This week I attended the Sabre Awards, where MWW Group was named Midsize Agency of the Year. It was a great night to celebrate success, applaud the work of our industry and catch up with colleagues and friends. But in the shadow of that celebration, where Burson-Marsteller was recognized as the North American Agency of the Year, the Facebook scandal was brewing – a scandal which ultimately cost Burson a flagship client.

No doubt there will be plenty of commentary about this issue – painting either Facebook or Burson (or both) as the big bad wolf. But it is our industry, and the PR profession, with the most to lose as that dreaded “spin doctor” label emerges once again.

Working to advance a client’s point-of-view is a legitimate assignment. Ditto for raising issues about privacy or other critical issues of importance. So how can we do this without finding ourselves on the receiving end of reputational dings?

At MWW Group, we believe that trust + relevance = action….and while it appears that this campaign was designed considering the relevance of privacy issues, and perhaps taking advantage of the fact that Google is currently on its heels – failure to focus on the trust part of the equation yielded action that was very different than expected.

Three learnings for all of us:

1. Our clients are the story – we never want to be the story. Trying to be too stealthy makes people more interested in who is behind the issue than the issue itself. Veiled finger pointing creates suspicion. Even if your client won’t give an on the record interview – approaching a reporter anonymously begs to be “outed.”

2. If you are Goliath, it’s hard to be David – and when two giants do battle, expect both to walk away bloody.

3. Never put something in an e-mail you wouldn’t want to see in print.

Trust + Relevance….it’s not an either-or equation.

cwinters MWW Group, Public Relations Burson-Marsteller, Facebook, Google, SABRE Awards, The Holmes Report

Last week, MWW Group held its annual leadership summit – and our first all hands meeting since we bought our agency back from IPG….and we unveiled our “new” point of view. (Technically, this is a new articulation of the point of view that has always driven our agency – but I digress).

Trust + Relevance = Action

Trust – too big to fail and the GEC (Global Economic Crisis) have created a crisis of confidence of serious magnitude. We don’t trust leaders, companies, religious institutions. So lots of big thinkers in our industry talk about trust & transparency as the end game.

Trust isn’t the end game. Trust is the table stakes. Unless you plan to go out of business, trust is a requirement. Not the goal. It’s true that some clients need help establishing, building or increasing trust…but if we stop there, we haven’t done our job.

Why relevance?

• Because ultimately PR is about driving action….trust gives us permission to act, relevance makes us act.

• Because participation, without relevance, is just noise….tweeting, blogging, posting, sharing….none of it matters if no one is paying attention. Relevance makes us pay attention.

• Relevance provides staying power…when something is relevant to us, it becomes a part of our lives…and a part of who we are. We stick with it.

• Relevance is the engine of the peer-to-peer economy. It’s why sharing is eclipsing search. When something is really a part of us and our lives, we tell a friend.

Relevance is the game changer. It is what causes us to buy a product, apply for a job, welcome a company into our community, invest our hard earned money. It’s what makes a client newsworthy. It’s not just the end game. It’s the whole game.

Maybe we should call this blog Return on Relevance…because isn’t that really what a reputation is all about?

cwinters MWW Group Action, Point of View, Public Relations, Relevance, trust

I’ve worked at MWW Group for almost 20 years….and I’ve seen a lot of changes. When I first started, I answered the phones, brought clients coffee and did just about anything no one else in our 5 person, one office agency wanted to do. It was a time when we mailed press releases, held lots of press conferences, carried pagers (and calling cards to dial the pay phones to check the page) and research was done in a library.

In these two decades, our agency has grown a lot and changed a lot. We’ve added offices, practices and people. Interns have grown up to be senior counselors. Faxing replaced mailing, then gave way to e-mailing then tweeting. The Google generation approaches research in a whole new way.

But one thing hasn’t changed….our Aim High and Deliver mantra that keeps everyone at MWW continually raising the bar for ourselves and for our client programs. And in our own version of Back to the Future, we are going back to our independent status after 10 years as an IPG agency.

It’s a great time to be independent….you can read all about it here. The world is changing faster than ever…and we’ve always prided ourselves on staying ahead of the changes…and helping our clients determine how, where, when and why to change their communications priorities, approaches and programs.

Look for great things from MWW Group in 2011…we are ready to take our new, independent agency to new heights.

cwinters MWW Group MWW Group, Public Relations

This year’s World Business Forum featured iconic leaders like Jack Welch, Al Gore, Jim Connelly and David Gergen discussing their views on how to lead, and how to be successful in today’s environment. There were some amazing presentations, and some memorable moments…almost too much to remember. Thankfully, they issue a summary report of each session to everyone who attended – to help capture the lessons and the wisdom, and help attendees implement what they’ve learned.

If you didn’t have two days to spend at Radio City, you can still benefit from the advice of these leadership greats… download the 2010 World Business Forum Report, courtesy of HSM and MWW Group.

Enjoy!

cwinters MWW Group Leadership, World Business Forum

I had the opportunity to attend a presentation by brand futurist Martin Lindstrom at last week’s World Business Forum. It was an interesting day listening to thought leaders discuss their insights on the principles of leadership and innovation.

Mark Lindstrom’s session was about marketing and why we buy. His point of view is that the future of branding is moving toward non-conscious symbolics, the symbols of a brand that are not the actual brand logo. Lindstrom supports that 85%-90% of communications today is absorbed into the non-conscious part of the brain, and that this new non-conscious symbolism is fueling the battle ground for brands.

Lindstrom discussed his project “buyology” – a fascinating neuromarketing study that analyzes the relationship between consumer behavior and the brain’s reaction to marketing techniques, brand messages and visual cues. The study suggests that consumer purchasing behaviors are driven by subconscious cues which Lindstrom refers to as “smashable symbolics.” Smashable symbolics are those attributes of a brand without the logo.

Think about the smashable symbolics of brands we engage with every day… color cues such as Coke’s red aluminum can (Coke) or Ronald McDonald’s red and yellow costume; visual cues such as Apple’s silhouette image with ear buds; icons such as the Microsoft arrow or the Apple product interface; sound cues such as the Rocky theme song or the AT&T ring tune. Each of these is a smashable component symbolic of its respective brand.

Lindstrom encourages marketers to smash their brand. A bit of quick research I found explains the concept behind a smashable brand. The term dates back to 1915 when Coca-Cola asked the bottle designer to make a bottle that could be recognized even if was smashed into tiny pieces. According to Lindstrom, everything a marketer does should be able to survive without the logo. When you look at your brand how many pieces can be recognized that don’t include the logo?

We know that consumers today have lost trust in brands and are not brand loyal. If marketers can better understand the subconscious cues that lead to purchasing behavior brand loyalty will change forever. Everything a marketer does to reach consumers must be able to survive without the logo. This is the future of true branding and marketing communications.

As marketers we need to ask ourselves, do I own smashable symbolics and can my brand survive without the logo?

ablate MWW Group brand, consumer behavior, marketing, World Business Forum

For the past two days, I’ve been lucky enough to participate in the World Business Forum, where speakers with unbelievable credentials provided their individual prescriptions for success today, and tomorrow.

At the MWW Group panel discussion on leadership, Jim Quigley, Deloitte’s global CEO, shared his view that if you take care of your people, and take care of your brand and reputation, growth will take care of itself. This is a formula he’s used to lead Deloitte to the position of being Number 1 among the big accounting firms – an announcement Deloitte made this week.

Over the course of the two days, a lot of speakers echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of having the right people in the right seats, making sure they are passionate about what they do and providing them with the leadership and the environment where disruption is not only invited, but expected.

What struck me most was that some of the best of advice was very intuitive, and was simple, common sense – the kind our grandparents advocated.

P&G’s former CEO A.G. Lafley was asked what his “do-over” would be, if he could have one. He recounted a story of passing on an opportunity to make the Rx to OTC switch for a leading allergy medication, and summed it up as follows:

“I ignored my gut, and deferred to the collective expertise of others.”

Effective leadership, in any time, is common sense, and this is the WBF’s common sense formula for leaders:

• Build the right organization – have the right people in the right seats. Are they passionate? Are they collaborative? Are they useful? Are they smarter than you?

• Focus on the right things – most spend two-thirds of their time focused on managing productivity and the here and now, and one-third (and many would say that is being generous) focusing on the future. Leaders and managers need to flip that ratio. We need to be like Wayne Gretzky, and skate to where the puck is going to be.

• Worry about your most important businesses the most – we often focus great energy on small problems that are not material to the organization. When things are “fine” is the time to be worrying….so you can anticipate and adapt before problems occur.

• Invite and embrace constant change. Disrupt yourself, or others will.

After two days of great conversation, thought-provoking topics, and advice to more than 4,000 business leaders, the question is this – What will we do differently on Monday?

cwinters General Corporate, MWW Group Deloitte, Proctor & Gamble, World Business Forum

There’s a great blog by the Washington Post on the World Business Forum, including our panel, noting that his key takeaway from our discussion was the importance of building trust for leaders to be effective today. If you missed the Forum, he’s got some great recaps of speakers like Charlene Li, Martin Lindstrom, Joseph Grenny and David Gergen.

I agree with his takeaway. But to quote innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan, a WBF day 2 speaker, just because something is simple doesn’t mean it is easy.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to maintaining trust is that it takes consistent effort over time to establish, and only one false step to damage it. Your stakeholders’ trust is renewed – or not – with every interaction or observation about your company.

How can you rebuild trust today? (Hint – it takes more than just transparency)

o Leaders, companies and brands must create personal connections – open and clear communication was something that was discussed all throughout the World Business Forum, not just at our panel. Jim Quigley of Deloitte said it best when he said “If you want people to follow you, you have to make a personal connection.”

o But before you communicate and connect, walk the talk….well done is more important that well said.

o Have a leader – usually the CEO – who is the keeper of the flame – who makes earning and keeping trust central to his or her position and priorities. Arkadi Kuhlman, Chairman of ING Direct had some great advice about the need for a CEO who is authentic, who can connect on an emotional level, and articulate a hopeful, aspirational vision for the future. “The only way out of our reality today,” he said, “is to step forward.”

Simple. But not always easy.

cwinters General Corporate, MWW Group Deloitte, ING Direct, World Business Forum

In homage to David Letterman, the following are my Top 10 quotes from the World Business Forum:

10. Just because something is simple doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy to do. – Vijay Govindarajan, strategy and innovations expert

9. If you can never admit you don’t know the answer to a question, you can never get better – Steve Levitt, author of Freakonomics

8. In a world where everything is connected, anything is possible – Bill McDermott, SAP

7. Stop asking how to be successful, ask how to be useful – Advice from management guru Peter Drucker to Good to Great evangelist Jim Collins

6. Great people challenge each other, mediocre people hold each other back – Carlos Brito, CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev

5. Courage is the missing ingredient for innovation for most CEOs – A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Proctor & Gamble

4. Want more influence? Tell more stories – Joseph Grenny, author of Influencer: The Power to Change Anything

3. Don’t confuse improbable with impossible – because while they are often the same, the exceptions will kill you! – Al Gore

2. Leadership isn’t just about setting direction, but inspiring people to move in that direction – Charlene Li

1. Tough circumstances elevate you to either the best you can be, or the worst you can be – Nando Parrado, survivor of the 1972 Andes airplane crash

And an honorable mention to Al Gore for funniest line of the day – “I used to be the next President of the United States.” And to Jack Welch, for the most memorable quote of the day “The Internet is the Viagra of big business.”

Looking for more great moments at the World Business Forum? Check out my twitter feed @carreenwl and MWW’s @mwwgroup.

cwinters General Corporate, MWW Group David Letterman, World Business Forum

A lot of excellent speakers talked about leadership attributes over the past two days at the 2010 World Business Forum. What was interesting about Al Gore’s presentation this morning is that we witnessed many of those leadership traits in action.

When asked to list leadership skills yesterday at the MWW Group’s panel discussion on sustainable leadership, David Gergen cited “trust and the capacity to inspire others.” As Gore rolled through an hour-long presentation largely focused on the global climate crisis, inspiration virtually dripped from the stage.

Deloitte CEO Jim Quigley, speaking on the same panel, talked about vision and leadership. Gore offered multiple visions – a vision of what could happen if we don’t change, a vision if we do change and a vision for how to get there.

Jack Welch warned that complacency is one of the greatest dangers facing leaders. Clearly, Gore is one motivated individual when it comes to the topic of climate change. I doubt that complacency is anywhere in his vocabulary. And that, of course, leads to passion.

The words “passion” and “leadership” have been in lockstep in virtually every presentation over the past two days. Gore embodied passion when he spoke about the challenge – and the opportunity – associated with the climate crisis. I, for one, was ready to buckle up and follow him over the ramparts. I suspect that most of the audience felt the same way.

I frequently tell clients that the best way to communicate is to “show, don’t tell.” Most of the speakers at WBF10 have told us about leadership; Al Gore showed us what it looks like.

bsilver MWW Group al gore, climate change, Leadership, World Business Forum

Al Gore, Nobel Laureate and former Vice President of the United States spoke to the World Business Forum on Wednesday morning. Al spoke passionately about the current state of the environment and captivated the audience with his unique insight into one of the greatest challenges that we face today.

Mr. Gore is a man who knows a little something about leadership. For over thirty years, Al has been spreading the word about the perils of climate change and he is recognized around the world as being the foremost leader on the environment.

Mr. Gore epitomizes what it means to be a leader. During his decades long campaign to raise awareness and drive change to environmental policies and behavior, he’s received more than his fair amount of criticism. Despite the criticism, Al has never backed down. This is one of the tenets of true leadership.

Al Gore used his time at the World Business Forum to issue a charge to the leaders of American enterprises. Quoting an African proverb, Al said: “If you want to go quickly go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”

Today more than ever, the challenges that we face require us to “go far.” We need leaders who can unite and lead us so that we can go far together.

admin MWW Group al gore, climate change, Leadership