Fame & Fortune: How Successful Companies Build Winning Reputations

Fame & Fortune: How Successful Companies Build Winning Reputations

by Charles J. Fombrun, Cees B.M. van Riel
Released August 2003
Publisher(s): Pearson
ISBN: 9780130937377

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Book description

Companies with strong reputations are better able to attract customers, investors, and quality employees-and to survive crises that would destroy weaker firms. Fame and Fortune shows how to quantitatively measure your company's reputation, estimate its business value, and systematically enhance it over both the short- and long-term.

First, you'll learn how to benchmark your firm's reputation against key rivals in six key areas, ranging from product quality to emotional appeal. Next, you'll discover that the winners of global reputation surveys get to the top by following a set of core principles through which they build visibility, distinctiveness, consistency, authenticity, and transparency.

Then, starting from where you are now, you'll learn how to implement genuine corporate initiatives that strengthen two-way dialogue with all your stakeholders, and build the "reputational capital" you will need to succeed-and thrive.

  • Why reputations matter: the proof, in cold, hard cash. Quantifying the "unquantifiable": the value of your corporate image.

  • The reputation audit: discovering where you stand. Six key measures of your corporate reputation.

  • Using the "Reputation Value Cycle" to your advantage. Creating a "virtuous circle" in which reputation enhances business corporate value.

  • Making it real: the elements of trustworthiness. Building and communicating authenticity, consistency, and transparency.

  • Standing apart from the crowd. Improving your visibility and your distinctiveness.

  • How FedEx did it: lessons for your organization. Reputational best practices from a company built on trust.

    • Create quantifiable business value by building your company's reputation.

  • The definitive business reputation guide for every corporate officer, strategist, corporate communicator, and marketing professional

  • How to audit your reputation-and benchmark your competitor

  • An integrated approach that cuts across communications, strategy, marketing, and organization

  • Techniques for strengthening your reputation with investors, customers, partners, regulators, citizens, and employees

  • Includes detailed tools from the Reputation Institute's own StellarRep(r) model, the world's #1 reputation management toolkit

    • Companies with great reputations do better on virtually every business metric. Now, you have unprecedented access to a roadmap for building the kind of reputation you need and deserve.

    Drawing on unsurpassed experience and the field's best research, two leading experts illuminate reputation management for executives, business communicators, marketers, and strategists alike.

    You'll first review the powerful business case for actively managing your reputation. Next, you'll realistically assess where you stand in areas ranging from product quality to financial strength, vision to social responsibility... discovering how to make the most of your strengths as you overcome your weaknesses. The authors show that to improve reputation, you have to improve visibility, distinctiveness, authenticity, transparency, and consistency throughout the enterprise-not just in traditional silos like PR, advertising, or IR!

    Want the powerful business value that arises from a world-class reputation? One book will show you how to get it: Fame and Fortune.

    "A strong reputation is an enduring source of competitive advantage. In Fame and Fortune, Fombrun and van Riel show how successful companies mobilize the support of employees, consumers, and investors to strengthen their reputational capital. An excellent read!"
    —Frederick W. Smith, Chairman, President & CEO, FedEx Corp.

    Table of contents

    1. Copyright
    2. Praise for Fame and Fortune:
    3. Financial Times Prentice Hall
    4. Financial Times Prentice Hall Books
    5. Acknowledgments
    6. Introduction
      1. Knee Deep in the Reputation Bog
    7. 1. Why Reputations Matter
      1. Why Do Reputations Matter?
      2. Reputations Create Differentiation and Competitive Advantage
      3. Can You Prove that Reputations Matter?
        1. Customers: Reputation Affects Purchase Decisions
        2. Employees: Reputation Affects Decisions to Engage, Commit, and Stay
        3. Investors: Reputation Affects Investment Decisions
        4. The Media: Reputation Affects Coverage
        5. Financial Analysts: Reputation Affects Language
        6. Conclusion: Reputations Matter Because They Affect Strategic Positioning
      4. Endnotes
    8. 2. What are Reputations Worth?
      1. Reputation Affects a Company’s Operating Performance
      2. Reputation Creates Financial Value That Builds Reputation
      3. Reputation has Financial Value as a Corporate Asset
        1. Crisis Costs Include Loss of Reputation Capital
        2. Court Awards Recognize Corporate Libel and Defamation
        3. Linking Fame and Fortune
      4. Endnotes
    9. 3. Who’s Tops—and Who’s Not?
      1. The World’s Most Visible Companies
        1. Who’s Most Visible in the United States?
        2. Who’s Most Visible in Europe?
        3. Who’s Most Visible in Australia?
      2. The Reputation Quotient
        1. The Reputations of the Most Visible Companies in the U.S.
        2. The Reputations of the Most Visible Companies in Europe
          1. The Netherlands’s Top-Rated Companies
          2. Italy’s Top-Rated Companies
          3. Denmark’s Top-Rated Companies
        3. The Reputations of the Most Visible Companies in Australia
        4. Learning from the World’s Top-Rated Companies
        5. Conclusion
      3. Methodological Appendix to Chapter 3
      4. Endnotes
    10. 4. From Fame to Fortune
      1. Fame Breeds Fortune
        1. Reputation and Earnings
        2. Reputation and Cash Flow
        3. Reputation and Growth
        4. Reputation and Market Value
      2. What Drives Market Value?
        1. The Effects of Age, Size, and Reputation on Market Value
        2. Comparing Extremes in Reputation: Highest RQ versus Lowest RQ
      3. Are High RQ Portfolios a Sound Investment?
      4. The Bottom Line?
      5. Endnotes
    11. 5. The Roots of Fame
      1. Principle 1: Be Visible
      2. Principle 2: Be Distinctive
      3. Principle 3: Be Authentic
      4. Principle 4: Be Transparent
      5. Principle 5: Be Consistent
      6. So, Express Yourself
      7. Endnotes
    12. 6. Be Visible
      1. Understanding Corporate Visibility
      2. When Should Companies Worry about Negative Visibility?
      3. The Drivers of Visibility
        1. The Effect of Street Exposure
        2. The Influence of National Heritage
        3. Media Presence Effects
        4. Brand Equity Ups the Ante
        5. A Stock Exchange Listing Invites Scrutiny
        6. Corporate Citizenship Raises Public Profiles
      4. Capitalizing on Visibility
        1. Leveraging Nationalism or Emphasizing Globality?
        2. Increasing Your Media Presence
        3. Projecting Your Corporate Citizenship
      5. The Bottom Line?
      6. Endnotes
    13. 7. Be Distinctive
      1. What are Reputation Platforms?
        1. Distinctive Slogans
        2. Distinctive Trademarks and Logos
        3. Distinctive Corporate Stories
      2. What Makes a Strong Reputation Platform?
        1. Strategic Alignment
        2. Emotional Appeal
        3. The Element of Surprise
      3. So, Distinguish Yourself
      4. Endnotes
    14. 8. Be Authentic
      1. The Process of Discovery
        1. Shell: A Case Study in Identity Creation and Expression
      2. The Process of Internal Expression
      3. The Process of External Expression
        1. Shell’s Expressiveness
        2. Novo Nordisk’s Expressiveness
        3. Westpac’s Expressiveness
      4. The Challenge of Authenticity
      5. Endnotes
    15. 9. Be Transparent
      1. Degrees of Transparency
      2. The Drivers of Transparency
        1. Market Pressures
        2. Social Pressures
        3. Political Pressure
        4. Legal Pressure
      3. Platforms for Corporate Transparency
        1. Transparency about Products and Services
        2. Transparency about Financial Performance
        3. Transparency about Leadership and Vision
        4. Transparency about Corporate Citizenship
        5. Transparency about Workplace Environment
      4. The Citizenship Transparency Index
      5. Conclusion
      6. Endnotes
    16. 10. Be Consistent
      1. Step 1: Establish a Dialogue with Stakeholders
      2. Step 2: Enforce a Shared Identity
      3. Step 3: Implement an Integrated Communication System
      4. Step 4: Coach Employees and Partners
      5. Step 5: Adopt a Measurement and Tracking Scorecard
      6. Consistency: Top Down and All Around
      7. Endnotes
    17. 11. Becoming a Top Company: The Case of FedEx
      1. Introducing Radical Change
      2. The Role of FedEx Communications
        1. The Communications Campaign
        2. Executing the Communications Campaign
        3. Evaluating the Performance of FedEx Communications
          1. Did the Communications Campaign increase the visibility of the new FedEx culture across operating companies?
          2. Did the Communications Campaign Enhance FedEx’s Competitive Position, Brand Equity, and Stakeholder Value?
        4. How Does a Company Become Best in Class?
          1. Lesson #1: Reputation Management Must be Audited and Tracked
          2. Lesson #2: Reputation Comes from Within
          3. Lesson #3: Reputations Must Be Earned Over and Over
      3. Endnotes

    Product information

    • Title: Fame & Fortune: How Successful Companies Build Winning Reputations
    • Author(s): Charles J. Fombrun, Cees B.M. van Riel
    • Release date: August 2003
    • Publisher(s): Pearson
    • ISBN: 9780130937377