A few weeks ago, Nutro announced a voluntary recall of its dry cat food products in the US as well as in ten other countries. The cause: excessive levels of zinc in affected food. Typical of situations requiring a recall, the company issued a press release on their website stating the following:

“While we have received no consumer complaints related to this issue, cat owners should monitor their cat for symptoms, including a reduction in appetite or refusal of food, weight loss, vomiting or diarrhea. Consumers who have purchased product affected by this voluntary recall should return it to their retailer for a full refund or exchange for another NUTRO® dry cat food product. Cat owners who have more questions about the recall should call 1-800-833-5330 between the hours 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM CST.”

Pet owners were outraged. In contrast to what the company was saying, consumers were saying otherwise. ConsumerAffairs, a consumer complaint website, has logged hundreds of complaints over the past two years about the effects of Nutro on both cats and dogs. Comments were emotionally charged with reports of severe illness, unaffordable vet bills, and in some cases the death of a pet.

Daniel of Toronto, ON June 16, 2009:
“My cat has been vomitting for the past 3 days. He's in terrible pain (he has never ever been sick before). I told the vet all I fed him was nutro. Now I see this recall and realize the food I'm feeding him has an expiry of June 2010. IT'S THE NUTRO CAT FOOD MAKING HIM SICK. They wanted to admist my cat to intensive care at 2400 for the first 24 hours and 600 per day thereafter. I could not afford to do that. I paid 500 and now my cat is here at home vomitting and very sick. This is ridiculous. Nutro has to be held responsible. Is anyone aware of any class action lawsuits?"

News of the recall, as well as the Nutro’s response to allegations of test results commissioned by the Pet Food Products Safety Alliance (on a food sample purchase after the recall date), has produced unwelcomed media attention for the company. Conversations on Twitter and other social media outlets have been highly negative and critical of Nutro for being unresponsive, uncaring, and most importantly, untrustworthy. Companies that find themselves in this situation need to be aware of the root psychological concerns of their customers and address those concerns in communication strategies.

On first glance, Nutro may have thought the issue was (mis)communication. This would explain their defensive stance on the test results as well as their recent use of Twitter to engage Nutro naysayers and direct them to the appropriate company help channels:

“ReneeATNutro: @WildlifeProtect Hello! I work for Nutro Products & wanted to help get you correct info about recall. Pls see http://tinyurl.com/pztzm8”

However, Twitter comments and online complaints show that trust is the real issue on their customers’ minds. This is not an issue of how to get a timely refund for pet food or vet bills – it’s an issue of trust in a company to produce a safe product.

“Why should I trust a pet food company more concerned w/ damage control than quality control??”

Companies need comprehensive, real-time information to monitor media conversations about their brand and accurately assess the underlying concerns of their customers, not only during times of crisis, but to prevent such issues from turning into crises. Company actions and messages need to address root psychological factors or the issue will never be resolved.

It is critical for those who are looking to develop reputation management practices to recognize that reputation is not the same as representation, or image. What is held-out as “reputation management” by the plethora of purveyors who rise up out of a search on that term is often really something else – an expanded form of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) which has now grown beyond a focus on Google results to encompass the myriad other places and ways your name may be found online. It is unfortunate that “reputation” has become misused in the marketing of advanced SEO, because at its core, this practice is less about reputation than it is about representation. This is what much of “online reputation” management is really talking about – managing appearances.

To be sure, what people find online when searching on your name or specialty can influence your corporate reputation, but the representation of your brand online is only one of several components that make up corporate reputation. Reputation is about more than appearances, it is about the expectations that people hold, expectations which are built over time via a variety of interactions with the brand. While expectations are influenced by the way you appear online, they are also influenced in many other ways; through direct experience with the brand, through offline word of mouth, and through print and broadcast media as well as social media. Real reputation management needs to focus on measuring, understanding and engaging in all of these ways.

When “online” is attached to “reputation management”, buyers should be aware of what they are not getting. Real reputation management is about strategically and proactively building expectations of the brand which will provide advantages in positive times, and will create a buffer against brand damage should a reputation crisis arise. The better your reputation, the more it may be used to competitive advantage, and the more “benefit of the doubt” you will receive when troubles or accusations arise.

Reputation is built over time – and this is where its (mis)use as a term for marketing advanced SEO becomes so concerning. Because while real reputation management is long-term activity focused on building positive expectations amongst the full array of key stakeholders that may impact your brand, on-line representation and visibility is all about immediate results in a specific medium. If a potential or active reputation crisis arises around your brand, systems and services that promote your visibility online and seek to control other results may hold off the appearance of conversation about the problem (at least for a while), but they do nothing to help understand or resolve the reputation crisis itself.

I was reading the Wall Street journal article on the effects GM’s bankruptcy is going to have on prices for TV ads and I got to thinking about how GM’s bankruptcy filing could have an even greater effect. It could force those rooted in network ad purchasing processes that date back to the 60’s to take a step back and rethink their advertising and marketing strategies, perhaps even reassess the greater purpose for advertising and marketing in the first place.

GM clearly needed sales, but they also needed to improve their reputation. It’s no secret that traditional advertising media such as print news and television are no longer converting ad space to sales the way they used to. In fact, as far as television is concerned they are not even reaching audiences the way they used to, so it’s not clear that GM buying $2b in TV ads last year was the right path to sales.

And advertising is certainly not a path to improving corporate reputation. Reputation is about building trust, and think about it, who really trusts what a company says about itself in advertisements?

So what was the point of the 2 billion dollar ad program? $2b in ads won’t fix the fact that GM was making cars that weren’t appealing to the market in general.

Just as GM lost touch with consumers in the auto market, perfecting designs that appealed to very few in any demographic, so it lost touch with consumers in media. Unfortunately, for GM and their advertising agencies, social media marketing, viral marketing, web news, blogs, online television, dvr, on demand, and mobile internet have changed the game so drastically that I think the only companies that should still be advertising via traditional mediums such as television are those that clearly understand their market, and have a strategy that not only incorporates the ever changing media market, but thrives on it.

Hulu, for example has begun using clever television marketing campaigns to target the perfect audience delivered by TV; those people still watching television. It’s a simple strategy, yet one that GM could not get right. A successful marketing and advertising strategy understands audiences first and foremost. If you’re tuned in to your audience, they’ll tell you everything you need to do and say to keep them coming back all the while succeeding yourself. Presenting an image that is in accord with the needs and wishes of your audience is the way advertising and marketing is supposed to work.

Case in point, while networks are hurting for ad sales due to companies defecting to Hulu for advertising, Hulu is turning back around and using network television to gather more business by targeting audiences with messages that network TV is a dying breed and they should get off the sinking ship and watch commercial free TV on Hulu.

In an unprecedented entrance into online television, Hulu has created a household brand name that is being made as distinguishable as FOX or NBC through their ads. Further, they have established their brand as the leader for an industry that has yet to come to fruition. It’s a strategy that was born from Nielsen ratings and focus groups, but now thrives in twitter and Facebook, you tube and blogs. It lives and breathes in your audiences, and in their beliefs about brand authenticity, what your brand stands for and their connection to that belief. GM failed due to a poor business strategy but their efforts to reach out to consumers for help (by way of purchases) failed because they no longer understood who their target audiences needed to be, no longer understood their media for effective advertising and marketing to those audiences, and therefore no longer had an audience or a market.

Without knowing their audiences, GM’s advertisements became just another image on the screen, their message, just a bunch words on a billboard and their brand became just more words on a page.

So I guess what all this boils down to is; you'd better know your target audiences and you'd better know them well. As we see with GM you can have an unlimited advertising and marketing budget, the most sought after ad space, a well-recognized brand, even a good story to tell; but without knowing who you are trying to appeal to, and listening to them as much as you talk to them, you may as well have said and done absolutely nothing at all.