Usual PR nonsense

According to research in this week'sPRWeek , 72% of corporate communications practitioners reckon it is difficult to differentiate between the reputation of a company and the reputation of the CEO. So that leaves 28% who are reasonably sane - and not swept along in this form of PR industry groupthink. The fact is that Most stakeholders don't even know the names of the people who run these companies. Who runs Centrica? or ICI? or BAE these days? Who knows. But they still have a corporate reputation, right? We judge a company on entirely different criteria from our evaluation of human beings. Of course CEOs have an impact on perceptions of corporate brand, and that influence can often be profound for some stakeholders. But CEO reputation and corporate reputation are entirely different phenomena and must be managed accordingly. Rather than relying upon the CEO to forge the corporate brand, many organisations would be well advised to employ a more diverse approach to brand leadership....