We can recommend readers look at Reputation Constitution, Issues Monitoring and Issues Management in Media Society (published by the University of Zurich). Pleon, the European PR wing of the DDBO advertising agency, is developing a European Centre on Reputation Management with Zurich academics. One Zurich research project on the topic argues that “media-broadcast communications are advancing to become the dominant mechanism of constituting reputation”. It seems to us that that is is too sweeping. Business to business compaies often find that their key stakeholders are not influenced by the broadcast media but by other channels. A firm selling to doctors, or CIOs, for example, would not find that the broadcast media was the dominant mechanism. On the other hand, a PR agency that is aligned to an advertising company should be — other things being equal — better that broadcast media than anything else. So perhaps this is a case of enlightened self-interest?
Reputation Management, a view from the University of Zurich
