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| Leadership Magazine article on page 124 |
Burson Cohn & Wolfe is one of those companies that I have a huge amount of admiration and respect for, not only because of their consistently excellent campaigns that they annually win globally, but also the incredible work that they are doing across the continent to rebuild its reputation and giving Africa back its voice. At the helm for the past 25 years, Robyn de Villiers chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) for Africa, has taken the company from strength to strength and into 52 of the 54 countries. There are many positive changes afoot, and I caught up with her to discuss some of the changes and trends she has seen over the last couple of years.
Robyn shares that some of the most noticeable changes started around the end of 2016 and have been continuing in 2018.
What has been the biggest change that your agencies across Africa have had to contend with this year?
The biggest thing that has happened over the past two years is the enormous rise in the level of activism from all stakeholder groups. There is a high level of emotion and a strong feeling that people have taken back or recognised their power and their rights and are proactive in making their voices heard. Women’s rights, consumers’ rights and employees’ rights are no longer taboo; citizens are no longer standing by and just watching, corrupt governments and executives are being brought to book and held accountable for their actions.
It is strengthened by the power of social media but it is also in traditional media, in direct interactions like strikes and protests.
There have been considerably more calls for boycotting products, calls for shutting down businesses, class action law suits, so crisis communication has become a much greater focus area for our agencies.
The number of reputation damaging situations has increased not just in Africa, but globally as well over the past two years.
What is the biggest communication management challenge facing organisations in Africa?
There is a lack of proper risk assessment, especially when it comes to reputational issues, which results in a lack of proper crisis preparation. This results in extraordinarily large damage to reputation when something goes wrong because no-one is well positioned to handle the fallout. The need for effective crisis management is also, of course, intensified because of social media. A large percentage of those companies that are well-prepared for crisis management have not updated their plans to include social media which leaves a large hole in their level or readiness.
When a company wants to invest in the services of an agency to help them manage their reputation, what three questions should they ask the agency to help them make a decision?
I believe that companies should do a solid due diligence on any agency they are considering appointing. They should assess the status of the agency’s reputation, their governance procedures, their value system, their client base etc. I believe there is nothing more damaging than appointing an agency to help you manage your reputation and then having their bad reputation impact your reputation. Second thing would be to check the credentials of the people from the agency who would be working on your reputation management to assess their competence but also their personal reputations so that there is no potential for negative impact from this area either. Third thing would be whether the chemistry is good between the C-suite of the company and the agency’s senior advisors since reputation management has to happen at a very senior level and you need to know there is mutual respect and you will be able to create a good partnership.
What is the one thing you wish your clients knew or did when it comes to investing in their reputations?
Benchmark research at the beginning of their reputation effort to ensure that they really do understand their current reputation and their stakeholders’ perceptions rather than assuming they know the starting point.
My experience with executives is that what they think the reputation is, is most often too extreme. Either they think the reputation is trashed/terrible or they think it is fantastic when actually it is normally somewhere in between.
What do you think is the biggest misconception when it comes to reputation management?
A few thoughts here. Many companies think that it is not critical because ‘nothing will go wrong for them’ and that it is therefore not worth the investment. What they don’t realise is that it is absolutely critical because the potential loss of value when something does go wrong is many multiple times the investment in effective reputation management. And the loss of value is more than financial (which is often huge). It is the loss of trust of critical stakeholders that is actually the longest term damage and the one that is sometimes irreparable and always very slow to rebuild.
What does Africa need to do to get its reputation back on track?
Africa will only change its reputation if it takes responsibility for it and takes the power away from all those outsiders who continue to tell her story. The first critical step is the realisation that something needs to be done, then a decision on who has to own responsibility for it, and then a commitment to a properly staged plan. As long as we let others tell our story, they will tell the story that suits them and we will almost definitely not like it!
Which of the African countries is getting their reputation right? Why do you say this?
In my opinion Ethiopia and Rwanda are doing well on their reputation over the past few years. Ethiopia has taken full advantage of the fact that it is the permanent home of the African Union (AU) Commission headquarters and you can see that if you travel to Addis Ababa. Construction is everywhere, Ethiopian Airlines just won the African Business of the Year award at the CNBC Africa All African Business Leaders Association (AABLA) Awards and your airline is the first experience a visitor has of your country.
Rwanda is doing brilliantly on gender equality, this year they had the highest number of women ministers in any government in the world. They have changed the official business language from French to English to make it more relevant on the global stage. They offer excellent education opportunities to children and adults alike and it is a leader in Africa on connectivity, as a result of this they hosted the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa meeting in 2016 and will host the Africa CEO Forum in 2019. They are definitely attracting global interest.
What do you think is going to be the biggest communication changes on the continent over the next five years?
I think Africans are going to take responsibility for communicating about Africa, for focussing on the many success stories rather than letting the rest of the world have no opposition to their telling of all the negative stories. I think connectivity will be increased all over the continent and costs will come down so that everyone will have the opportunity to benefit from being online: financial services, health services, education opportunities and work opportunities to name a few.
I also believe that in the next few years business and government and other organisations will all have Chief Reputation Officers in their C-Suite teams and I hope that Africa will be ahead of the pack in this area. I believe that as an industry, we can help to train these people to play a critical role in their organisations and I hope we will!
For more information about Burson Cohn & Wolfe visit www.bwc-global.com
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