BRAND COMMUNICATION AND REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
Introduction
The concept of brand reputation has been considered as one of the respect beautiful in nature within the marketing strategies that are used by organizations. this particular concept displays the overall level of trust within an organization and hence helps in influencing the overall growth of the business. The introduction of brand reputation and the strategies that could be used for its management would help an organization instal a step forward of its competitor organizations and have a particularly positive impact on the bottom line of the organization (Foroudi, 2019). An effectively managed brand reputation might provide an organization with a certain level of competitive advantage in the current world. Most organizations generally look up to various reviews before purchasing a certain product or service (Park-Poaps and Kang, 2018). Apart from this the customers also go through various corporate social responsibility activities that have been carried out by the organization and tend to look up recommendations from families and friends. Management of brand reputation would help an organization in ticking almost all the boxes along with increasing their overall market share (Loureiro and Sarmento, 2017).
An effective brand reputation implies the fact that the customers of the organization trust the enterprise as well as feel-good regarding the purchase of their products and services. There are a huge number of components belonging to the concept of brand reputation and there are various strategies that could be used for managing them. If a particular process consists of a huge number of elements. The management of these aspects might seem to be a complicated task as well as one that would consume a huge amount of time. There are various tools that could be referred to as social listening tools which help in becoming much more manageable in nature (Mazurek, 2019). The concept of the management of brand reputation could be referred to as a particular process that helps in shaping the way customers see the business for matching the way the business owners see it. Videos negative sentiments across the organization might have a huge amount of negative impact on the achievements of the organization. Considering the aspect of assessing the brand reputation, business potential customers consider a huge range of factors into consideration, for example, trustworthiness, friendliness, the quality of products as well as services brand awareness (Bartikowski and Fastoso, 2020). The major aspects that must be considered by businesses in this concept are the fact that the internet provides various business owners ascertain means for building as well as managing their overall reputation. This contributes to building the reputation of the brand if the organizations follow various steps. This report discusses certain crises that have been occurred recently and their impacts on the brand image of the organizations. It further provides a detailed Idea of how the media had tackled the issue and if the organization had communicated effectively with the media.
In the year of 2019 authorities of the aviation industry across the world had grounded a particular passenger airline namely Boeing 737 MAX, it has been grounded due to the fact that more than 346 individuals had lost their lives in consecutive two plane crashes. One of the flights had been named lion air flight 610 which was crashed on October 29th in the year 2018. Another flight was named Ethiopian airlines flight 302 which was crashed on the 10th of March in the year 2019 (Sihite and Assauri, 2018). Various investigators have determined the fact that a particular automatic flight control that was located in the max namely, Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System had malfunctioned due to certain reasons in both the flights. This particular scenario had sent the aircraft into the mode of nosedives. In the month of November of the year 2018, just a week after the accident faced by lion air, U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing had sent various airlines that had contributed to updated directives that inform the crews how to disable MCAS in case it malfunctions. The organization has faced a huge number of criticism for the purpose of vomiting the overall system from various crew manuals as well as training. In the month of December of the year 2018, a particular study that had been unpublished in nature and carried out by FAA had predicted the fact that MCAS head the ability to cause accidents in the future as well (Ryan and Casidy, 2018). Despite this, the agency had believed that various advisories to the organization will be sufficient until the system is completely updated. On the 10th of march of the year 2019, the day on which the second crush has taken place, Ethiopian Airlines has been grounded.
After the crash on the 11th of March, the Civil Aviation Administration of China had ordered the very first grounding that took nationwide. This particular grounding had been followed by most of the regulations into sudden succession. The FAA had affirmed publicly the actual airworthiness of the airlines on the 11th of March, after that it was grounded on the 13th of march after the overall evidence had been received regarding the similarities of accidents (Martínez-Ferrero and García-Sánchez, 2018). By the time of the 18th of march all the 387 aircraft which were known to serve around 8600 flights every week for more than 59 airlines had been grounded across the world. At the time of these groundings, the organization had suspended all the deliveries of maths to the airlines. Besides this organization head produced another set of around 400 aircraft before the overall manufacturing had been halted in the year 2020 and the month of January (Park-Poaps and Kang, 2018). The certification of FAA regarding the max had been investigated by various teams of transportation government, US Congress, FBI as well as the panels of Ad-Hoc. This particular aspect had a question if the delegation of authority had weakened the overall oversight of the organization. Adding up to these issues with the MCAS various manufacturing as well as system defects had also been uncovered (Hemsley-Brown and Melewar, 2016). A huge number of investigators had published various findings in their initial anniversaries of various accidents. A particular organization belonging to Indonesia had faulted a particular design of aircraft along with its maintenance, certification as well as actions of the flight crew. The Ethiopian ECAA, which had determined the fact that this particular flight crew had tried to attempt a particular recovery process, assigned the entire blame on the software design of the aircraft. A particular organization belonging to America had concluded that various malfunctions between the aircraft had been resulted due to a huge number of alerts in the cockpit which had confused the crew members of the flight in case of both the crashes. the house of representatives belonging to the United States had which is the organization of culture of concealment at the time of its certification along with the aftermath in case of both the accidents (Barhorst and McLean, 2019). In the month of January of 2020 organization had reversed its policies along with recommending the flight simulator training for all the pilots of Max. According to various reports the longest grounding of a particular airliner located in the United States had been estimated to cost the organization 18.6 billion dollars within the month of March of the year 2020. This particular aspect had been a particular subject of various indefinite delays that have been caused due to the pandemic of COVID-19 (Park -Poaps and Kang, 2018). By the month of April of the year 2020 the airlines, as well as the basis, had resulted in cancelling more than 200 orders for max.
One more price that had been occurred lately includes the ban of Huawei in the United States. After the organization head appeared on this particular list, the CFO of the organization had been arrested. According to various reports it has been stated that the return of the organization to the list of the prices had underlined the status of the organization as a particular lightning rod for certain geopolitical scrutiny (Kogler and Rokka, 2016). In the year 2019 organization head face continuous opposition from the government of the United States. This particular aspect has stepped up the effort of the government in banning the organization from the communication network of the nation. Apart from this, the United States had also tried to make many more other Nations follow the lead. The United States had been successful in making other Nations ban the organization, this could be started because Australia and also banned the organization as well as its product on the grounds of national security where has the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Germany, and some more Nations have not yet provided their final decisions. The attempt of the organization for winning over international scepticism is not a new phenomenon (Ledikwe and Klopper, 2019). For a certain better part of this particular decade, various flagships of China tech organizations had been considered to be locked in a certain series that is never-ending in nature. This particular series includes battles for easing suspicion, especially in the West where uh it has links to the government of China which had made it an easy target for this particular charge that contributed to acting as a proxy for Beijing. This particular organization is not the only Chinese organization to gain complaints regarding unwarranted scrutiny from Western Nations. Despite receiving continuous opposition in the remarkable rise of the organization, it has continued to grow at a huge rate in the year 2019. This particular year had also provided the very first evidence of a certain enlightened PR strategy of the organization after a huge number of years spent on stonewalling as well as silence.
According to various reports, it has been found that various investigators have stated that the organization must pet themselves on their backs for the efforts that they have put in the year 2019 (Proserpio, 2016). No other organization had filled this particular player of the trade names that have been carried out by Donald trump than this organization. Despite this, they continued to carry out their business, found various deals that could be closed, made various friends in numerous Nations along with painting their staff a certain level of bonus for the purpose of staying loyal to the organization. According to various reports it has been stated that this particular concept had been the best example of leadership, efforts as well as benefits of a particular global perspective that is also broad in nature. according to various reports the range of challenges that have been faced by the organization could have been scuppered by any other organization. The rest of the officials as well as the daughter of the owner of the business had resulted in blacklisting out various networks of the organization along with various accusations of privacy hacks and a huge set of fake news (Ahmad and Tyagi, 2018). Some of these individual shocks have taken down a huge number of organizations much before.
This particular section includes a detailed comparison of both the crisis that has been occurred in different organizations. In the case of the initial crisis, it has been found that the organization was guilty of taking the first accident lightly which resulted in Amazon prices within the business operations of the organization and hence causing more accidents. From this crisis, it could be stated that had the organization take necessary steps against the issues faced by the aircraft or the crew members just after the initial accident, the accident that had occurred after that could have been prevented (Butkhuzi and Ghaleb, 2019). On the contrary, from the second crisis, it could be stated that the organization had faced a huge number of allegations or criticism from various Nations regarding their privacy concerns, despite this organization kept on operating in various Nations and it had been rated as one of the best organizations in the telecommunication industry. The performance of the organization had been coming table in nature and it had also been agreed by a huge number of professionals and investigators belonging to different organizations.
Which was handled well and which badly
The initial case was not handled effectively as understood from various studies carried out. It could be stated so because in the initial case, the organization did not undertake necessary steps against the first accident and hence prevent any further accidents. Instead, it tried to cover up and showcase that there had been issues in its software that were used in the aircraft (Laine, 2018). Organization head field in handling the situation. On the contrary, the next organization that had been banned from various Nations had shown outstanding performance in its field and it has been one of the best organizations in the field of the communication sector. As a result, it could be stated that the initial organization could not handle the criticism effectively whereas the next organization had been successful in not only handling the criticism but also overcoming the losses that it had faced due to the ban in various Nations.
In the case of the first crisis the brand reputation has been affected majorly because even after the organization resumes its services with completely efficient aircraft, customers good be doubtful before they book a ticket on the airlines. Apart from this organizations will be involved in various aspects of media due to their past activities. Besides this, it could be stated that the organization had a major loss in the case of its customer base because the loyalty of the customers had been affected after continued accidents (Wiedmann and Schmidt, 2017). On the contrary, another organization that has been discussed in this particular report has had a major gain in its brand image because according to reports the organization has completely changed its technical aspects which were supposed to create privacy issues in the products. This has been carried out in order to maintain the customer base that the organization had gained in its initial stages. After the ban in the US and some more states like China, the organization head changes its decisions and business operations in order to ensure that no other Nations ban their products. In the initial stages of banning the organization had a slight impact on its brand image but it was successful in restoring it after it brought about changes in its products and it was qualified to be one of the best selling brands in the sector of communications (Qalati and Yuan, 2019).
The relevance of theories of marketing, public relations or crisis management
According to the public relations theory namely the situational theory, it states that an organization must undertake its operations depending on the situation that it has been going through. This theory had been applied in the second case where understanding the issues of customers, the organization had improved performance as well as its product which resulted in carrying on business in many other Nations in spite of the ban in other Nations (Park-Poaps and Kang, 2018). In the case of the second crisis, the decision theory of crisis management seems to be applicable because the organization has applied this particular theory in order to change its decision at the time of crisis. Despite being banned from various Nations organizations had changed their decisions on their operations in many other Nations and improve their products such that they do not face any more bans from other Nations.
- Media coverage: did the media cover the issue fairly?
In the case of the initial organization, the media did not cover the issue fairly because the only fault was shown of the organization and its business operations. it did not mention the fault of the suppliers of the raw materials who had provided quality products to the organization. in the case of a second organization, the media have represented the case fairly because on one hand, it has stated that the organization had been banned from various Nations due to its privacy concerns, on the other hand, it also states that the organization had made a come back in its field and performed effectively.
- Media handling: did the organization successfully communicate through the media?
In the case of the initial organization it did not communicate with the media effectively and it did not represent its case clearly such that the world could understand the actual issues within the software of the aircraft. Apart from this detailed investigation, it was found that some of the professionals belonging to the organization where are also guilty of manufacturing air crafts with guilty software even after the first accident. In the second case, ration has dealt with the media very effectively which resulted in bringing out the case clear in front of the audience as well as the media (Kuznetsov and Gavrilov, 2019). The organization has proved with its operations that banning them from several Nations did not result in the failure of the organization.
- Social media: to what extent did social communications drive the crisis? How did the organization(s) respond?
According to various reports, social media had acted like a bush fire in this crisis. In the case of the initial crisis, there have been various fake news on the social media platforms which not only created false allegations on organizations but also reduce the brand image to its customers. In the case of the second crisis, the customers had considered that the organization would not make a comeback in other Nations as it has been banned from the major Nations where it could have been able to make better business.
- Did the crisis arise internally or was there an external catalyst?
The crisis had completely arisen internally because even after the first accident, due to a lack of inefficient processes the next accidents had occurred. In the case of the second crisis as well, various Nations had banned the organization due to certain security issues in their products. Hence it could be stated that there was no external catalyst to accept the media and the entire crisis had offered internally.
- How well did the organization handle the technical aspects of the crisis?
The technical aspects had not been handle in the initial organization effectively because it kept on facing the worst side of the crisis due to one after the other accidents that kept on occurring in their aircraft. In the next organization the critical aspects have been handle very well because, after the initial ban, the organization had improved its performance in the case of its products and had been included in one of the maximum selling products in the world.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it could be stated that the management of brand reputation needs continuous activities carried out by organizations that are spread over time to time. In most cases, organizations are not able to see the actual results just after the implementation of strategies, but in the long run, the management of brand reputation would bring about various benefits that are substantial in nature within the business. There are various elements that are to be considered before the management of brand reputation, some of the elements include the strategies that must be implemented in order to do so. Apart from this one of the best measures that had been proven to be effective in the case of brand management includes brand monitoring. According to various reports, the management of brand reputation generally starts with the concept of brand monitoring. This involves the ability of the organization to react to various online mentions, in this case, the organization would require to be aware of anything that is said regarding the company, service as well as products on online platforms. The organization would be able to monitor the mentions that they are interested in using manual processes, an individual belonging to the organization can type the name of the organization in a particular search engine and hence examine the results that are found one after another. this particular approach towards the reputation management of the brand has one of the major benefits which includes the organization that does not require painting for any sort of additional tool. The organization would be required to be careful enough because for the starters searching manually for various online mentions would require a huge amount of time, the individual might me some crucial comments which might result in writing and spiralling the bandit vacation in the upcoming future. Apart from this, a huge number of tools for brand monitoring are available that offer better analytics metrics which would be helpful for the organization for measuring various results regarding their marketing strategies.
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