you tell the story changes, depending on the form of media you are using and the audience you are talking to’ (Interview 15). Eleven out of the fifteen interviewees acknowledged that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become more important for brands today than 25 years ago. Practitioners in general agree on its continuing importance, but accept that CSR can be trend-orientated. Whilst it should be understood that this was a specific question in the interview, what the interviewees stress is that the nature of consumer expectations is changing in this area. There is general agreement that CSR needs to be embedded in the brand DNA, not bolted on as a communications

126  Public relations industry perceptions strategy or project: ‘the sustainability agenda is new and that puts pressure on organisations’ (Interview 1); ‘there was a trend when all media organisations hired green editors when it was the thing to be seen to be done’ (Interview 3). Brands that merely follow such trends risk being accused of paying lip service: ‘There are organisations that have CSR policy as lipstick to tart the brand up. For example, some fast food companies who are selling high sugar and high fat products with all the calories you need for one day in one meal, then try to do healthy eating programmes’ (Interview 15). According to the data analysis, when brands get their CSR policies right, it is because it is connected to the core values and completely embedded within processes. The senior practitioners suggest that this is becoming an important element in brand authenticity, for all stakeholders, not just consumers: ‘the Millennial generation expect it of a brand as a consumer and as an employee. They expect organisations to behave ethically and to do the things which are good for the community. You do it and commit to it. They won’t go and work for organisations that don’t’ (Interview 6). To get CSR right ‘there has to be a link to the brand promise, such as Facebook giving 10% of its profits to charity. They have set a new benchmark. The brand gesture is a thing of the past. Alms at Christmas is outdated. It needs to be enmeshed, an intrinsic part of the business’ (Interview 7). Successful brands in this area include M&S: ‘M&S are a key example, with Plan A. They took the initiative and started with internal actions, now it is an external strategy’ (Interview 9). Google is also mentioned as having an embedded approach, specifically its campus style infrastructure: ‘it’s a cult, not a job. CSR has evolved in the broader sense. It’s about the brand promise’ (Interview 13). One of reasons cited for the change is globalisation and the influence of different cultures: globalization has allowed a range of competing business ideologies to clash and out of it has developed a management focus not purely on profit but also on adding value to communities. If you look at Indian firms, it is expected that they invest in local projects and lead CSR campaigns. The same is true in Africa and China where there is a greater expectation that business and community life go hand in hand and they co-exist and should support each other (Interview 10). The practitioners seem to be highlighting the idea that communication is really changing. There can no longer be a separation between marketing (product development and promotion), brand management and public relations: ‘what differentiates great brands from ordinary brands is that they are routed in their vision and purpose, and their CSR is intrinsic. It’s going beyond communications’. The nature of this change is significant but is not necessarily as rapid as it needs to be: ‘We get excited that the communications and media world is moving so quickly, but actually organisations move incredibly slowly. This stuff takes generations to work through in corporate communications structures. It is a massive piece of change management’ (Interview 15). Like CSR, the sixth theme was prompted in that the questionnaire asked interviewees whether real-time interaction via digital media is changing the way that

Public relations industry perceptions  127 brands are managed, and most interviewees agree in principle with this statement. A strong emergent category is Real-Time Brand Interaction, brought about and facilitated by developments in digital media. Practitioners acknowledge the fast pace of new media change, and the need for brands to respond instantly which requires more resources. They also identify the fact that this has led to a loss of control for brands. A closer reading of the interview texts highlights some of the nuances of the nature of the changes. A clear and obvious change is the need for more resources, or for resources to be diverted: ‘consumer facing institutions have to put more resources into the management of social media and less resource into traditional publicity’ (Interview 1). Such resources are required to be able to produce appropriate content, and to be able to respond quickly and effectively: ‘brands are finding their feet and getting used to existing in a 24-hour environment in which they are becoming content providers.They have to push out regular content’ (Interview 15). They also have to monitor and reply to interactive users who ‘want instant information’ (Interview 1) and will no longer be content with an automated RSS Twitter feed. Brands are having to adjust their marketing and are embracing a plethora of formats: ‘if we take retailers who normally do promotions around sales times etc, now it’s different. Take John Lewis, the Christmas campaign moved from online teasers, to PR activity, to an advert on YouTube, the announcement of the date of the Christmas TV ad, experiential marketing in stores (pictures with the bear and the hare), merchandising (bear and hare onesies), Lily Allen’s song making it to number one. There was a wonderful snowballing of awareness’ (Interview 7). The consequences of not managing resources well, or thinking it through, can be damaging: ‘You need to be responsive. You need to sensitise to the environment. Take the New York Police Twitter fiasco. They asked for great pictures but got bad pictures. I think they should have weathered that. We need to be more responsive, in our multi-channel world.We can’t control all those, but what we can do is revert to the core’ (Interview 14). Perhaps what most distinguishes real-time digital media management for brands is a loss of control which means that ‘instantaneously, overnight, the management of reputation is massively more challenging’ (Interview 7) and ‘that control has been shattered and transformed by the fact that everyone with a phone is a publisher of a TV company’ (Interview 6). The final category is a truly emergent, inductive category, unrelated to the ­specific wording of the interview questions. A number of practitioners talk about the way in which brand users have increasing power in a 24-hour interactive media environment. The final category, which arose completely inductively, was the identification by practitioners of the high levels of power customers have over brands today. Authentic brands, it is felt, understand this and respond accordingly. This power is seen to have increased with digital media, and means that brand users are not afraid to exit from brands they find in-authentic or disappointing, and one of the outcomes of this is the increasingly important role of good customer service strategies within the brand mix: ‘The customer is king.The customer is the focus of the business now. One bad tweet can go global in an hour. So brands are more customer focused, they need to engage and interact’ (Interview 3). Other p­ ractitioners likewise agree: ‘There is a lot more power to the consumer now’ (Interview 1);

128  Public relations industry perceptions ‘consumers can be the most powerful advocates, but they can also dismantle a brand over night because of social media and the internet. It is merciless. There is a complete lack of mercy if a brand breaks its promise’ (Interview 7). This is partly to do with the nature of the medium, and partly to do with a new type of brand user: ‘it’s generational; a mixture of the big media and the digital media environment. If you’re aged up to 26, you’re going to fight your own battles’ (Interview 9). The consequences of this power are clear for practitioners. Consumers will exit from, boycott and even aggressively sabotage brands which disappoint them: ‘their relationship with brands is disposable’ (Interview 3). What practitioners focus on spontaneously is the notion of customer service, which is specifically linked by the interviewees to brand and reputational success. At the heart of this is the idea that brand authenticity goes beyond communications: ‘you can’t just talk of dialogue’ (Interview 14). Brands have to handle customers very carefully and sensitively: ‘the authentic brands are easy to deal with, and they respond to any breakdown, inconsistency or complaint well. The rest (majority) don’t do this well enough’ (Interview 8). This actually means a whole new understanding of PR: ‘The job of the PR manager is brand favourability (sustainable brand favourability).You have to maintain brand integrity (through actions). Customer service departments should come under PR’ (Interview 14); ‘PR has to work out its purpose. It’s about going beyond communications. Communications now needs to be a part of every aspect of a business. Take customer service. If I’m going to complain about my airline ticket, I take to Twitter’ (Interview 15). So what really distinguishes good, authentic brands according to the practitioners? Interestingly some of the brands were identified by one practitioner as being authentic and by another as not being authentic, thereby highlighting the subjectivity of perspectives in relation to branding and the very personal contingent nature of legitimisation, but it is possible to pull out generalisations that relate to the identified categories. Gillette was seen as authentic because of its ‘remarkable connection’ and because it is ‘authentic in its appeal to men’ (Interview 2). For Interviewee 3, Heinz and Camelot are praised for consistency; ‘these brands religiously stick to guidelines. The best brands are the most protected and the most policed’ (Interview 3). Others highlight the strength of the core proposition and values which are then lived in the behaviour of the brand, thus Vivienne Westwood ‘is totally authentic. We did some PR with her and the results were fantastic. She is so out there. Her views are radical. She stuck to her laurels and was really authentic’ (Interview 9). And Lonely Planet ‘were really clear about staying true to the roots of the company and that travel was its brand DNA. All the staff were passionate about sharing travel experiences’ (Interview 10). These senior professionals highlight a number of identifiable factors that they believe makes brands authentic to users. Key areas of focus appear to be atunement, real-time interaction and customer power, but these are underpinned by integrity, CSR and product delivery against brand values. It is clear that the vision and values of the brand need to be clearly articulated, and that they need to underpin all these other behaviours. It is also possible to identify a series of activities which authentic brands use to make this process effective. According to practitioners, brands have to adhere to a number of factors

Public relations industry perceptions  129 15 Real-Time Interaction Success Factors:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Be authentic through words, as well as visuals Use the right tone and language on line for the brand Be honest, open and transparent Ensure promotions fit with the brand Be interactive, rather than pushing promotions Provide information Turn customers into advocates Produce content for sharing Respond to ideas and suggestions personally Respond instantly Be sensitive to the environment Monitor constantly Listen to stakeholders (don’t just tell) Be distinctive Create emotion and excitement

Figure 9.1:  Fifteen Real-Time Interaction Success Factors

to ensure success with real-time interaction and these are listed above as Fifteen Real-Time Interaction Success Factors (Figure 9.1). These encapsulate important narrative and projection characteristics such as honesty, openness, transparency, tone of language, interactivity, advocacy, personalisation, empathy and sensitivity to environmental and social issues. As such the ‘Success Factors’ illuminate a need for whole organisations to behave and communicate responsibly, rather than just selling.They underpin the riparian brand concept which depends on a dynamic, flexible organisation which is prepared to change both its behaviour and its communications. This view aims to repurpose the inherent persuasive nature of public relations, which predominantly works in pursuit of a positive outcome for a particular sponsor (Morris and Goldsworthy 2012) and alternatively suggests that the success factors could be used as a means by which an organisation might understand and reflexively challenge its role in society by understanding its multiple identities and the fluidity of its environment, as well as internal and external perceptions of authenticity.

10 The authentic brand wheel An ontology of the riparian brand and authentic public relations

Authenticity and branding One of the over-arching aims of this book has been to explore the complexities of the notion of authenticity and to try to conceptualise what this means for public relations professionals and brand managers whose work involves presenting brands in a way which is believable for a broad range of stakeholders. According to Schallehn et al (2014), antecedents of brand authenticity are object authenticity, where the authentic is the original, and self-authenticity in a social world, in which authenticity relates to the ability to remain true to one’s own identity despite corrupting external pressures. Authentic brands thus position themselves from the inside out, containing three important brand attributes which make up a brand trust model: individuality (uniqueness); consistency (behaviour matches communications); and continuity (core brand attributes remain stable over time). The trust comes from the fact that users assume that the brand promise develops from the brand’s internal nucleus (Schallehn et al 2014). Brand authenticity can thus be seen from different perspectives: 1) objectivist in which authenticity is ‘an objectively measurable quality of an entity’; 2) constructivist where authenticity is a projection of one’s own beliefs and expectations onto an object; and 3) existentialist in which authenticity is about being true to one’s self (Morhart et al 2015:201). Organisations, therefore, have to battle with this contradiction of how to massify a notion of authenticity, whilst at the same time presenting a product, brand or service as somehow authentically real to individual users. Authenticity is often used as a commercial asset and may have critical socio-promotional impact through normalising certain versions of ‘authentic’ self-identity via consumption and promotional practices (Edwards 2010). Contemporary authenticity can therefore be seen as socially constructed and personally determined. Beverland, for example, notes that ‘brand managers are not the sole creators of brand meaning’ and that there are disparate sources of brand meaning such as ‘a connection to time and place, authenticity as a form of self-expression’ (2005:460). Authenticity often becomes a prevailing consumer purchasing criteria in which consumers seek to confirm their own self-image by engaging with organisations and brands they perceive to be real or authentic, in an active affirmation of choice, so getting authentic branding right is important ­(Gilmore and Pine 2007). The authors mentioned above are all agreed that

The authentic brand wheel  131 authenticity can be understood as a constantly changing concept which is connected to context, and which is in part constructed by the audience. It is also clear from the case studies explored in previous chapters that social media platforms pose new challenges for organisations aiming to be authentic. Their interactive nature makes it difficult for users to evaluate the authenticity of content producers and authenticity therefore is not an absolute or indeed intrinsic characteristic of posts and exchanges – it relies on subjective evaluation by participants. For example, dimensions used to measure authenticity in public sector communications have been found to include: identity (genuine or performative), authority (high and low legitimacy), transparency (open or obstructive), and engagement (high and low interactivity) (Gilpin et al 2010). Beverland similarly redefined brand authenticity measurement in 2015 suggesting that dimensional cues used by consumers to identify and judge authenticity were quality, sincerity, and heritage (Napoli et al 2014). The question then moves on as to how to link these understandings of consumer perceptions of brand authenticity to brand manifestations. The majority of practitioners interviewed for this book agreed that brands are successfully built on strong core values, a theme which is recurrent in academic literature, for example Olins’ idea that brands have a strong central vision linked to heritage, production capabilities, etc. (Olins 1995). The way Kawasaki describes Apple’s evangelistic processes typifies the concept of a strong DNA or ideology being at the core of successful brands (Fill 2005). At Apple people bought into a ‘dream of improving people’s productivity and creativity’ (Kawasaki 1991:9), thus building the brand on a central ideology of empowerment, rather than tangible product qualities or characteristics. For Apple, core values such as creativity, stylish design, innovation, and simplicity are fundamental, both to product development, but also within communications messages which are often picked up and repeated in the media. In contrast the BBC identifies its values as civic purpose, breadth of coverage and its progressive nature, but these are different to those highlighted by the news media which give prominence to the independence of BBC news, followed by the value of the brand to the UK. The practitioner analysis reveals a range of descriptors used to encapsulate authenticity: truthfulness, credibility, honesty, integrity, transparency, and a range of academic research shows that in an increasingly unreal world brand users make decisions based on their perceptions that an offering is ‘real’ (Gilmore and Pine 2007). Edwards has suggested that organisational claims to authenticity are ‘purposive and self-interested’ and it is possible to see that the BBC’s focus on civic purpose, innovation and breadth of service, and Apple’s focus on innovation, design and creativity are both made on the ‘basis of product or organisational attributes, rather than any kind of authenticity “work”’ (Edwards 2010). It could be argued that whilst these are not real in Edwards’ conception of authenticity as the original, they are real for consumers because they are examples of Beverland’s pure and approximate forms of brand authenticity, which confirm the genuineness of the product against its promises, and assist with self-authentication by connecting with place and time in a specific cultural way (Molleda 2010). Whilst both organisations received criticism in the media (Apple for mis-management and product failure

132  The authentic brand wheel and the BBC for over-bureaucracy, non-value-for-money, being too commercial and too government-orientated), both organisations received a higher percentage of positive coverage which supported the organisation’s own intrinsic brand messages, and in the case of the BBC promoting further justificatory discourse (news independence). The practitioners interviewed for this research also agreed in general on the continuing importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to brand authenticity and trust and as an important component of corporate reputation. They are unilaterally uncritical of public relations as a concept, completely accepting the ability of CSR narratives to create ‘shared value’ and ‘a reservoir of goodwill’ for organisations (Janssen et al 2015:183).The analysis of BP’s Deepwater Horizon crisis communications activity shows that a bank of CSR-based goodwill can indeed bolster an organisation in times of challenge. There was, however, consensus that CSR needs to be embedded in the brand, rather than bolted on as a communications strategy or project: ‘CSR may have changed – it’s no longer about publicly supporting good causes (eg charities), but it’s also about the ‘employer brand’, about the integrity of the supply chain, and also simply, just how well it does the thing it says it will do – ie not letting society down’ (Interview 8). It was identified as particularly important that CSR was connected in both principle and practice to core brand values: ‘What differentiates great brands from ordinary brands is that they are routed in their vision and purpose, and their CSR is intrinsic. It’s going beyond communications’ (Interview 15). Here the practitioners are claiming that CSR has now moved from an environmental response, and is instead an essential, embedded component of authentic brands. They are agreed that corporate hypocrisy (Wagner et al 2009), and half-truths (Devin 2016), are to be avoided at all costs and that the link between reputation and CSR, which makes sense for the organisation and its operations, is important in order to avoid the attribution by stakeholders of reputation-damaging counter-motivations (Shim and Yang, 2016). Ironically the heightened attention created by CSR narratives can raise expectations of behaviour, and therefore make it more difficult for organisations to justify themselves when facing a crisis because they have focused a lens on their CSR activities (Coombs and Holladay 2015, Janssen et al 2015). For the BBC, civic purpose is its predominant CSR discourse. Its annual reports highlight how it facilitates democracy and education, working tirelessly in the public interest across the globe. The BBC first uses the phrase CSR in the 2006/7 Annual report, providing several pages of examples, whilst the 2013/14 report has a specific Corporate Social Responsibility section. The BBC is adhering to Kotler’s concept of ‘Marketing 3.0’ in which he talks of an ‘environmental imperative’ (2011:132), or a response to the key issue of the day. We can also relate the BBC’s narrative to Sulkunen’s notion of the contract, or moment of justification, as a transparent, balanced action based on a mutually accepted view of values of worth and what constitutes the common good (Sulkunen 2010), with the BBC anticipating the concerns of its users and positioning itself accordingly. Apple’s key corporate social responsibility message is how it empowers society. As early as 1984 the brand claimed to be ‘world-changing’, highlighting the idea that the

The authentic brand wheel  133 Macintosh would ‘change the lives of millions of people’ (Apple 1984). This resonates closely with the point the practitioners are making about the need to embed CSR. It may be useful to consider Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to understand how Apple is making the argument that personal fulfilment links to CSR. At the top of Marlow’s hierarchy self-actualisation is depicted as an existential inner need to develop one’s full capabilities (Palmer 2004). Also linked to this concept is Davies’ idea that the ‘spirit’ of capitalism is its promise not only of utility or hedonia, but also of meaning or eudaimonia where eudaimonia is ‘ethical and teleological, where “happiness” is understood as the attainment of a good life’, incorporating a ‘positive capability to act meaningfully in pursuit of one’s own substantive goals’ (Davies 2011). In Apple’s focus on empowerment, by providing products that ‘will go as far as your imagination can take it’ (Apple 1997), we can see the organisation drawing on this more personal and embedded notion of CSR, which empowers the individual to succeed both individually and within society. This narrative of technological humanitarianism is one that has benefited both Facebook and Google as well. Boltanski and Thevenot’s (2006) common polity model for justification linked clearly to a sense of common humanity. This is not to say that all organisations are social enterprises, but in some way they need to connect to the common good. With the BBC, the common good is closely aligned with a debate about the role of public service broadcasting, whilst Apple manages to make a much more brandorientated narrative about personal creativity. Thus it can be deduced that CSR needs to link logically to a brand’s core values and purpose. Each of these brands seems to have taken into account the range of cultures and value systems within which it is operating, and neither is guilty of corporate hypocrisy. This is the point Boltanski and Thevenot make about understanding the values communities share as a basis for articulating a higher common principle which can be accepted. For Apple this set of acceptable equivalences and principles for justification relates to creativity, innovation, and empowerment, whereas for the BBC it is about public service broadcasting principles such as independence and impartiality. Both are attempting to apply Beverland’s conception of moral authenticity in which the brand assists self-authentication by associating with personal moral values (Beverland et al. 2010). It is possible to see therefore how CSR, as a component of brand authenticity, might be an essentially rational and collective judgement, based around the notion of tests organised within a social context. Carroll proposes a hierarchy of CSR narratives with economic and legal responsibilities at the bottom, followed by expected ethical actions, and then desired discretionary and philanthropic goals at the top (Carroll and Shabana 2010). The interviewed practitioners identified that organisations work within a social context, with which they must negotiate and agree an acceptable role. This constructivist view of ethics as a product of social relationships begins to explain why reputation is important for the maintenance of brand authenticity. Taking the clothing manufacturer Howies as an example, it is possible to see how embedded CSR becomes a central part of brand propositions, and the way in which for some brands the notion of CSR is highly personal.The brand has put ethics at the heart of its brand offering

134  The authentic brand wheel since its inception, using the tag line ‘making high quality lower impact clothing since 1995’ (Howies 2019).When brands create a genuine, personal connection that links to the lives of brand users, and the things that they care about, then those users can become exceedingly loyal. Developing a successful, embedded CSR policy means understanding those social and cultural nuances that enable brands to make connections, and then, of course, delivering what brand customers are looking for: Howies would be another interesting brand that made its name on being authentic and true as you could argue they were the original trailblazers in the sideways sports industry like Billabong, Quicksilver and Vans.They developed goods not with profit in mind but with a mind to create great things for their friends. This was moving into life-style marketing and creating lifestyles and providing products or services to meet the needs of new lifestyles. Perhaps this is the root of brand authenticity? (Interview 10) What the discussion above fails to address, however, is the problematic association of ethics and CSR, and the connection to what constitutes authenticity (Watson 2010). Out of Gilmore and Pine’s five genres of brand authenticity only transformational authenticity is linked to higher social goals in which an organisation is fully focused on the public good and influencing the world for the better. Their framework of corporate authenticity accepts that in many contexts authenticity may not be in the interests of the public good (Gilmore and Pine 2007). And yet CSR could potentially offer ‘myriad propsects’ for organisations to display postmodern behaviour if the public relations practitioner is empowered to act simultaneously ‘as organizational representative and activist at the same time’ (Dhanesh 2013:399). There is little evidence to suggest that either the BBC and Apple, or the interviewed practitioners, consider this aspect of CSR as important. There appears to be much more focus on ensuring consistency between CSR narratives, brand values and delivery, rather than a deep-seated public good objective, thus supporting Fleming and Jones’ (2013) argument about the anti-social hegemonic nature of current CSR practice. Integrity was a concept that developed inductively from the practitioners interviewed for this book, with respondents highlighting the need for authentic brands to be open and honest, particularly in a digital media environment. Interviewees spontaneously talked about integrity, honesty or transparency:‘There are two things that are important: 1) building an emotional bridge and connection; 2) integrity: matching words and actions. Being authentic is about initial favourability, but then you have to maintain integrity’ (Interview 14). This is not a controversial finding. The practitioners are reflecting Palmer’s argument that there is a need for brands to stay true to their stated authentic selves and to be consistent (Palmer 2004). For the BBC trust is a very important issue, stating in 1997 that ‘our vision is to be the most creative, trusted organisation in the world’ (BBC Annual Report 1996/7). ‘Openness and transparency’ is also highlighted as one of four key objectives in its 2013/14 annual report (BBC Annual Report 2013/14:11). Whilst there are implications for excellence in management of programme delivery in this, for the BBC the notion of trust also relates to impartiality, integrity and independence of its

The authentic brand wheel  135 news reporting. This is vigorously picked up by the news media: ‘“News and current affairs is absolutely at the core of the BBC’s brand and trustworthiness and is the number one reason we have the licence fee,” said one senior industry source. “Arguably in the internet era of news and gossip you need the BBC more than you ever needed it before”’ (Plunkett 2013).The BBC is heavily criticised when its management actions threaten to tarnish the BBC’s independence and reputation because the brand is seen as highly valuable: ‘When push comes to shove, it’s the BBC that most people turn to in a crisis. It’s still one of the most trusted brands in the world’ (Lewis 2006). Facebook has likewise suffered from a crisis of trust relating to its data protection and usage policies. The second category which emerged from the practitioner interviews as being essential for authenticity was the importance of brand behaviour and actions, and this is clearly linked to the previous discussion about integrity: ‘How they behave is important. Take Admiral – it is very consistent in its behaviour. Coca-Cola and McDonald’s are consistent. They come under pressure, but the experience is the same’ (Interview 3). Again this is a non-controversial area, with many academic theorists agreeing that sustainable reputation is achieved by reducing the gap between how an organisation is represented and the experience of its actual behaviour (Olins 1995, Theaker 2004, Van Riel 1995). In its annual reports the BBC repeatedly focuses on its ability to provide a vast, global, highly acclaimed and value-for-money broadcasting service. For Apple this area is interesting as the organisation has experienced repeated product problems. The third highest overall individual theme from analysis of Apple media cuttings was product problems; however, there is still a clear sense of how the company delivers against its brand promises, particularly in the area of innovation and this seems to detract from its short-term product issues. Ground-breaking is the highest individual theme emerging from media coverage of Apple, and the most consistent over the three decades studied. Its own justificatory discourses focus on design excellence, simplicity of use and innovation is supported by media perceptions: ‘Almost overnight, expectations of how technology could and should work, subtly but irrevocably changed…..I find myself instinctively touching and stroking screens, and already feeling disappointed with old fashioned buttons, keys and clicks’ (Garret 2010). Atunement emerged as the most frequently cited concept from the practitioner interviews. They see it as encompassing activities such as actively monitoring the environment and responding to changes in customer values and beliefs. Good brands are using new digital techniques for environmental scanning and market research, but are also going one step beyond this and developing adaptive resilience, staying true to core principles whilst atuning and changing in accordance to the prevailing environment and issues: ‘demonstrating adaptability in style, delivery mode/channels, social impact and values’ (Interview 8). In practice terms this could mean ‘changing the product (eg reduced sugar or additives), promoting environmental credentials (eg Apple), responding to legislation (eg alcohol advertising), or responding to different needs (eg Virgin from records to space travel)’ (Interview 11). Adaptive resilience is based on dialogical stakeholder relationships in which the process of critique and stabilisation is dynamic and continuing. According to

136  The authentic brand wheel Boltanski and Chiapello (2007), the importance of being tuned in to social, economic, and environmental change underpins the ability of organisations to move away from retrospective legitimisation, or defence of actions, towards justification in which tests and corrective critique can be used to ensure that the brand remains acceptable to its users and wider stakeholders over time. A key aspect of such successful atunement is to involve outside judgements and indeed a key characteristic of Boltanski and Chiapello’s networked organisations is the externalisation of control. The ability of the BBC, for example, to listen to its audience is a very strong theme from its annual reports, which often highlight the role of a large range of advisory bodies or developments corroborated by extensive audience research.

Real-time interaction, the personalised brand and customer power A strong emergent category from the practitioner interviews was the idea of real-time interaction which is specifically linked to developments in digital media. Practitioners acknowledged the fast pace of new media change and the need for instantaneous responsiveness, as well as the potentially huge benefits afforded by digital media: I think marketers have never had it so good in their search for marketing nirvana – that position where they can develop a one to one relationship with their target audiences cheaply. Digital interactive channels allow brands to develop deep psychological links with customers and equally I see a trend for consumers to feel emotionally let down when a brand doesn’t act in a way it originally presented itself (Interview 10). The implications for brands of the process of justification and the importance of multiple and shifting modes of information exchange is not new. Hirschman (1970) was tackling such concepts in developing his ideas about exit and voice nearly 50 years ago. According to Hirschman the use of customer interactions and information only works to the benefits of the brand if the organisation is willing not only to listen, but also to act. Hirschman argues that this requires a high degree of involvement and effort on behalf of both the organisation and the product user. The openness of organisations to a conversation which explores how the brand could effectively improve creates a test which ultimately might strengthen the brand, and this is the fundamental and potential power of real-time interaction between authentic brands and their users. This process of real-time interaction links to notions of actor network theory in that different ‘actants’ (brands, users, and third parties) play specific roles in the process of developing brand authenticity. What is at play here is a new kind of ‘dynamic authority’ (McConnell and Huba, 2007:29) in which authenticity is being co-created from outside the brand, determined by active consumers. It was noted previously that Berry’s (2011) ideas about real-time streams as technological imaginaries, are also useful in considering a type of riparian concept which, if applied to brands, suggests something interactive, dynamic and developmental, supported

The authentic brand wheel  137 by access to, and interaction with, digitally based media environments. The BBC and Apple are both celebrated for their intrinsic progressive nature and their close connection with their audience groups, something which the practitioners also highlight as being an essential component of successful authentic brands. According to Boltanski and Thevenot (2006), the fundamental structures of judgement require a continuous process of comparison and agreement on common terms to succeed and thus they are suggesting a connection between effective justification and continuous interaction. In addition, it was noted earlier in this book that Boltanski and Chiapello’s introduction of a seventh world, the projective city, might be an equally useful concept for understanding the material and im-material complexities of today’s brands, exemplified by their definition of a ‘project’ as ‘a mass of active connections apt to create forms – that is to say, bring objects and subjects into existence – by stabilizing certain connections and making them irreversible’ (2007: 105). To summarise the argument made previously, Boltanski and Chiapello position the project as the nodal point in a networked world, connecting the proliferation of geographically, culturally and socially distant encounters and temporary connections. Brands can also be seen as a nodal point, connecting with a variety of different aspects in a rhizomatic way. In such a concept a brand user’s relationship with a brand is dynamic, performative, and ongoing. Brands are multi-dimensional, bringing together, social technical, and formal constructions within an assemblage with no central position; they are demanding, open, and incomplete (Lury 2009). The argument presented in this book is that modern authentic brands incorporate the concept of real-time flow. The brand, seen in this way, is a constantly changing complex imaginary in flow with a digitally networked world. This is a centrifugal notion of branding, perhaps something that might be called a brand constellation. It is a new type of authenticity, one which is still connected to a sense of an original (the brand values), but one in which there is a freedom of interpretation and individual experience – the riparian brand. This conceptual development sees the riparian brand in terms of an ‘active threshold’ or ‘interface effect’ (Galloway 2012:23). Here authenticity comes from active engagement which allows users to influence and define their relationship with the brand, and even to help define the brand itself. Indeed, the suggestion is that brand definition is deeply personal to the user within such a concept. The BBC, for example, has clearly moved away from a broadcast model of branding towards something much more personalised for its audiences.The BBC i-player and more recently, BBC sounds, ‘have begun the building of a more personalised, social and mobile BBC, offering individual recommendations, participation and a two-way relationship with our audiences’ (BBC Annual Report 2013/14:47). At play here is something that Loader and Mercea (2011) call ‘co-construction’ in which participants influence the innovation of new ideologies and communications. The power of this type of approach is noted by some of the media commentary: ‘Out is the Reithian model of a narrow British institution broadcasting to the nation; in is a high-tech provider of entertainment “on demand” to the whole world - a cross between Google and a DVD shop’ (The Scotsman 2006). For the BBC, riparian seems to be about flexibility, but also about change.

138  The authentic brand wheel At apple there is also evidence of a very high level of customer interactions: It is remarkable to witness how the Apple management team and Apple fans work together to further develop their chosen brand. If Apple announces a new product during a press conference, within hours thousands of Apple addicts are already spreading the message. The most fanatical Apple lovers even brainstorm about the potential new ideas on the site Macrumours.com’ (Van Bellingham 2012:37). Perhaps this is where the emotional and rational debate comes to the fore. In considering the way Apple inspires a cult movement in some of its brand users, or even the media’s fierce patronisation of the BBC brand, it seems clear that authentic brands engender and nurture an emotional connection, a point that is highlighted in the practitioner interviews and experiential marketing theorists who highlight that ‘emotional attachment is key’ (McCole 2004:537). Brands in flow are brands in a constant process of legitimisation, responding to user tests. This goes beyond representation and instead is incorporating concepts such as Bassett’s (2007) narrative arc in which the truth is developed via an interactive bringing-forth, or poesis as Heidegger (1977) puts it. Authenticity therefore is not only the seeking of a central essence but a momentary, constructive process, enabled specifically in the 21st century by digital technologies and media convergence which facilitates meaning-making via networking groups, complex webs, alliances and ‘the integration of messages across a wide range of properties and media’ (Martens 2013). The concept of the personal brand links closely to the next theme which emerged very strongly through all three processes of data analysis for this book which is the importance of customer power to brand authenticity. The strength of this inductive theme frames a key point for this book in seeking to understand the role of public relations practitioners in managing brand reputation. Positioning brands as contingent and customer-driven requires a re-imagining of the practitioner perspective as a facilitator within a networked community of internal brand creators and managers (across disciplines) and other external brand stakeholders, rather than a controller of brand communications. Beverland (2009) argues that when customers have power over brands, authenticity has personal meaning for them. Authenticity is ‘given’ to an object by consumers, based on criteria such as self-identification, creativity, sincerity, and satisfaction and this leads to a lack of cognitive dissonance because customers are happy that brand promises are met. Users of authentic brands feel they have the power to ensure that customer promises are delivered, and even to help direct what those promises should be, and they therefore wield significant power over the brand. This theme of customer power emerged spontaneously from the practitioner interviews and there was a strong consensus about the high level of influence that customers have over brands today, specifically enabled by digital media developments: ‘The illusion of control has been shattered and transformed by the fact that everyone with a phone is a publisher or TV company’ (Interview 12). Customer power is important because it gives brand users influence and control.

The authentic brand wheel  139 What practitioners focus on spontaneously is the notion of customer service, which is specifically linked by the interviewees to brand and reputational success: ‘the authentic brands are easy to deal with, and they respond to any breakdown, inconsistency or complaint well’ (Interview 8). Interaction is a key characteristic of the relationship between Apple and its fans, for example.The organisation hosted global user events such as the User Group Universities in which 100 user-group leaders participated in a day of workshops and discussions about Apple’s latest products (Schneiders 2011). The BBC also emphasises its attempts to give its customers power, by setting up interactive processes and feedback opportunities, although it is important to put that within the context of a largely controlled approach to output: ‘The Have Your Say site receives 12,000 emails every day (many more on big news days)’ (BBC Annual Report 2006/7). Kotler’s (2011) concept of Marketing 3.0, in which consumers use a company’s social responsibilities as a third judgement criteria, beyond functional (Marketing 1.0) and emotional (Marketing 2.0) is a useful acknowledgement of consumer influence. Perhaps we could call the customer power component of riparian branding Marketing 4.0. Instead of third-party endorsement and opinion former credibility driving consumer judgement decisions, now this role resides with consumers acting as a dynamic interactive online community (Prindle 2011). In addition, there seems to be a strong recourse to the idea of authenticity as non-massification. It was observed earlier how Marquand identified a lamentable decline of the public domain, which he argues has been replaced by a culture of distrust by ‘incessant marketization’, turning citizens into ‘customers’ (2004:2-3). The riparian brand concept begins to turn that marketisation back towards customer trust and empowerment by the development of ‘long tail’ brands and the individualisation of products (Anderson 2006). Perhaps this involves a redefining of what ‘customer’ means. So whilst Marquand (2004) is despairing of the fact that customers are subsumed by a marketisation focus, I argue in this book for a new understanding of the brand customer, in which the customer has power and is an active and logical citizen in the marketisation process, bringing to bear outside criteria and forces such as cultural, social and environmental concerns.

The authentic brand wheel: An ontology of the riparian brand Key areas of focus for the management of corporate character which emerge from the interviews were atuning to the environment, reacting in real time, giving customers power, having integrity in terms of brand promises and narratives, and taking corporate social responsibility seriously. These are modelled for readers in the form of an Authentic Brand Wheel which encapsulates how believable brand narratives might be used to develop effect reality-shaping engagement with public relations stakeholders and brand users. It is important to note that the authentic brand wheel is conceptualised as an ontology of the riparian brand and therefore the dynamic nature of the concept is emphasised. The authentic brand wheel criteria can be viewed as nodes or dynamic qualities that move and change in terms of their relevance and importance. To borrow from Lury, it is a ‘set of relations’

140  The authentic brand wheel (2004:26), a postmodern open-ended view of branding which involves a tripartite interaction in the construction of brand authenticity between individual, brand and society (Gilmore and Pine 2007). The riparian brand remains dynamic, malleable, and contingent. The brand wheel is a tool used extensively in the past two decades by brand consultants and brand managers to map out brand values and behaviours for organisations. It is also beginning to be used by academics as a technique for visualising aspects of branding.Yeoman et al (2005) used a brand wheel to distil their findings from historical and organisational research into the representation of Scotland as a tourist destination. Working with Visit Scotland, the national tourism organisation for Scotland, the research team developed a brand essences wheel for Scotland. The wheel summarised how the present positioning for the country related to its past and heritage, using concepts such as ‘experience, cultural capital and authenticity’ to help build up a picture of the constituent elements of the essence, or brand values, of Scotland (2005:143). The findings were then used by Visit Scotland as a basis for advertising messages. For Yeoman et al, the research enables a decoding of the essences of Scotland which embeds its historic and cultural past in a vision of the current and future visitor experience. This fusion of essences into a brand wheel incorporates authenticity which is clearly temporal in its conceptualisation (2005:145): The concept of a ‘brand essence wheel’ has been introduced as a framework for establishing the links between the essence of a brand, the brand proposition aimed at different target audiences, and the products and features that these audiences will value. It is a simple framework, which overcomes a myopic preoccupation with present-day features, possibly at the expense of a long cultural history. Gromark and Melin (2011) also used a brand wheel to help map the results of their study into the link between brand orientation and financial performance in Swedish businesses, but in this case the wheel was adapted to help explore and develop a theoretical concept. The wheel helped theorise the constituents of brand orientation, whilst at the same time providing a ‘framework for companies that want to develop a more brand-orientated approach in their organisation’ (2011:408). The aim in producing the Authentic Brand Wheel (Figure 10.1) is to use knowledge of the processes and procedures that create technologies of authentication to help visualise the complex and dynamic inter-relationships that make up an authentic brand. At the core of the proposed brand wheel, uncontroversially, sits a clear identified vision and set of values. These make sense for the brand, and are sustainable, either because they are linked to the brand provenance and heritage, or because they align closely with the product, service or lifestyle on offer from the brand. They embody both intrinsic and extrinsic brand qualities (Fill 2005). The second circle on the brand wheel articulates embedded qualities embraced by authentic brands. These qualities, which link intrinsically to the core values, might also be described as behaviours. It is important to acknowledge that for authentic

The authentic brand wheel  141

The Authentic Brand Wheel An Ontology of the Riparian Brand

Integrity IC D AN BR

AUT HE NT

Atunement

Real-time Interaction

Vision/ Values Brand Promise Delivery

CSR NAR

R ATIV E

Customer Power

Figure 10.1:  The Authentic Brand Wheel: An Ontology of the Riparian Brand

21st century brands it is imperative that corporate social responsibility is embedded at their core. Authentic brands take integrity and honesty seriously and they ensure that values, CSR and integrity are translated into all the behaviours of the organisation. In authentic brand organisations the ability to deliver against brand promises is embedded in the structures of the organisation. So for Apple, for example, this means significant investment and support for research, development and innovation, whilst for the BBC it means ensuring impartiality and independence of its reporting, and the protection of this independence from interference by, for example, the governors or governments of the time. A third outer layer focuses on interactivity and this is presented as a new area of focus for brand authenticity. Authentic riparian brands accept and embrace the power of consumers, they empower them to comment and engage, they listen to them and they respond to them, gradually adjusting the brand offer and communications so that it remains perfectly in tune with its priority stakeholder groups. This third layer incorporates notions of atunement, real-time interaction and customer power discussed earlier in the book and chapter. The three layers described above (core values, embedded qualities and aspects of interactivity) form the core structures of the Authentic Brand Wheel concept. This wheel builds on existing theoretical notions such as Aaker’s ideas on brand equity (1996), and particularly Danesi’s idea that brands are mental constructs (2006), by identifying further the assets, behaviours, and interactive qualities of those brands perceived by users to be authentic in a modern digital

142  The authentic brand wheel media world. The model might therefore be used by brand managers and public relations practitioners to guide discussions about the development of brands and to encourage a riparian, interactive approach to branding. It may be possible to use the model to facilitate the rendering of authenticity by focusing on engaging interactions, customisation, creation of community, and the delivery of embedded social value (Gilmore and Pine 2007). It is important to note that the authentic brand wheel has been conceptualised as an ontology of the riparian brand and thus it is imperative to re-emphasis the dynamic nature of the concept even though it has been visually provided in a physical diagrammatic form. The production of a qualitative tool is produced in the knowledge of positivistic tendencies in the field (Hatch 2012) and is clearly problematic given that riparian suggests something that is difficult to quantify. The authentic brand wheel is not designed to be the criteria for a badge, or achievement of brand authenticity; this implies a far too simplistic process. It is not designed to be a singular, modernist reality which has been discovered and described (Radford 2011). This is not to detract from previous work such as that of Schallehn et al (2014) who developed a model of brand authenticity, comprising individuality, consistency, and continuity, and who represent a range of previous work attempting to define aspects of terminologies such as brand authenticity and equity. The aim is to build on this, in some sense responding to Davcik and da Silva’s call for more evaluative criteria with which to assess brand equity (2015:7). If public relations professionals and brand managers within organisations are allowing this kind of riparian interaction and dynamic idea about branding, then what kind of brand authenticity are we talking about here? A term such as ‘weak’ authenticity, as mentioned earlier in the book, might be useful if existing ideas about authenticity are historical and fixed, then this new authenticity is malleable and dynamic whilst still retaining a solid core.This builds upon Moloney’s notion of PR as ‘weak propaganda’ because it uses some of the characteristics and techniques of propaganda, but does not completely control media and messaging environments in the way that true propaganda might. Instead it allows for interactive, argument and debate (Moloney 2006: 71). If the original meaning of authenticity was related to a true original version – something we might relate to core brand values – then weak authenticity is a concept which allows for a dynamic and manipulated quality to that ‘original’. Weak authenticity is a concept in which authenticity is not fixed or historic, but instead is dynamic. This involves a letting go of control, so brands are weak, in that they are willing to concede control, but authentic in that consumers are involved in a ‘real’ way with the brand. This involves a much more nuanced understanding of customers as non-heterogeneous individuals; the meaning and value of the riparian brand is shaped and co-created by and for different people, enabled particularly by the digital media environment, although it is important to note that authenticity evolves from communally understood meanings and is thus social, as well as individual. Authentic brands embrace ‘weak authenticity’; they let customers influence their direction; they invite and respond to critique; but they do not lose sight of their core brand values. This explains why strong brands can override short-term criticism, because these are seen as constructive tests of strength to

The authentic brand wheel  143 which the brand will listen and improve its brand offering. Understood this way, the authentic brand wheel might be something to aim for, and be the basis for a process, a journey rather than an object, and thus respond to Holtzhausen’s call for research to provide frameworks for the deconstruction of management language and the development of affirmative public relations techniques which take a more postmodern stance (2002:252).

11 The authenticity managers Post-modern public relations practice in the digital age

Brand worlds This book has considered how brands attempt to confer legitimacy, and how they are themselves subject to processes of critique and justification within a legitimised structure in order to achieve authenticity. Earlier it was noted how Boltanski and Thevenot (2006) developed a justificatory framework comprising of six different ‘common worlds’: 1) Inspired World, 2) Domestic World, 3) World of Fame, 4) Civic World, 5) Market World, and 6) Industrial World, each of which was argued to represent common orders of worth which support judgement and justification narratives and positioning. It is possible to take these worlds and identify links to some of the brand narratives highlighted in the research in this book. The BBC, for example connects with the private domestic world, by highlighting the way it reaches out to its users in their own communities: ‘In the course of the year we reached and passed the 100th in our series of public meetings’ (BBC Annual Report 1985:3); and by adapting its production processes to include private creative content from audiences. Apple’s connection with people’s private worlds could be argued to be the way its products seek to empower users and ‘increase the productivity and creativity of people’ (Kawasaki 1991:6). From its initial inception Apple’s brand positioning reflected the inspired world, incorporating the notion that the brand is ground-breaking, world-changing and inspirational, even to the point that working on new product design was seen by staff as an ‘exalted mission’ (Isaacson 2011). The BBC also leans on inspirational justification with its narrative of supporting Britain’s cultural heritage: ‘It remains a marvellous organisation, regarded with huge affection for the vital cultural role it plays in the life of this country’ (Luckhurst 2006). Often positioned as an arbiter of taste and cultural aspiration, in a seemingly oxymoronic positioning of different criteria, the BBC also leans on the world of fame. The single most frequently occurring narrative from the BBC annual reports was its wide audience appeal: ‘Every week, just over half of the adult population tunes into BBC Radio for music, comedy, drama, news, discussion and documentaries’ (BBC Annual Report 1995/96:22). For Apple, the promotion of its brand as well known and iconic appears to have been controlled and deliberate, with reports of three hour weekly brainstorms focusing on brand messages (Isaacson 2011) and significant investment in advertising and product launch events. The use of Steve Jobs’ fame as an iconic symbol was also deliberately used to build

The authenticity managers  145 the Apple brand by representing ‘American innovation and entrepreneurial cunning’ (Levy 2000:17), and arguably the same type of narrative is used by Mark Zuckerberg in presenting himself as the face of Facebook. For the BBC, arguably its predominant justificatory discourse is its civic purpose, encompassing a range of sub-themes including its role in supporting and providing content around the public interest, education, enabling democracy, taste and decency, and cultural heritage.We have discussed how a civic positioning also works for brands such as the Co-operative Group and the Body Shop. In the cases of Apple, BP and the BBC, media coverage of the organisations focuses quite significantly on the way in which they operate within market worlds. Thus Apple is praised for its economic success, BP for bringing product development and innovation, and the BBC for its editorial independence which gives its credibility within its own market place. Also a strong inductive category for the BBC is its focus on its sheer size and scale, emphasising its world reach and its impact on the global television industry, and hence its role and importance in the industrial world. It projects itself as professional and essential to the development of the industry. A particularly crucial role is its capacity to train industry professionals. For Apple, there is also a clear industrial perspective to its brand position, but the focus here is on its work in innovating for the industry, with Apple perceived as ‘the premier innovator in the computer industry’ (Carlton 1997:82). It is possible to see from the brief summaries above that the worlds identified by Boltanski and Thevenot (2006) can be connected to the researched brand discourses, and are useful in that they help identify ways in which these discourses are being framed and justified by relating to specific social themes relevant to the late 20th and early 21st century.The common polity model certainly fits these narratives, and this is perhaps not surprising given that in order to explore systems of classification and justification Boltanski and Thevenot (2006) developed a methodology which contrasted several classical philosophical texts with behavioural handbooks for business, thus encapsulating key themes for late 20th century business organisations. The worlds provide a specific temporal ontology for describing some of those concerns to which the BBC and Apple are responding. However, the research seems to suggest that whilst the brands are clearly in tune with these themes, there may also be some additional possibilities for understanding brand authenticity. To move beyond this model it may be useful to consider the work of Albert Hirschman who provides a useful way of understanding how actors interact with organisations. Hirschman (1970) argues against traditional economic theory, which places market competition as the most effective mechanism of recovery for failing organisations, by using examples such as the Nigerian Railway Corporation to demonstrate that competition can actually maintain organisational mediocrity by providing users with an alternative. Hirschman (1970) describes the failure of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) to respond to the arrival of competition from trucking companies. The provision of a faster, efficient and more tamper-proof service led to the exit of the potentially more vocal customers, leaving the NRC to continue providing its government-supported mediocre service to less vocal and more inactive customers. Hirschman argues that had the NRC been in a monopoly situation its vocal customer group might have forced it into improvements. Hirschman (1970)

146  The authenticity managers proposes that in certain circumstances, when customers stop buying products and services (exit), or express their dissatisfaction (voice), organisations are provided with a major alternative mechanism for recuperation, by being alerted to failure and therefore having time to instigate remedial action before being replaced by competitors. What Hirschman is doing here, is placing conversation both within an organisation, and beyond its boundaries, as a core component of organisational effectiveness. It is through multiple and shifting information exchange, whether manifested in action or words, that the organisation will be alerted to its failings and understand how to change. Hirschman’s (1970) concept of exit relates to the process whereby customers either stop buying products, or leave the membership of an organisation, as a result of dissatisfaction brought about by a decline in quality. In traditional market economic theory the failing organisation, whose product quality is deteriorating, will be replaced by a newer, more innovative operation. Hirschman proposes an alternative view, a radical pessimism, that most economies are in fact performing below highest productivity and are slack, allowing for a considerable degree of market mediocrity. Given such an economic notion how then, Hirschman questions, can organisations be compelled to improve? His suggestion is that exit can be very useful in this context by alerting the firm or organisation to its deterioration, thereby giving it time to cure temporary and remediable mistakes and problems.Traditional marketing and brand theory also tends towards the taut market framework working on the premise that products are designed to elicit maximum profit from marketplaces and that the purpose of effective branding is to help secure this process (see Duncan 2005, Fill 2005, Groucutt 2005, Palmer 2004). Product life cycle theory, for example, concentrates on how to maximise profits from a product which will inevitably travel through a process of introduction, growth, maturity, saturation and decline (Palmer 2004:262). The theory works on the premise that the product will eventually face demise at the point where consumers choose a better, more innovative alternative, and there is market evidence to support the theory. In order to monitor profit, marketing organisations spend considerable time and management effort in the process of monitoring sales – and in doing so effectively use an exit index to identify when products are becoming obsolete. In the early 2000s, for example, I worked for the UK-based private media organisation Haymarket Publishing. There I experienced and participated in the use of exit as a built-in mechanism for measuring and maximising profit. Acute attention to the detail of magazine sales figures was given on a weekly basis, with intensely detailed data available from wholesalers analysing subtle comparisons of year-onyear like sales within a variety of retail store categories. This enabled us to identify subtle shifts in purchasing patterns and any drop in comparative sales figures led to intense debate over whether to invest in more marketing support or product development, with the ultimate threat that a serious decline in sales, or a failure to grow sales quickly enough in the case of new launches, would lead to the closure of the magazine. I also experienced use of exit in the context within which Hirschman places it. Any drop in sales figures led to intense scrutiny of quality aspects of the magazines such as photography, content, language and in particular front covers.

The authenticity managers  147 The strong subscription base of the Haymarket stable of magazines gave us time to react to any issues identified by the retail sales of the less frequent (and less loyal) purchasers and thus facilitated time for product improvement. Hirschman’s (1970) concept of exit rejects the idea that decline is inevitable, but is instead based on the explicit belief that changes and improvements are possible. It is still, nevertheless, based on economic principles; the exit option works because revenue declines as quality drops and the feedback received by management from the balance sheet impels them to address the organisation’s failings. Hirschman does, however, identify caveats. Exit only works if the departing customers are not replaced by new ones. This can often be the case in highly competitive market places where there is little product differentiation, and customers are thereby able to move back and forward between products. Another caveat is that exit works best as a mechanism of recuperation if the organisation has a mixture of ‘alert’ and ‘inert’ customers. Hirschman’s (1970) interpretation of alert and inert customers is an interesting departure from much of the literature on brand management. For Hirschman, alert customers are useful because they are quality-sensitive and exit first, thus triggering a recuperation mechanism, whereas much brand theory focuses on the need to capture, engage and retain loyal and active (alert) brand users at all costs (see Aaker 1991, Danesi 2006, Haig 2003, Ries 2000, Schroeder and Salzer-Morling 2006). It is possible to think of these as the opposite of the early adopters beloved of marketing departments. Early adopters is a categorisation term used to describe the group of customers who typically purchase a product at the very early stage of its product life cycle (the introductory and growth phase). Such customers are seen as innovators and trend setters who encourage a greater mass of customers to also purchase the same product (Groucutt 2005). For many brand theorists, exit is the ultimate brand failure, and much consideration is given to recognising and avoiding the causes. Haig’s ‘seven deadly sins of branding’, for example, (amnesia, ego, megalomania, deception, fatigue, paranoia, and irrelevance) are all focused on situations which lead the brand users to exit and lead ultimately to the brand’s failure (Haig 2003). Whilst Hirschman’s exit is linked to product quality, Haig’s exit is not: ‘Consumers make buying decisions based around the perception of the brand rather than the reality of the product. While this means brands can become more valuable than their physical assets, it also means they can lose this value overnight’ (Haig 2003:1).What Hirschman gives us is a useful way of considering the moment when that decision to disengage from a product or brand is made, which is linked to both the material and symbolic causes. Hirschman argues that voice provides a different, but potentially complimentary mechanism to exit for alerting an organisation that product improvement is required by raising awareness of unhappiness with product quality: ‘The firm’s customers or the organization’s members express their dissatisfaction directly to management or to some other authority to which management is subordinate or through general protest addressed to anyone who cares to listen’ (Hirschman 1970:4). Seen in this way the exercise of ‘voice’ (which can be individual or collective) is an attempt to change a problematic or unsatisfactory state of affairs by discourse or feedback. This is in contrast to exit, and indeed exit becomes a reaction of last resort only

148  The authenticity managers after voice has failed. Customers, of course, will often exercise discourse about a product or service. Indeed one only need look at the popularity of websites like TripAdvisor. But voice only works for an organisation as an alternative to exit if customers believe an organisation will listen and that their influence can help get the organisation back on track. Hirschman (1970) argues that this requires a relatively high degree of involvement and effort on behalf of both the organisation and the product user and therefore tends to be reserved for more expensive purchases or memberships, or those situations where exit is not an option such as some basic social organisations (family, state, church). There are plenty of theoretical models in both the public relations and marketing disciplines which recognise that listening to voice can be useful to an organisation (see Aitchison 1999, Baines et al 2004, Grunig and Hunt 1984, Regester and Larkin 2005) but such models tend to see voice as a way of defending and defining the boundaries of a product or brand rather than as dialogically useful in the way that Hirschman is suggesting. For example, Grunig and Hunt’s (1984) fourth two-way symmetrical dialogical PR model involves an organisation listening to stakeholders and adapting to their wishes. In reality the more typical approach is Grunig and Hunt’s third ‘asymmetrical’ model of PR, in which an organisation researches the views (voices) of stakeholders in order to better understand their attitudes and thereby amend communications materials to make them more persuasive and powerful so that organisational goals are more easily met. Here listening is used to protect the product and brand as it is, rather than as an interactive two-way tool for developing and constructing the brand on an ongoing basis. Aitchison (1999) argues that in brand advertising, listening to voice is also used extensively, but once more the objective is to better understand customer attitudes, in order to make advertising communications more effective, or to test different concepts before they are produced. Hirschman (1970) is advocating a different attitude to voice; one in which voice serves as a tool for helping shape and develop, not just protect brands. There are some examples of contemporary brand practice which take this approach. The smoothie company, Innocent, for example, has developed an ethos which welcomes voice as part of its entrepreneurial development process. Customers are invited to: drop in to the headquarters (Fruit Towers); email ‘iamabitbored@innocentdrinks. co.uk’; or call the ‘bananaphone’. Financial Times journalist Sathnam Sanghera put this to the test. He phoned with a recipe idea and then dropped in to the headquarters unannounced and incognito: He was invited in straightaway, offered a smoothie and then given a guided tour by Rowena [the People’s Champion]. His article in the Financial Times concluded: It is a very simple way to get feedback: ask for it. Ask for it and mean it. Innocent get hundreds of calls on the bananaphone each week and hundreds of emails….There is a 24-hour deadline for replies and priority is given to people who have had a bad experience. (Simmons 2008:67) Simmons (2008) argues that Innocent has developed an unusual openness to product and brand development which accepts and encourages comment and then uses

The authenticity managers  149 that voice to help it improve recipes and service delivery.This could be because the Innocent organisation has a strong, and articulated, sense of the core values of its ‘brand’ – responsible, entrepreneurial, generous, commercial, natural – (Germain and Reed 2009) which are manifested in many aspects of its working processes. From the nature of these ‘values’ we can deduce that Innocent sees brand as much as a methodology as a materiality. Innocent exhibits a willingness to change brand processes on an ongoing basis. The labels on its products, for example, are changed far more frequently than typical fast moving consumer goods, indicating that the organisation welcomes mobility in the physical representation of its brand. Its halo logo, likewise, is often adapted and changed for different product groups or promotions. This willingness to accept flexibility within physical brand representation is not replicated in the vast majority of manufacturing and brand approaches – or theories - which instead work to change the attitudes of consumers, rather than the brand itself and its delivery mechanisms.The approach to branding taken by the Innocent organisation is close to Danesi’s view of brands as ‘signs that link products and users within an overarching system of meaning…’ (Danesi 2006:8), but even within Danesi’s concept of how signs are used there is a ‘fixedness’ to his system of meaning. Hirschman (1970), on the other hand, is advocating suppleness on the part of products and brands, through the interactive use of discourse. Hirschman was writing following the period of student protests in 1968 in which students in many different countries protested in support of new left wing, socialist politics. He acknowledges that this ‘age of protest’ was significant in highlighting the power of voice. It might similarly be argued that the rise in digital media technology during the 1990s was just as revolutionary in providing a new mechanism for the power of voice. Customers of Amazon and many other review sites, for example, are able to post instant online critiques, whilst blogs, internet forums and email have given us direct access to organisational decision makers. To give voice the best chance of succeeding Hirschman calls for the creation of new customer communication channels to help evolve the ‘art’ of voice. This instant and global vocal interactivity enabled by digital media would have undoubtedly met the kind of creative approach Hirschman was seeking for user-organisation communications. But whilst Hirschman would welcome its use as an early warning system for product deterioration, later brand and reputation management theorists find it problematic as it interferes with a desire to ‘control’ reputation and brand (see Regester and Larkin 2005, van Riel 1995). Control is, of course, only possible if reputation and brand are seen as something tangible, capable of being controlled, and if control and tangibility are seen as desirable. If such a notion is accepted then any kind of voice which is counter to the ‘values’ of the brand needs to be identified quickly and ‘managed’. Unlike Hirschman’s model, the focus is on managing the communications so that it does not interfere with the product or brand. Here we might reflect on how the tangibility or otherwise of a brand is manifested. Certainly it is materialised in certain physical media, such as paper and ink, but it is also embedded in the practices of the firm, for example the Apple Genius Bar which is the name for its customer service/repair desks within Apple Stores, manned by staff whose job title is ‘Genius’

150  The authenticity managers (Apple 2019a). For those organisations attempting to control the various manifestations of brands and how they are perceived, effort is often directed to identifying any instances where the brand faces critique. For example, Regester and Larkin’s ‘maxims for delivering successful [reputation] risk management’ are focused on listening in order to be able to better manage and regulate what an organisation says or does is in public so that it is received favourably (Regester and Larkin 2005:4). It uses risk systems and assessments to avoid interference with the brand entity, rather than as a mechanism for developing the brand. These types of approaches which privilege consistency are understandable in the context of attempts to engender brand loyalty. However, Hirschman (1970) positions loyalty as a special attachment to an organisation predicated on the assumption of a certain degree of influence, coupled with the trust that the organisation will act or change to ensure the maintenance of quality. Seen in this way loyalty is a rational, rather than an emotional connection which is useful to organisations in two ways: it slows down the tendency of quality-conscious customers to be the first to exit; and encourages them into an interactive dialogue instead. This rational concept of loyalty potentially provides a new way of understanding the process of brand engagement. For Hirschman there is a reciprocal connection between loyalty and a product user’s ability to influence the organisation into action, so that loyalty will limit the tendency of customers to exit and will instead encourage them to engage in discourse instead.Thus while theorists such as Danesi (2006) present loyalty as an emotional connection between user and product or brand, Hirschman is presenting us with an alternative view. Loyalty, for Hirschman is essentially rational. What we are conceiving here is a connection such as that articulated by Cross and Smith (Duncan 2005:85) who propose that the links that connect a company to a customer are consistency (uniformity of product and communications), accessibility (recourse when there is a problem), responsiveness (quick response) and commitment (putting the customers’ interests first): When questions, inquiries, and complaints are quickly and thoroughly handled, customers not only are more satisfied but feel the company really cares about and appreciates their business. Responsiveness can overcome negative feelings a customer may have about a brand. For example, when a company responds immediately to customer complaints, the quick response itself has motivated customers to give the brand another chance (Duncan 2005). This is exactly the type of approach taken by UK retail group the John Lewis Partnership which forges strong relationships with its consumers based on responsiveness and excellence in delivery, rather than relying solely on the brand building through emotive communications proposed by theorists such as Simmons (2006). John Lewis has used its ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ strapline since 1925, promoting a commitment to excellent service, as well as competitively-priced, value-for-money products. For example, the customer service section on the John Lewis website presents the user with 76 customer service topics, ranging from Buying Guides to Secure Shopping and Community Matters (John Lewis 2019). The organisation

The authenticity managers  151 positions its staff as knowledgeable on products and responsive to customers, treating them as individuals whose feedback is valued, with opportunities to engage in conversations via the phone, email or an online chat (John Lewis 2019). What differentiates the John Lewis partnership from its contemporaries is the accessibility to its customer service team and its commitment to listen and change if it hears several similar views on an issue. The UK Customer Satisfaction Index for January 2019, a survey of 26,000 UK adults, puts John Lewis the second rated organisation for customer service (Institute of Customer Service 2019), a position it has held for over a decade. It could be argued that what is happening here is willingness on the part of the John Lewis Partnership to accept and respond to a trial of strength related to its brand. The openness of the organisation to a conversation which explores how the brand could effectively improve creates a test which might strengthen the brand, leading to customer loyalty, as opposed to a trial of strength which might ultimately undermine the legitimacy of the brand itself and lead to exit. What we see at work here is a manifestation of the riparian brand concept in action.

Authentic brand narratives Understanding what constitutes an authentic brand narrative, which encourages brand loyalty, is clearly challenging. The previous chapter presented an ontology of the constituents of authentic riparian brands, and sitting as a connecting point around the brand behaviours within the ontology is an additional dimension that has been labelled ‘authentic brand narratives’. This dimension evolved from an exploration of the relationship between authentic brands and their narratives or specifically, their justificatory brand discourses. The argument for including this within the authentic brand wheel develops principles established by those brand theorists who focus on communications as a key aspect of effective branding, such as Simmons (2008) and Duncan (2005) who talk of the importance of compelling brand narratives, and the way in which good brand articulation helps provide emotive connections to brands (Simmons 2008), or Olins (1995) who includes communications as one of the four manifestations of brands. The impact of brand narratives is also acknowledged by practitioners:‘people are more aware of branding and being spoken to by brands. Brands are publishers these days. They are part of the media mix’ (Interview 6).This point is made particularly clearly in interview 10: It has to do what it says it does and it has to do it in an honest and truthful way. For something to be authentic it has to have sense of reality and be meaningful to stakeholders interacting with the brand. If the brand lies, it betrays key audiences and authenticity is eroded as those audiences lose trust in the brand. If they lose trust, they lose affection and connection and move to other brands (probably the nearest competitor. So the key aspect of a brand which defines it as authentic is personality. Edwards argues that identities evolve in a social context and that ‘perceptions of authenticity rapidly crumble if claims of being authentic do not reflect these

152  The authenticity managers changes’ (2016:193). Authenticity, or authentic narratives, cannot therefore be a badge. The brand practitioners interviewed for this book highlighted the need, not only for consistency of communications, but also for believability of communications. Believable communications, it emerges, tend to be those that refer to brand promises that can be fulfilled, but also to other aspects of messaging and dialogue that make sense for the brand. The narrative provides the fixed nature of branding, the ‘limited possibility’ and ‘managed flexibility’ (Lury 2004:151) against and with which stakeholders co-create their own meanings for the brand which mean something to them personally (and authentically).The interviewed practitioners articulate this well: Authentic brands ‘are what they say they are. They are real people dealing with real situations. That’s authentic. They are trying to position themselves in a real way, cutting through the jargon, using authentic language’ (Interview 5). They talk about the fact that ‘people believe in honest brands’ and suggest that brands must ‘tell genuine stories that resonate with your audience’ (Interview 12); ‘In a world which is more fragmented, fast, responsive, simplicity is compelling. A clear brand story with a strong narrative at its heart’ (Interview 14). In the previous chapter, Howies was cited as a good example of an authentic brand, with CSR and customer atunement embedded. If we use Simmons’ Language Triangle (Simmons 2006) then we can begin to understand how narratives from brands like Howies can be so effective, and might therefore be perceived as authentic. The organisation uses ‘plain words’ to build trust: ‘We are Howies, a small active clothing company based in West Wales’. It then explains more about ‘who the organisation is’, giving it a personal quality to build respect and liking: ‘We believe in a thing called quality. We believe that making a product which lasts longer is better for the environment’. And exemplifying the top of Simmons’ Language Triangle, the organisation uses engaging personal stories to exemplify the way it behaves, thus we are introduced to: ‘Ade. Head of lots of things. The Ginger Ninja. Known for his swanee whistle skills, devilishly fast cycling legs and acclaimed victory in the 2013 Father’s Egg and Spoon sportsday race’ (Howies 2019). Good brand narratives, tell stories, use simple, engaging and personal language and link to the core values of the organisation, thus creating a connection between intrinsic (products and their values) and extrinsic brand qualities (promotional messages, packaging, etc.) (Fill 2005)

A postmodern role for public relations in authentic branding? So the authentic brand wheel has four components: an inner core of brand values and vision; an outer core of brand behaviours (integrity, CSR, brand promise delivery); an outer circle of interactivity (atunement, customer power, and real-time interaction); and a connecting dimension of authentic brand narratives. An additional question that this book has sought to consider, is how, practically, are these elements of the authentic brand wheel managed and what might be the role for public relations in this practice? The chapter on the history of public relations and branding documented how the public relations function often sits within marketing departments. The research analysis suggests that in brand-orientated organisations these functions are strongly connected. This, according to the practitioners

The authenticity managers  153 is because brand promises have to be delivered: ‘It’s about going beyond communications. Communications now needs to be a part of every aspect of a business. Take customer service. If I’m going to complain about my airline ticket, I take to Twitter’ (Interview 15). In the BBC the protection and promotion of the brand sits under the Director of Marketing and Audiences (BBC 2016) who reports to the Deputy Director General, whilst public relations sits under the Communication Director who reports into the Director of Strategy and Digital. Here we see a disconnect between the disciplines, and also a distance of the multi-disciplinary functions dealing with brand communications from the main board. This apparent functional gap between marketing communications and stakeholder engagement may help to explain why there is such a gap between the BBC’s own projected justificatory messages and those brand values identified as important within reported media coverage. At Apple the Vice President Communications, the Vice President Marketing Communications and the Vice President of Worldwide Marketing all report into the CEO. It was noted previously that the organisation runs board-level weekly meetings to discuss brand messaging strategy (Isaacson 2011) and has a highly pro-active approach to media relations, facilitating interviews for board level personnel and issuing a press release nearly every week (Apple 2015), all of which suggests that the Apple structures facilitate a highly brand-orientated organisation (Harrison-Walker 2014). In both Apple, and the BBC, the public relations function (labelled communications in both cases) is separate from other marketing activities, so how might this connect public relations with overall brand representation? In addition, the interviews with brand practitioners reveal that those working in public relations see themselves intrinsically connected to protecting and projecting reputation. Waeraas (2007) drew on Weber to argue that as organisational legitimisation involves the process of gaining support for a particular ‘myth’ or set of beliefs, which justifies the organisation’s operations, then public relations is well placed to articulate brand stories and negotiate mutual understanding as this has a clear parallel to many public relations activities. Alongside external communication with stakeholders, public relations practitioners are often also responsible for internal communications activity which aims to create a sense of employee community, ensures values are understood, and empowers employees to engage with stakeholders, thus satisfying high demand for good customer satisfaction (Mikacova and Gavlakova 2014). Public relations practitioners would be well placed to take on responsibility for encouraging a public relations ‘mind-set’, which facilitates a wide range of trained functional employees to act as the corporate mouthpiece to provide the expertise and authenticity required in the context of instantaneous digital communications and ‘clictivism’ (online activism) (Yaxley 2013). They could play an important role in ensuring that attractive characteristics are promoted to facilitate legitimacy based on affectionate (charismatic) devotion (Waeraas 2007). This point was picked up by the practitioners who saw their role as helping to facilitate the use of authentic language and stories. Red Bull is given as one example of a brand that is themed in a dynamic charismatic way around a strong sense of an energetic brand personality which is communicated via dynamic interactive content and experiential

154  The authenticity managers engagement (Interview 13).A further responsibility for public relations practitioners could be the role of ‘brand police’, ensuring the consistency of brand presentation which is highly prized by the practitioners as a key component of authenticity: Heinz, Camelot – incredibly consistent with messaging, Peter’s Pies – Very consistent, Monster. In all these cases everything we want to do with the organisation goes through so many checks. We don’t dare to use the logo wrongly. These brands religiously stick to brand guidelines. The best brands are the most protected and the most policed (Interview 3). Molleda (2010) was clear that the role for public relations practitioner should be the ethical guardian who keeps the organisation true to itself, ensures core values are embedded and champions openness and honesty in communications. Could one therefore argue that a technical role for the public relations professionals could be articulated as the Authenticity Manager, responsible for policing a match between intrinsic brand behaviour and external brand promise? As interviewee 11 suggests, this is a questioning role: ‘Does it deliver what it promises/suggests it will deliver? Is it honest (avoid ‘greenwash’)? Is it effective? Does it make the world a better place?’ There is clearly a potential benefit in such a role that might help ensure consistency of action and voice for brands, but would it really ‘make the world a better place’? Merkelssen (2011) highlighted the fundamental dichotomous challenge facing practitioners who must present the legitimate claims of the client whilst facilitating engagement with the legitimate (and potentially contrary) claims of stakeholders. Practitioners might therefore be better positioned as boundaryspanners, instigating genuine dialogical interaction, rather than being advocates and may be better placed to do this than customer-focused marketing professionals. This is a level of organisational distance and personal responsibility that ‘requires an activist stance in communications practice’ (Holtzhausen 2015:774), in which practitioners would be emboldened sufficiently to resist oppressive power and give voice to marginalised and unrepresented stakeholders (Benecke and Oksiutycz 2015). This might be achieved in practice by maximising the opportunities provided by digital media and creating opportunities for multiple stakeholders to engage in multi-way, participatory brand discussion and content co-creation. This would involve genuine two-way communications which is a dynamic and interactive flow between consumers, stakeholders, the product, the organisation and the brand. Because they are used to the interrelationship of promotional forms, public relations practitioners have the skill set to enable the creation of such dynamic stories, narratives and experiences. By articulating elements of a brand wheel, that might be used to inform the construction of authenticity in brands, this book has arguably followed a utilitarian approach which supports organisational goals rather than a genuine consideration of the social context within which organisations operate (Edwards 2016).This view accepts the inherent persuasive nature of public relations which predominantly works in pursuit of a positive outcome for a particular sponsor (Morris and Goldsworthy 2012). Edwards identified two uses of brand authenticity by commercial organisations:

The authenticity managers  155 1) the use of specific association with authenticity as a cultural term; and 2) the use of authenticity as a criterion for membership of a particular field (Edwards 2016). However, a third use could be the use of the authentic brand wheel as a means by which an organisation might understand and reflexively challenge its role in society by understanding its multiple identities and the fluidity of its environment, as well as internal and external perceptions of authenticity. Understood this way, the authentic brand wheel can be used as a tool to respond to Holtzhausen’s (2002) call for research to provide frameworks for the deconstruction of management language and the development of affirmative public relations techniques which take a more postmodern stance. This might help facilitate the ‘activist’ role of the postmodern public relations practitioner in guiding brand communications towards more socialjustificatory outcomes (Fleming and Jones 2013). The truly riparian brand should offer ways for a variety of brand stakeholders to engage directly with organisations, rather than through public policy efforts, to challenge brand inauthenticity and direct brands towards actions which support the public good. Holtzhausen highlights the use of language to maintain and shape power relations and suggests that a postmodern approach could be critically reflexive of the role of public relations in constructing perceptions of trust and conversely devaluing unwanted terms and positions to promote organisational ideology (2002). The authentic brand wheel might therefore be used as a basis for deconstructing the narratives of powerful government or commercial brands to reveal their function as supporting, for example, powerful government ideologies, or dominant capitalist paradigms. By revealing the nature of powerful brand communications, presented as authentic, the framework might be used as part of a critique of current democratic and economic systems, as well as promotional culture processes. To apply this to the current study one might critique Apple’s, Facebook’s or Google’s positivist approach to technological innovation, which embed continued consumerism within ideologies, or the BBC’s legitimisation via a liberal pluralist news and civic duty agenda which disguises an increasingly market-orientated and pro-commercial approach encouraged by successive centre-to-right governments. Pieczka (2017) highlights how notions of dialogue in relation to public relations have their origins in Excellence Theory and symmetry which focuses on communication as consensus, negotiation and trade. Cooperation in this context is premised on recognising that organisational actions must be mindful of the interests of others, but at its core organisational communications is essentially persuasive and dialogue privileges consensus rather than tackling underlying social issues (2017:83). The kind of ‘action research’ that Pieczka advocates might for example be the use of the brand wheel to support the development of the branding of new ideological movements to help transform our understandings of society and seek new ways forward. The riparian authentic brand model might also be used formatively to encourage the use of powerful authentic counter-voices to the current ideological paradigms, taking commercial uses of branding more thoroughly into the not-for profit and activist sectors to present alternative socio-economic approaches. Thus the powerful sign-making strategies used by business and government might be counter-acted before their influence is difficult to counter-voice (Mickey 1997).

156  The authenticity managers It may prove a useful research tool for adding to a body of research considering historic and contemporary activist public relations (called for by Watson 2010, L’Etang 2016 and Ciszek 2015), using the framework to consider whether such organisations have taken an authentic brand approach (and thereafter developing further formative postmodern public relations practice recommendations). The irony of including corporate social responsibility within the authentic brand wheel framework is noted in relation to Fleming and Jones’ (2013) contention that CSR itself is a hegemonic meta-narrative that supports a capitalist and consumerist ideology. Nevertheless it is argued that the riparian brand takes its transformational CSR objectives seriously (making a positive impact on the world) (Gilmore and Pine 2007). It has the potential to encourage organisations to re-orient themselves towards ‘more justice-sensitive outcomes’ (Fleming and Jones 2013:102) and potentially opens up the opportunity for a more open critical debate with a variety of influential stakeholder groups. By participating in a ‘discourse of sociality’ with a wider range of stakeholders (2013:102), powerful brands might be empowered to extend their influence and contribute to a more enlightened socio-economic public sphere debate. Whilst this book focuses on organisational brands, and thus follows existing functional and systems research approaches, it is proposed that the riparian brand leads to a socio-contingent re-imagining of branding which is more sociological and relativist than organisational in nature. It is hoped that this may open up opportunities for a more critical review and realisation of branding and its role in society. Picking up on L’Etang’s idea of public relations as ‘change agent’ (2016:31), I argue that brand authenticity could, if used in a truly post-modern way, embrace dissensus and instead rely on moments of conflict as essential to brand development. Rather than manufacturing consent or mutual understanding, riparian brands could respond positively to activism and thus become part of a multi-actor approach to a consensual development of cultural and societal change.

Conclusion This book has sought to consider what types of justificatory narratives are being used by modern media organisations, as well as the different elements that constitute authentic brands. The research approach, in analysing media coverage, corporately produced brand messages, and interviews with senior PR and branding practitioners, has focused specifically on the production of narratives and the activities of brand and reputation managers, rather than consumer perceptions. This has led to a proposed ontology of authentic brand characteristics which have been mapped against an authentic brand wheel. Authentic brands display these characteristics, and their difference from other less authentic brands might be described in summary as being riparian in nature, a concept which involves an ability to atune to the prevailing environment, whilst staying true to strong core values. Authentic riparian brands are very good at developing believable brand narratives and they respond quickly to customer complaints and ideas. Further research could incorporate the views of brand users, and this could be achieved relatively easily by analysing moments of brand user interaction such as

The authenticity managers  157 blogs and tweets to test the riparian process. One might also consider an analysis of user group discussions or even interviews with a variety of brand users categorised perhaps on a continuum from cult follower to occasional user. This might be a useful way to test the veracity of the proposed authentic brand wheel ontology and the notion of the riparian brand. It is also important to acknowledge that this book has taken a largely uncritical approach to the notion of authentic brands and public relations reputation management activities. A strong genre of academic critique on the impact of branding practices on culture, hegemonic corporate social responsibility practices, as well as the impact of media relations activities on the news media agenda, have been alluded to, but these areas of critique have not been a specific focus of this book. A more critical approach to understanding the power and impact of strong authentic brands on culture and society would be a fruitful area for further research, particularly as much work on public relations and reputational management seems to remain largely iterative and uncritical. The authentic brand wheel might be used as a tool to explore the hegemonic impact of a variety of strong commercial, political or cultural brands. This would contribute to our understanding of the organisational-user relationship in legitimising, constructing and maintaining brand authenticity, as well as the role that public relations plays within that process. Such research might be used in a normative way to inform practice, but much more importantly, might also be used to challenge and deconstruct legitimisation strategies and to propose a more postmodern orientation for branding and public relations activity. It is important to have a deeper understanding of when things go right in public relations to know how it can be replicated to the advantage of both organisations and society as a whole (Demetrious 2013:5). The key contribution in conclusion is a furthering of existing ideas on the importance of genuine interactivity in social media communications management, developed into 15 Real-Time Interaction Success Factors and exemplified in the ontology of the riparian brand – the Authentic Brand Wheel. This book has also conceived a dynamic riparian notion of brands, based on solid core values, but with an ability to atune and adjust to the prevailing social, cultural and economic environment and as a result an ontology of brands has been presented in the form of an authentic brand wheel. It has been emphasised that the wheel is conceived as dynamic, providing a set of relations, or interconnecting qualities of brand authenticity. Finally it has been acknowledged that public relations practitioners could be well placed, as part of a multi-disciplinary team, to facilitate riparian brands, because of the inherent acceptance of the value of relationship building, two-way communications and boundary spanning embedded in PR practice and best practice theory: ‘It’s a field that was the reserve of brand agencies, but has now become a part of PR because PR is guarding reputation and telling the story of the brand.We are the two-way communication people’ (Interview 6: Head of Public Relations; Major UK Advertising Agency). It is hoped, in particular, that in developing a better understanding of how CSR connects with current justificatory practices, accepted as authentic through an interactive contingent process, that the knowledge might be used to steer brands and branding practice towards the direction of justicesensitive outcomes.

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Index

AA Emergency Service 58 Aaker, D. A.: brand equity 62 Abimbola, T.: study of brands lagged behind industry 3 Abratt, R.: brand, important to consumers 1 active brand citizen 63–6; citizen marketer 63; ‘Dell Hell’ story 63; McConnell and Huba 65 activist communications 29 activist frame 27–30 Aitchison, J.: brand advertising, issues 148; brand marketing activity and advertising ideas 58; organisation and listening to voice 148; organisational co-ordination to brands 68 Aksak, E. O.: argument on support organisational legitimisation 51–2; companies and moral obligation to society 6; CSR activities and stakeholder scepticism 79 alcohol brand producer 56 Alistair Campbell in August 2003 32 American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) 28 American Temperance Society, The 28 American Way campaign 21 Anatolia Agency 25 Anderson, C.: cultural landscape and modern users of digital media 43; supporter of long tail approach to marketing 66 Anglo-German relations 20 Annan Committee of 1997 90 Anti-Saloon League of America (1895-1910) 28 anti-Semitism 25 Apple Inc 1, 93–100; brand positioning 94; closed to partnerships 99; consistency of messaging 100; development and launch 97; distinctive

products 95; evangelists 95; excitement, amazing and exalted mission 99–100; foci of economic success 99; further focus 94; global press media coverage 99; iPod launch 98; legitimisation message 95; Mac web 94; multimedia company 93; PowerBook 97–8; powerful market research tool 94; products 98; simplicity 95; sued 96–7; working practices 95–6 Arthur W. Page Society Authentic Enterprise report 11 Arvidsson, A. 44, 59, 69, 78, 86–7 Association of Measurement and Evaluation in Communications (AMEC) 121 astro-turfing 38 Atakan-Duman S. 51–2; key roles of PR practitioners 51–2 attitudes 12; brand centred 55; consumer brand 12; organisational reputation 50; positive 58; towards brand 64 atunement: adaptive resilience 122; reputation management practices 122–3 Australian Minister to the Soviet Union 25 authencity index 11 authentic brands 12–13, 68; Authenticity Manager 154; BBC, reports 153; CSR 156; in digital age 89–106; finding 66–8; meaning 66; messaging strategy 153; narrative 151–2; original principles 67; postmodern role for PR 152–6; wheel ontology of riparian brand 139–43, 141 authentic brand wheel: components 152; ideologies for 155 Authentic Enterprise,The report 10, 11 authenticity manager 154 Avidar, R.: views abou traditional practices 38 Avlonitis, G. J.: development of IBO concept 38

176 Index Bachmann, P.: disclosure of CSR activities 78–9 Baines, P. 32, 67, 73; academic agreement 73; challenging industrial environment for BT 67; consensus between an organisation and its publics 4; organisations and listening to voice 148; public relations text books 18; Sir Bernard and behind-the-scenes perspective 32; Sir Stephen Tallents and EMB 23 Baines, P. R.: identification of long-term marketing trends 2 Basil Clarke 21 Basset, C.: narrative arc 60; notion of the narrative arc 60 BBC logo 57 Beat Rugby: Adidas’s sponsorship 40 Beatty, S.E.: development of ‘cue-based trust’ notion 49 Bendixen, M.: brand, important to consumers 1 Benecke, D. R.: Holtzhausen’s public relations activist concept 34; postmodern turn 35 Bentele, G. 18–19, 81; empiricist and positivist tradition 2; need to confront empiricist and positivist tradition outlined 18; phases of public relations development 18–19; 19th century capitalists 81 Bernays, E. L.: cites the growing complexity of society 76; emphasised the power of symbols and images 21; inked the products 21; publishing 20; sound psychology propaganda 20; used advice 21 Bernays’ Torches of Freedom campaign 20 Berry, D. M.: identified two strands of theoretical development 62; real-time streams 61–2; riparian concept 40 Best Practice Guidelines for Environmental Sustainability Communications 8 Beverland, M. 42, 66–9; brand authenticity specific notion of 10 Bilgihan, A. 49–50 Bird-Pollan, S. 77 blogs.technet.com 66 Body Shop 85 Boeteng, S. L.: online communications 52 Boltanski, L.: judgement arguments 13; legitimisation and justification 73–6; networked organisation and trust 47–8; notion of network 62; organisational management changes 47; projective

city 46; reputation 84–6; study of management literature 48 Bonet, E. 44 Boorstin, D. J. 31–2, 37; contrast to 37; relationship between PR and media 31–2 Bouffard, J.: making processes 42; setting communications objectives 39 Bourne, C. D.: array of public relations activities 79; CSR and hegemonic processes 81 #boycottUnited Airlines 119 Boyd, B.: effective use of the right media 79 Boyd, D.: researched consumer brand attitudes 12 BP and Deepwater Horizon disaster: crisis management in digital age 114–18 Bradley, B.: War of the Woods 29 brand authenticity 10–14, 130–6; corporate social responsibility (CSR) 132; Edwards, L., views 154–5; managers 144–57; object 130; postmodern role for PR 152–6; practitioner analysis 131; self 130; transformational 134 brand communications: history and practice 82–3 brand equity 3, 62, 141 branding 68; communications history and practice 82–3; corporate reputation 6–10; emotional aspects 58; experiential activities 59; Guinness 60–1; key roles of PR practitioners 51–2; name 58; reputation 6; research approaches public relations 1–4; society 86–8; symbolism 57; traditional aspects 51; traditional perspectives 57; worlds 144–51 brand: legitimisation 49 brand management 3, 44, 55, 71, 125–6, 147 brand slogan: createurs de convivialite 56 brand wheel: articulating elements of 154; authentic 139–43 Breakenridge, D.: public relations working in 5 Brennan, R.: long-term marketing trends 2 Brent Spar Oil Rig 36 bringing-forth 61 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 89–91, 89–93; academic critic 92; Annan Committee 90; highlights 91; integrity and honesty 90; key task 90; media coverage 91–2; Peacock Committee 90; Pilkington Committee 90; relationship with the British Government 89–90; reputation challenges 93; study of annual reports 90

Index  177 British Documentary Film Movement 23 British Gas 24, 84 British Intelligence Services 32 British Petroleum 24, 66, 81 British Telecom 24, 67, 84 British Transport Films 23 Brody, N.: new challenges for organisations 11 Brotherhood of St Laurence 25 Brown, R. E.: idea of ‘culture’ for a brand 74 Burmann, C. 3, 10, 12; and corporate image construction 12; social contingency 12 Burns, A. 43, 48; identified trends in co-created content 43 Buzzmachine.com blog 63 California Raisin Advisory Board, The 32 campaigning organisations 27 Carroll, A. B.: four basic categories of CSR 78; proposes a hierarchy 133–4 Carroll, W. K.: documented conscious and sophisticated media strategy 29 Cervellon, M.: highlighting employee achievements 56 Channel 9 66; collection of video clips 66 Charest, F.: decision-making processes 42–3; web-based reputation 39 Charter of Corporate Behaviour in 1991 26 Chartered Institute of Marketing 121 Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) 4, 121 Chatzipanagiotou, K. 42, 59 Chen,Y.R.: sustainability 79 Chiang, H.: complex decision-making process 50–1 Chiapello, E.: judgement, arguments 13; legitimisation and justification 73–6; networked organisation and trust 47–8; notion of network 62; organisational management changes 47; projective city 46; reputation 84–6; study of management literature 48 Childers, C.Y.: create positive attitudes 58 China Central Television 111 Christodoulides, G. 42, 59 Ciszek, E. L. 17–18; cultural- economic framework 18; likewise calls for orientation 17 Citizen marketer 63; McConnell and Huba 65 Clayton, J.: War of the Woods 29 Coalition for Health Insurance Choices 32

co-creation 42–5 Code of Athens 7 Code of Conduct 75 Code of Professional Conduct 23 Committee on Costs of Medical Care (CCMC) 28 Committee on Publicity Methods in 1920 28 communications 45, 47; brand constructed 50; brand, history and practice 82–3; brand-user 44; corporate and brand marketing 34; corporate digital 40; crisis management 108; CSR 78–80; dialogical 40; digital 35, 76; digitally-enabled brand 44; direct 51; early corporate 18; hegemonic-inspired government 34; individual employees 112; material 29; old technique 53; online 52; organisational 38; outside experts 50; personalised 52; post-crisis 108; postindustrial 18; role 33; social activism 34; stakeholder 50; strategic roles 39; targeted 51; team 30; tele 67; two-way 42, 51, 53, 105; web-enabled 38; word-of-worth 44 consumers: digital world 59; empowerment 43 contemporary authenticity 130 content production 40 conversation: economy 76; marketing 65 Coombs, W. T.: crisis situation theory 108–9, 114; developed the Situational Crisis Communications Theory (SCCT) 108 Co-operative Group 75–6 Cornelissen, J.: arguments 9; corporate communication 9; definition 9 corporate image 59 corporate reputation 6–10 corporate social responsibility (CSR) 33, 78–81, 132; discourse of sociality 156; hegemonic meta-narrative 156 Council for Tobacco Research, The 32 Council of Retail Distributors 24 Cova, B.: host 69 Createurs de convivialite, brand slogan 56 crisis communication management 109 crisis management in digital age 107–20; BP and Deepwater Horizon disaster 114–18; challenges via social media 107; changing perception sects 108; communications aspects 108; Coombs’ crisis situation theory 108–9; Coombs developed the Situational Crisis Communications Theory (SCCT) 108; Deny strategies 109; dialogical content

178 Index 112; digital evolution 107; Diminish response strategies 109; disparaging commentary and imagery 107–8; Greenpeace, Facebook and United Airlines 118–20; managers’ strategies 109; monitoring emerging influential gatekeepers 114; negative social media coverage 111; Pope Benedict XVI 110; post-crisis communications 108; publics 109–10; rebuild strategies 109; SCC 111; SCCT 108; SMCC 109; Social Media Inactives 109; user-centred nature of social media 107 crisis managers 109 Crystallizing Public Opinion 20 Curtis, A.: mass-produced goods to hidden selfish desires 20–1 Customer Co-Creation Value scale 65 da Silva, R.V: branding principles 82; theory of brand equity 3 Danesi, M.: affirming attitudinal views of brands 58; conceiving the fixedness of brands 62; culture for brand 74; successful brands 67 Das, G.: website and wider web 51 Davcik, N. S. 82; branding principles 82; theory of brand equity 3 Davis, A: ad-hoc and self-serving profession 22; first MA in PR 23; justificatory discourses 77; new media technologies 27; promotional practices 86; stakeholder 87; two press officers per union 30; widening access to media agendas 36 De Moya, M.: official tourist destination Facebook pages 40 Deepwater Horizon 114–15 Deleuze and Guattari’s: deas 71; final principle of 70; ideas 71 Dell Hell story 63 Demetrious, K.: concept of PR 27 Devin, B.: omission of key information 79 Dhanesh, G. S. 33–4; notion of organisational activist 33–4 dialogical content 112 digital age: authentic brand 89–106; crisis management 107–20; successful branding 1 digital communications 76; portals 51 digital evolution 107 digital media brands: Apple Inc 93–100; BBC 89–93; Facebook 101–4; Google 104–6; public relations (PR) 89–106 digital organisational forms: public relations 46–56

digital public relations 44 digital turn 1; public relations (PR) 35 digital world: consumers 59 digital-based media 36 digitally-enabled brand communications 44 diminish response strategies 109 Dinan,W.: active democracy 24; corporate histories 21; Council of Retail Distributors and the Institute of Directors 24; justificatory discourses 77; public image and symbolism 67; Un-American Activities Commission 20; use of persuasive and propaganda techniques 31–2 Doorley, J.: identity 8; management of reputation 9 Dowling, G. R. 9; corporate reputation 9 Dozier, D. M.: excellence project 17 Duman, S. A: CSR encompasses 6; roles of PR practitioners 51–2 Duncan, T.: considering characteristics 57; successful brands 67; use of language 58 Duncombe, S. 36; power of digital media 36 Earl, S.: brand and its operations 55; notion of loss of control 44; Reputation Content Plan 45 Editorial Services agency, The 21 Edwards, L.: argument 11; brand authenticity views 154–5; public relations and communications 3; recommendation to public relations 4 effective crisis management: social media 112 Egan, J.: academic agreement 73; challenging industrial environment for BT 67; consensus between an organisation and its publics 4; organisations and listening to voice 148; public relations text books 18; Sir Bernard and behind-the-scenes perspective 32; Sir Stephen Tallents and EMB 23 Electoral or Political Ads 101 e-loyalty 50 emotional brand attachment 12 Empire Marketing Board (EMB) 23 enmediation 63 Erdem, T.: flip traditional branding paradigm 59 Eriksson, M.: pre-crisis work in social media 112 Ethical Trade Team 75 Evangelists 95

Index  179 Ewen, S.: created social welfare structures 78; justificatory discourses 77; power of symbols and images 21; Progressive Publicists 20 excellence approach 17 experience: projective organisation 50 Exxon Valdez oil tanker ran: case study 6 Facebook 101–4, 118–20; Civil Rights Audit 101; core brand narrative 103; Electoral or Political Ads 101; key strategic narratives 102; Oversight Board for Content Decisions 101; positioning as everyone’s friend 102; social media 100; Social Media and Conflict 101; social networking platform 101; social networking sites (SNS) 102; tool 103–4; Transparency Tools for Social Issues 101 favourable reputations: Cornelissen’s views 9 Ferguson, M. A. 6, 51, 79 Fifteen Real-Time Interaction Success Factors 129 Fill, C.: brand qualities 140; brands 68; core of successful brands 131; corporate reputation 59; cues or signals transmitted 8; intrinsic and extrinsic brand qualities 152; needs of consumers 57; new digital media environment 58; potential value of good reputation 9; traditional marketing and brand theory 146; variety of different techniques 67 Financial Services Act of 1986 24 First Reform Era in US 27 Fitch, K.: arguments 25 Fixed Vision and Values 125 Fleming, P.: CSR, capitalist and consumerist ideology 156 Fombrun, C. J.: study of global organisations 9 Forbes ranking 1 Foucault, M: links between knowledge and power 33 Fourth Emergency Service in 1992 58 Foxx, W.: development of ‘cue-based trust’ notion 49 frame: activist 27–30; positivist-professional 22–4; sociological 24–7 Galloway, A. R.: apophatic approach 6; observations 71 Galloway, C. J.: concept of interface 71; professional credentials 6; riparian brand 137 Garcia, H. F.: identity 8; intrinsic identity and positioning 9

Gavlakova, P.: dialogical relationship building 82–3 General Directorate of Press and Information 25 General Headquarters of the Allied Occupation Army (GHQ) 26 Giddens, A.: high-modernity 60 Gill, M.: long-term marketing trends 2 Gillan, P.: cultural shift for businesses 64; Microsoft’s openness 66; new highly engaged online consumers 65 Gilmore, J. H.: authenticity 8 Gilpin, D. R.: new challenges for organisations 11 Girardin, F.: concept of brand authenticity 4, 10, 13, 130 GitLab 113 Global Alliance, The 7 Goldsworthy, S.: redefine public relations in 5 Google 35, 104–6; approach to reputational challenges 105; branding moment 104; content approach 105; founded 104; image and reputation 104; organising and managing communications consistency 106; public relations management 106; recognition 104 Gordon, A. E. 4, 84 Grappi, S.: co-creation of brands and negotiation 57; Customer Co-Creation Value scale 65 Greek National Tourism Organization 26 Greenpeace 118–20 Greenpeace Chronicle publication 29 green-washing 66 Gregory, A. 9, 22, 83–4 Grohmann, B.: concept of brand authenticity 4, 10, 13, 130 Gromark, J.: brand orientation theory 59; brand wheel 59 Groucutt, J.: American settlers to identify cattle 82; core of a brand 57; core of brand 57; different techniques 67 Grunig J. E.: four models 16 Grunig L. A.: four models of PR 36–7; Western focus 16 Guardian 63 Guevremont, A.: concept of brand authenticity 4, 10, 13 Guinness brand 60–1 Habermas, J.: notion of public sphere 14, 59; The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere 77

180 Index Haig, M.: group profits for Ratner organisation 84; idea of ‘culture’ for brand 74 Halifax Building Society 21 Halliday, S.V.: branding and marketing 42 Hardt, M. 35; rhizomatic form of communication 35 Harrison-Walker, J. L. 83 Harter, J.: history of Greenpeace activity 29–30 Hatch, M. J.: brand marketing materials 42; brand-related phenomena, arguments 13; emotional aspects of branding 58 Hellenic Public Relations Association (HPRA) in 1960 26 Hinson, M. D.: internet-based PR campaigns 35; social media communications techniques 38 Hirschman, A. O.: brand managers, echoing 64; brand relationships 35 Hoffman, B.: flowering of social movements 28 Hoffman, D. L.: Steuer’s Communications Technology model 39–40 Holladay, S. J.: predominantly big business and government 31; roots of US public relations history 18, 28 Holloway, S.: production of authenticity 13; real and fake offerings 10 Holt, D. B.: destructive consumer culture 86; own culture 87; real and authentic 68 Holtzhausen, D. R.: postmodern approach 3, 34, 155; postmodernism 34; two-fold approach 33 Hou,Y.: branded tweets 43 Hoyer, W.D.: origin in relation to authenticity 12 Hsu, C.: blogging 50; recommendations in brand communications 51; uncertainty and risk taking 50 Huang, C.Y.: direct communication 38 Huang, M.-H. 50; concept identified ‘flow’ 50 Huang, Q.: digital and social media, positive response from PR industry 38 Huba, J.: focus on social media commentators 63–4 human communication 19, 42 Hung-Baesecke, C. F.: sustainability 79 Hunt, T.: four models emerged as frame for public relations history 16 Hydro-electric generation dam 29 Iglesias, O: employees to act as brand ambassadors 44

Ihlen, O.: systematic review on power of social media 112 Ikari, S.: public relations antecedents, identification of 25 information process: stakeholders 114 Ingenhoff, D.: CSR activities, disclosure of 78–9 Ingham, Bernard, Sir 32; carefully managed profile 32 Institute of Directors 24 Institute of Public Relations (IPR) 22 Internal Brand Orientation (IBO) 54 internal social media strategy: effective implementation 54 International Association of Business Communicators in America 31 international public relations 26 International Public Relations Association (IPRA) 7–8 interpersonal skills 19, 42 iPod launch 98 Jain, R. 40 Japan Federation of Economic Organizations 26 Jefkins, F. 4, 18, 23, 32, 67, 73 Jin,Y.: Coombs’ SCCT theory 109; crisis communication management 109 jobs, S.: symbol for brand representing 97 Johnston, J.: contemporary PR practice 87 Joint Intelligence Committee 32 Jones, M. T.: CSR, capitalist and consumerist ideology 156 Journal of Public Relations Research 2 Journal, Public Relations 31 Kanebo no Kiteki 26 Kelleher, T.: Twitter survey of US PR 39 Keller, K. L.: authentic athletic performance 7; functional foci emerging 3 Kemp, E.: brand association creates positive attitudes 58 Kenmochi, T.: public relations antecedents, identification of 25 Kent, M.: proposal on use of social media 80 Kitchen, P. J.: common themes for public relations research 2 knowledge discovery process 52 Koichi,Y.: public relations antecedents, identification of 25 Korzynski, P.: internal media platforms 54 Kotler, P.: reinvention of marketing 76 Krohmer, H. 12; origin in relation to authenticity 12

Index  181 Krupp 21; first formal commercial press 21; mainland Europe steel 25 Kuksov, D. 59; shaping of view of brand 59 Labour Government: public ownership proposals 24 Lamme, M. O. 19, 22, 42; important antecedents of modern PR 42; inclusion of human communication 19; overly simplistic periodisation and evolutionary view 22 Larkin, J.: control reputation and brand 149; costing estimation 6; failure of petrochemical giant Shell 29; financial consequences for company 74; listening to voice 148; negative shareholder resolutions 108 Latour, B: being mobile but 57 Lee, M.: evidence of PR-like activity 28; misleading information 23 Lee, N.: costs of more junior employees 39 legitimisation and justification 73–8; Boltanski and Thevenot argument 73–4; Code of Conduct 75; Co-operative Group 75–6; Ethical Trade Team 75; public relations 77 Lehmann, D. R.: functional foci, emergence from brand studies 3 L’Etang, J.: academic agreement 73; positive changes to disadvantaged lives 8; positivist perspective of PR 17; relations in UK 22–4, 28; reputation 8; structuralfunctionalism approach 19–20; UK public relations industry 2 Lin, J. 50–1 Lippmann, W. 21, 31; control of public opinion 20; problematic idea of public 20 Lipschultz, J.: change, fundamental 41; social media branding and marketing 42 Lirio, P.: on social media uses 56 Littlejohn, S.W.: multiple-step model of diffusion 83 Liu, B. F.: Coombs’ SCCT theory 109; crisis communication management 109 Liu, X. 43, 48 Loader, B. D.: networked digital media 77 Logan, N. 31, 79, 81; CSR and hegemonic processes 81; emergence of PR 31; public good 79 LOHAS: consumers living lifestyles of health and sustainability 76 London Can Take It (1940) film 24 Lowensberg, D. 10 Lucky Strike cigarettes 20

Lury, C.: brand 71, 82, 87; identity 57; image or logo 69; notion of connectivity of brands 48; socially collective experience 59 Lyra, A.: reconceptualised PR 36 Mac web 94 Macintosh 95–6 Magee, K.: factories in developing world 75 Malar, L.: brand personality, focus on source of origin 12 Marconi Company 21 Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in 1979 24 Marks & Spencer’s 7 Marquand, D. 139; public domain players to abide public service ethic 7; public and private domain, exploration of 76 Marwick, A. E.: on authenticity 12 McCole, P. 48, 59 McConnell, B.: focus on social media commentators 63–4 McKie, D.: much PR research 16–17; Public Relations in Britain: A History of Professional Practice in the Twentieth Century 23; public relations, limited knowledge of 16; two-way communications activity 16 Meadows, C. W.: public relations, themes and characteristics analysis 2 Melin, F.: experiential brand interaction 59; use of brand wheel by 140 Mercea, D.: criticises digital media 77–8; on co-construction 137 Merkelssen, H.: brand (identity) 69; dichotomous challenge 154; negotiation and issues management 77; progressive PR functions 83; strategies within PR activity 3 Merz, M. A.: co-creation of brands and negotiation, emphasis on 57, 65 Metropolitan Life Insurance Company 20 Mickey, T. J.: postmodern theory to critique public relations practice 32 Mikacova, L.: on public relations 83, 153 Miller, D. 20, 32, 77; corporate relations of early US PR 21; public ownership proposals by Labour government 24; shares promotion 67 Millions Like Us (1943) 24 Milmo, C.: Body Shop, about 85 Mind-set 153 Molleda, J.: authencity index 11; Beverland’s pure and approximate forms of brand authenticity 131; indicators 11; public relations practitioners 6; role for PR 154

182 Index Moloney, K. 2, 32; concept of public relations 36–7, 65, 77, 142 Monitoring organisational sites 38 Moody, M.: research on mid- to senior-US PR 39 Moor, L.: element of brand design and marketing 57; perfomative nature of branding 48 Moore, J. 85 moral economy 76 Moreno, A. 41 Morhart, F.: authenticity 10, 13, 130; question on underlying processes 4 Morin, J.: idea of collective amalgamation 12; synthetic authenticity 12 Morris, T. 57; redefine public relations in 5 Mortimore, R. 2 Muhlbacher, H.: creatively interpret and re-imagine brand 44 Muller, M.: groups of metaphors 55 Muller-Doohm, S. 77 Munshi, D.: public relations, limited knowledge of 16 Myers, C. 78 MyStarbucksIdea 43 Napoli, J.: on brand authenticity 4, 10, 13, 131 Narayou Swar, B.: online shopping websites 53 Narteh, B.: online environment 52 National Association of Local Government Officers (NALGO) 22 National Coal Board Film Unit 23 National Conference of Charities and Corrections 28 National Consumers’ Tax Council 21 National Council of Senior Citizens 28 Nayriah al-Sabah’s speech 32 Negri, A.: rhizomatic form of communication 35 Neill, M. S.: online reputation and protection 39 New media object 69 New York Times 63 New York’s Easter Parade 21 Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) 145 Night Mail (1936) 23 Nike 79, 84; manufacturing policy 7; stores 58 NikePlus app 43 Niketowns 69 Noordin, W. N. W.: Buber’s concept of dialogue 37

Novak, T. P.: flow 40; Steuer’s Communications Technology model 39 Nyffenegger, B.: focus on source of origin 12 object authenticity 130 O’Connor, C.: on bloggers 35 Oksiutycz, A. 34–5 Olins, W.: academic agreement 73; actual behaviour 6, 135; Central Idea 47; communications 48; industries 58; multidisciplinary approach 82; organisation presented audiences 8; organisations’ actual behaviour 68; physical construction 57; proposition brands 49; strong central vision 131; successful brands 67 Oliver, S.: business and management subject areas 2; counsel prescriptions for future actions 83; reputation management 84 online fashion retailing 53 online relationship marketing 52 organisational management: changes 47 organisational reputation: attitudes 50; brand centred 55 Ott, L.: on interactive debate on live social media 120 Oversight Board for Content Decisions 101 Ozcan, K.: brand experiences 43; brands to co-evolve with stakeholders 44 Ozdora-Aksak, E.: key roles of PR practitioners 51–2 Palazzolo, E. T.: new challenges for organisations 11 Palmer, A.: conceptual model of hierarchy 48; different techniques 67; physical brand construction 68; self-actualisation needs 60 Panda, R.: usefulness of SEO 53 Parade of Progress 21 Parkman, I. : focus on production of authenticity 13; real and fake offering, distinction between 10 Peacock Committee 90 Pennsylvania Railroad 20 Percy, L.: brands transforms products experience 58, 65 Pernod Ricard: use of Instagram account for current grade employees 56 Pervan, S. 58, 65; idea of evaluative user-process 58; role of brands in selfidentification processes 65 Phia, L. P.: use of interviews to conceptualise IBO 53

Index  183 Phillips, D.: public relations practitioner 38; reputational threat 36 Pieczka, M.: notions of dialogue in PR 3 Pieters, R.: importance of consumers choice 59 1962 Pilkington Committee, The 90 Pine, J. B. (II) 8; authenticity 8 Pope Gregory XIII 22 Portal, S.: on brading 1 positivist-professional frame 22–4 post-Fordist production techniques 82 postmodern brand 59–61; extensive arc 59–61; Guinness brand 60–1 Powell, H. 43, 59, 71, 82–3, 87 PowerBook 97–8 practitioner analysis 131 Primedia Broadcast Group’s LeadSA project 34 Prindle, R.: dialogical nature of organisation reputation 35; third-party endorsement credibility 76, 139 process of classification 73 professional internal brand communications: key factors 54 Progress and Transparency Reports 100 Progressive Publicists 20 Project 46 Projection of England, The 23 Projective city 46 projective organisation: absence of physical interactions 51; blogging 50; Boltanski and Chiapello’s model 46, 47; brand engagement 56; brand interactions and communications 56; casual fun tone 52; communicating 46–56; communications emanating 47; competitive environment 49; customer interactions 52; customer orientation 52; effectiveness of experiential events 48–9; experience 50; experiential elements of purchase and product satisfaction 49; external stakeholders 47; features 50; FMCG organisations 54; Internal Brand Orientation (IBO) 54; knowledge discovery process 52; mediating activity 46; metaphors 55; networked 47–8; new network structures 47; old communications technique 53; organisational management 47; personal fulfilment of workers 48; PR practitioners 50; professionals involved 50; projective city 46; public relations, implication for 55; questions of trust and legitimisation 50; Red Bull 49;

self-actualisation and esteem 48; SEM techniques 52; SEO, online sites 52; social media 54; social media, connecting workers 55; structural challenges 47; study of generation Y 49; survey of banking customers 52; Top Management Brand Commitment 54; traditional aspects of branding 51; URL for websites 53; utilitarian features 50; virgin 47; vision 47; web of information-seeking activity 50 Propaganda in 1928 20 prosumer 42–5 public domain 76 Public Opinion 20 Public Relations Group of the Legion of Catholic Women 25 public relations (PR): activist frame 27–30; activist role 155; Authenticity Manager 154; BBC, reports 153; brand police 154; branding research approaches 1–4; CIPR, defined 4; communications 153; contemporary examples 43; contesting 30–4; defining 4–6; digital 44; digital communications 153; digital media brands 89–106; digital organisational forms 46–56; digital turn 35; Excellence Theory 155; external and internal communications 153; historiography 16–19; human communication and interpersonal skills 42; ideological movements 155; industry perceptions 121–9; messaging strategy 153; mind-set 153; MyStarbucksIdea 43; normative branding research 3; positivistprofessional frame 22–4; postmodern role in authentic branding 152–6; powerful sign-making strategies 155; PRSA explanation 5; roles of practitioners 51; sociological frame 24–7; techniques 155; US paradigm and corporate 19–22; use of digital and social media communications 38–42 Public Relations Review 2 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) 5, 22, 38 Publicity for Social Work in 1928 28 Raaz, O. 19, 22; modes of communication 18 Radford, G. P. 33 Ramaswamy,V. 43–4; designed ‘agencial assemblages’ enable stakeholders and brand managers to 43

184 Index Rasmussen, R. K.: brand and its perception 69; systematic review on power of social media 112 Ratner, G. 84–5 Ratner, R. S.: media strategy from Greenpeace from the 1970s onwards 29 real-time interaction: brand 127; personalised brand and customer power 136–9; process 136; success factors 129 real-time streams 61–3 Red Bull: energetic brand personality 153; legitimisation and justification 74; postmodern brand 59; PR 153–4; projective organisation 49 Regester, M.: brand critique 150; case study 74; central authoritative source 108; environmentally friendly course of action 74; financial consequences 74; market share 6, 74; reputation and brand 149; shareholder resolutions 108; social campaigning 29; theoretical models 148 Reithian model 137 RepTrak System 9 reputation 84–6; editorial influence 45; Google’s approach to challenges 105; management practices: atunement 122; behaviour and action 123; brand authenticity 123; consistent communications 123; Fixed Vision and Values 125; impact of digital media 121–9; integrity 134–5; practitioners 124; reputation 123 Reputation Content Plan 45 rhizomatic assemblages: authenticity created 72; banking brands 70; brand 69; Cadbury World in Birmingham 70; communication and identification 69; corporate communications 69; Galloway visualises 71; interface threshold 71; methodologies for 68; multi-level ontology 68, 69; new media object 69; normative brand theorists 68; principles of connection 70 Riley, N.: corporate image construction 12; social contingency 12 riparian brand: active brand citizen 63–6; authentic 139–43, 141; authentic brand model 155; authentic brand wheel 139–43; Channel 9 66; finding the authentic 66–8; real-time streams 61–3; rhizomatic assemblages 68–72 Rochdale Pioneers Society 75 Roper, J.: sustainability and ecological modernism discourse 77

Rosenbaum-Elliott, R.: self-identification processes 65; social identification 58 Rowley, J.: status of brands 53; UK online fashion sites, review 53 Russell, K. M.: formal use of public relations 24; public relations development simplistic periodisation and evolutionary view 22; public relations history 19; Sage Foundation 28 Saffer, A. J.: interactive communication through social media 39 Sargent, P.: early-career junior public relations practitioners 39 Schallehn, M.: and corporate image construction 12; social contingency 12 Scherer, J.: double-edged nature of social media opportunities 40 Scholz, C.: professional internal brand communications, factors 54 Scott, R.: film director 97 Search Engine Marketing (SEM) 52, 60; online fashion retailing environment 53 Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) 52; organic search 53 secondary crisis communications (SCC) 111; intensive nature 111 self-authenticity 130 self-identification 12 Sequential Mediation Model 113 sex-up 32 Sha, B. : early-career junior public relations practitioners tend 39 Shabana, K. M.: corporate social responsibility (CSR) 102; corporate stakeholders and 78; discretionary and philanthropic goals 133 Shah, S.: business changed its name to Signet 84 Sievert, H.: online and offline customers 54; professional internal brand communications 54 Simmons, J. 58, 68 Situational Crisis Communications Theory (SCCT) 108 social communications activity 27 social media 45; Apple’s 100; and conflict 101; connecting workers within projective organisations 55; creators 109; Eriksson M. pre-crisis work 112; Facebook 100; favourable creators 111; followers 109; growing importance 112; guidelines 93; Ihlen, O. views 112; inactives 109; internal strategy 54;

Index  185 internal strategy effective implementation of 54; key change 93; McConnell, B. and Huba, J. focus on commentators 63–4; negative coverage 111; negative stories and image 107; new techniques 63; online platform 50; proposal on use by Kent, M. 80; proposal on use by Taylor M. 80; Rasmussen, R. K. views 112; role to play 110; type of messages that organisations post 114; useful facilitator as 54; user-centred nature 107; uses 52, 54–5; wide variety 53 Social Security Act in 1965 28 Social-Mediated Crisis Communication Model (SMCC) 109–10 Social-Mediated Crisis Communication Model (SMCC), The 108; publics active 108 society: branding 86–8 Society for the Discouragement of Public Relations 31 sociological frame 24–7 Solis, B.: public relations working in 5 stakeholders 37; information process 114 steelmaker Krupp, first formal commercial press Germany 21 Steuer’s Communications Technology model 39 Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in 1962, The 31 Sulkunen, P.: idea of contract 13 Sweetser, K. D.: use of Twitter survey to establish connection motivation and effectiveness 39 Tantivejakul, N. 27 Taylor, M.: proposal on use of social media 80 telecommunications 67 Tench, R. 41 Thatcher, Margaret: importance of carefully managed profile 32; Conservative government in 1979 24 Theaker, A.: actual behaviour 68; behaviour 135; corporate identity plan 68; criticism for 84; delivery of key messages 32; Empire products 23; freedom of women 21; government policy or legislation 108; public relations 23; public sphere 31; reality images 73; services 32; stakeholders 122; wireless technology 21 Theofilou, A.: advertising campaigns for organisations 26 Theunissen, P.: view on social media 120

Thevenot, L. 73–4, 76; judgement, arguments 13 Toledano, M.: communications experts 38; inauthentic notion 38 Touch Points 67 Trades Union Congress (TUC) 30 transformational authenticity 134 Transparency Tools for Social Issues 101 TripAdvisor scores 50 trust and credibility 42 Turkish Republic in 1923 25 Twitter 38, 71, 75, 93, 106, 112, 117, 127–8, 153; survey of US PR leaders 39; users 12 1994 UK Trade Marks Act 57 Un-American Activities Commission 20 Union of Communication Workers (UCW) 30 United Airlines 118–20, 119; case study 119–20; Ott and Theunissen’s view on social media 119; ‘pre-crisis’ mode 119; social media 118–19; Witzel, M. argument on organisational failure 119 United States (US) public relations history 17–18 UN’s Habitat Conference 29 Update on Facebook’s Civil Rights Audit 101 US National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) 21 Valentini, C.: reputation management and product development 40; social media, use of 38; stakeholder views 108; virtual groupings 42 Van Bellingham, S.: brands sales and reputation 64; consultation with customers 94; content in support 65; conversational approach to branding 64; product development, information 94; site Macrumours.com 138 Van Huizen, P.: hydro-electric generation dam 29 Van Riel, C. B. M. 47, 67–8; study of global organisations 9 Vercic, A. T.: focus on socially responsible practices 79 Verhoeven, P.: online communication 41 Verwey, S.: mobilise unrelated stakeholders 65; negative social media stories and 107; self-expression processes 43, 65 virgin companies 48, 125; projective organisation 47 Vivienne Westwood 128

186 Index Waddington, S. 45, 55; brands 45; long-term strategy 45; notion of loss of control 44 Waeraas, A.: public relations 77, 153 Wang, S.: engagement with the brand 49 Washington Post 63 Watson, J. 68; documentation 11; embryonic development of public relations 18; public relations, division 5 Weak authenticity 65, 142; authentic brands embrace 142 Weber, M.: organisational legitimisation, argument 153 Wehmeier, S.: approach 18–19; empiricist and positivist tradition 3 Wider, S.: brand management 44; interpret and re-imagine of brand 45 Witzel, M.: argument on organisational failure 119 Women’s Christian Temperance Union 28 Woods, E.: boycott of products 7; broad range of stakeholders 85; conceptualisations of reputation 85; corporate identity plan 68; theoretical debate 6, 85; war 29; wellconstructed image 7 World Assembly of Public Relations Associations 4 World War II 23–5 Wright, D. K.: communication models and theories 35; organisational communications 38; practitioners 38

Wright Mills, C.: complex systems of association and influence 8 Wu, F. 38 Wynn, G. 29 Yang, A. 41 Yang, S.: no-spin policy required for CSR communications 80; reputationdamaging counter-motivations 132 Young, P.: public relations practitioner 36, 38 Zajmovic, E. 39, 42; develop web presence strategy 39 Zarantonello, L. 65 Zerfass, A. 41 Zuckerberg, M.: affective intimate and political paternalism 102; audiovisual content of 103; Building Global Community 103; central and defensive role 101; declarations 103; donation announcement 103; emphasises number of themes 102; face of Facebook 145; interview 101; occasional statements 119; public discourse 102; public facing blog 102; shares, donation 102; in social media 103; speech to developers 103; strategic policy 103; techniques 103; themes 102; virtuous leadership 103