Customer safety, store security, and most prevalently, unbridled consumerism, were some of the rational concerns that appeared in the media post Wal-Mart’s Black Friday tragedy.

Although a majority of the stories focused on the human aspects of the disaster – the AP reported shoppers behaving like “savages” – Wal-Mart has not been without its critics:

“Time for the families of these victims to SUE WAL-MART to the fullest extent of the law. SUE them - for having these sales and NOT CONTROLLING THE CROWDS ON THEIR PROPERTY, which causes DEATH for an innocent victim.”
- aleablog.com 11.25.2008

Welcome to Death Mart
- dailyrevolution.net 11.28.2008

“Nothing in that store was worth the life of an employee, and yet stores like Wal-Mart want to create fervor about their sales to boost their bottom lines and please their stockholders”
- worldofelle.blogspot.com 11.29.2008

Liability aside, Wal-Mart faces a challenge to its reputation. As a leader in the retail industry, consumers will expect them to present a resolution to any perceived problems surrounding Black Friday sales promotions. In order to recoup and maintain reputation, the retailer, and others alike, will need to demonstrate that they have addressed rational concerns with physical proofs, whether it’s heightened holiday security, less emphasis on “deep discounts”, or longer sales events.

Physical proofs will also need to be coupled with tireless communications that address the underlying concerns of this inevitably perennial issue. evolve24 risk metrics – a measurement of the psychological drivers that underscore communications - reveal that messages about the event contain high frequencies of anxiety and a sense of powerlessness. Wal-Mart’s communications will need to allay consumer anxieties and demonstrate that they have control over a seemingly uncontrollable situation.

Aligning physical proofs with messaging that addresses underlying concerns will be integral to Wal-Mart’s reputation strategy, especially when next year’s holiday season nears. As noted, other retailers will also need to take heed and demonstrate that they are in front of this issue using a similar strategy, because, as we know, these issues do not dissipate from the popular consciousness quickly.

My last blog referred to the “Motrin Moms” as a “Stakeholder Group”. In our initial conversations with clients and partners, we are often asked what we mean by “Stakeholder”.

A firm’s stakeholders include any person or group of people who have an interest in the firm, and whose interaction related to that interest may directly impact the firm’s operations. The “Stakeholder Dashboard” in our application “The Mirror” provides metrics around the most quoted people, the most prolific authors, and the inter-relationships between and among the most authoritative and influential people, organizations, authors, and publications related to media about a firm or industry.

Given our clients’ concern with cultivating their reputations for competitive advantage, the ability of a person or people to significantly impact their reputation is by association an ability to impact their operations. Thus, any person or group of people who can impact the firm’s reputation are stakeholders in the firm.

When Motrin responded to online outrage about an ad campaign, it was not responding to a boycott or to lost sales, but to the threat of these things if the weekend outrage by a small group of tech-savvy mothers expanded to a weekday discourse in the mainstream news. Motrin was not sure that this stakeholder group’s outrage would transfer to consumers-at-large, but they were not willing to take the chance that it would. As Motrin continues to apologize and claim that it has learned its lesson, it is assuring its stakeholders that they can have faith in Motrin moving forwards – in other words – it is attempting to repair and improve its reputation. This indicates to me that even if they were not convinced that the “Motrin Moms” outrage would directly cost them sales, concern over a set-back in Motrin’s reputation was enough to justify action.

Motrin received a quick lesson in the power of small but influential group of stakeholders. Other firms would be wise to learn this lesson, since Social Media has certainly given significant voice to formal and information organizations of people who previously would have had trouble being heard. In other words – social media has engendered a wide array of stakeholders who, even five years ago, would have had found it much harder to find like-minded counterparts who shared their stake in the actions of the firm, to let them organize quickly, and to make their collective voice heard around violations of their interests in the firm’s actions. Now that this wide array of stakeholders does have this capability to organize and influence, firms must stop thinking just of “markets” and “segments” and must add “stakeholder analysis” to their strategic planning.

Motrin’s recent run-in with online moms illustrates the kind of feedback that social media enables. But more important than the technology itself is the lesson about the people behind the technology; about what can happen when the beliefs of an important and active stakeholder group are not understood. Social Media is not the cause of diversity of desires and beliefs amongst a brand’s consumers; that diversity has always existed, social media is simply making this diversity visible, and dangerous to ignore.

Marketing campaigns are usually targeted to particular “stakeholders” and their values based on market research and investment in campaign design. In the mass media world of one-way communications, a sample of audience sentiment was pretty safe, but in the new environment of instant feedback, samples are not good enough, as they may miss small but influential stakeholder pockets.

To understand what communications will appeal to specific stakeholders, we must understand their beliefs. Our beliefs about the world can be understood as the source of order in each of our worlds. Beliefs are simply structures that we use to bring rational and emotional structure to the world we perceive and move through. Beliefs create emotional safety, as they resolve uncertainties about our past, our present and our future; uncertainties that would otherwise create anxiety. Because their greatest value comes from bringing order to the perception of our world, beliefs become most unstable when risks arise and the sense of order is threatened.

Beliefs are a driver of behavior – we like to respond rationally to perceptions, evaluating our perceptions to choose appropriate responses rather than simply reacting to perceptions. We like to have and know the rationale and beliefs that support our actions, and we like to act on our beliefs. And as we act, we seek confirmation that our actions are based on sound judgment (i.e. are understood as legitimate) thus seeking confirmation of our beliefs from others. Belief systems are feedback systems, with individual beliefs influenced by culture, and with culture shaped by individual beliefs.

Marketing and communications strive to associate their brand with the beliefs of the audience that bring order from chaos, the beliefs that create sense of things and let the audience feel grounded, comfortable and safe with their world. Motrin clearly achieved the opposite amongst a highly active stakeholder group in its effort to appeal to the too-broad audience category of “moms”. Because it did not give thought to the broad and diverse scope of deeply-held beliefs about the values of being “mom”, Motrin activated beliefs to generate behavior, just not in the way they’d hoped.