Sustainability reputation is becoming a critical success factor for companies. On the one hand, because regulatory requirements are forcing top decision-makers to change their business models and processes. On the other hand, society’s expectations of companies are changing drastically. B2C and B2B communication are now being joined by B2S communication: business-to-society communication.

The authors highlight the major regulatory, political, and social lines of development facing companies and their top decision makers. And they use numerous practical examples to show how companies should respond to this new situation, especially in terms of communication. This makes this book a valuable practical guide for decision-makers in management and communications. After all, the tectonic shifts in society’s expectations of sustainable action are not only a risk for companies – but at least as big an opportunity.

Whether a global corporation or a successful medium-sized company – in the fast-moving and networked media society, professional corporate communications have proven to be indispensable. At the same time, this itself is subject to permanent change. Especially because the number of communication channels (especially in the area of social media) has increased by leaps and bounds, while at the same time the classic communication media in the areas of print and moving images are also changing without disappearing, however, leap innovations such as text robots or new monitoring systems based on broad-based digitization, require rapid adaptation again and again, social demands (such as the demand for a driving ban on diesel vehicles, the abolition of single-use plastic products, or criticism of sugar and meat) are at the same time becoming more emphatic and professional in their enforcement, and the company’s own organization must be constantly repositioned and realigned as a result of changing business models.

The good news is that the resulting compulsion to change is always coupled with the opportunity to reshape. However, the multitude of actual opportunities only becomes visible when the drivers of change are perceived as good opportunities and realistically exploited. That’s why we hear more and more frequently the question of what communications professionals should be guided by if they don’t just want to react reflexively to the changes.

The study presented here shows how the best, referred to here as the communications elite, differ from the basic PR experts, as the more average professionals are called. The present results make their competence advantage as well as the resulting advantages in action visible. The differences are neither random in nature nor normatively asserted. They were determined empirically and tested for significance by statistical tests.

13 recognized communications experts have commented on the results of the study from the perspective of experienced practitioners: Christof Ehrhart (Deutsche Post DHL), Bernd Engelien (Zurich Group Germany), Martin Frommhold (Otto Group), Christian Garrels (ADAC), Judith von Gordon-Weichelt (Boehringer Ingelheim), Nils Haupt (Hapag-Lloyd), Jörg Howe (Daimler), Ingo Koch (Schufa), Uwe Kohrs (impact Agentur für Kommunikation), Jürgen Kornmann (Deutsche Bahn), Richard Lips (Commerzbank), Jan Runau (Adidas), Alexander Zell(Fraport).

 

The Internet is the new leading medium. 95 percent of Germans use the Net regularly. This means it has overtaken free-to-air television (86 percent). So there is no way around digital communication. But how are companies and institutions supposed to navigate the exploding amount of content? The inundation with news and information offers everywhere leads to self-seeking isolation. Most users hang out on Threema or in WhatsApp groups, exchanging photos, appointments, thoughts and links there. On Facebook and Twitter, active usage is declining.
Online, the target groups are increasingly difficult to reach. It’s not that they stroll less in the digital world, consume less information, or communicate less. They are becoming more selective and no longer let every offer of information get to them. The hurdle for communicators has thus become higher – when a good portion of companies have not yet really arrived in the virtual world. The situation is reminiscent of the rabbit and hedgehog game. The hare makes every effort to catch up; the hedgehog is already there. This race cannot be won with pure actionism alone, without a strategic approach to social media communication. Companies with a well-defined social media strategy achieve their goals online much more frequently than those that operate without a strategy. However, it is not enough to formulate a strategy “from the gut”.
This book highlights the 12 success factors for social media strategies, providing communicators with useful guidance for their own strategy development. Two best practice articles from VORDENKERN in social media strategy – Deutsche Bahn and Microsoft – offer helpful insights into practice.

About the author and other contributors

Jörg Forthmann is a graduate industrial engineer and managing partner of Faktenkontor GmbH. After a sound journalistic education, he worked as a freelance journalist for the Hamburger Abendblatt and as a PR consultant in Hamburg, among others. He then worked in the press and public relations department of Nestlé Deutschland AG. His scope of work included corporate, brand and crisis communications. From 1999 to 2002, he was head of corporate communications at Mummert Consulting AG. In 2003, Jörg Forthmann founded Mummert Communications, now Faktenkontor, together with Dr. Roland Heintze. At Faktenkontor, Jörg Forthmann is responsible for analysis and in-house editing. He is also Faktenkontor’s expert for crisis PR. Jörg Forthmann sees the integration of a business perspective into press and public relations work as particularly important for modern, successful PR. Because PR can influence more than only the picture of a company in the reporting by integration of economic bases a professional PR work can promote also directly the selling, win new customers and increase so the paragraph of products and services purposefully and comprehensibly. Such a business approach, including a well-founded performance review, also strengthens PR departments within their own companies, because those who can prove that and how much they contribute to the operating result have a much stronger position in budget negotiations.

Dr. Roland Heintze is a political scientist and managing partner of Faktenkontor GmbH. He studied political science and history at the University of Hamburg until 1999, when he received a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation to support young journalists. After a sound journalistic education, he worked as a freelance journalist, among others for Die Welt, Welt am Sonntag and Financial Times Deutschland. He worked as a freelance PR consultant for TOPAdvice Heintze & Partner before becoming press spokesman for Mummert Consulting AG from 2000 to 2003. In 2003, Dr. Roland Heintze founded today’s Faktenkontor together with Jörg Forthmann. At Faktenkontor, Dr. Roland Heintze is now responsible for strategy, sales and consulting. Faktenkontor consultants develop customized communication concepts for clients and implement them unerringly in campaigns. Dr. Roland Heintze sees the ability to understand not only the goals of one’s own company but also the view and working methods of editorial offices and journalists and to serve them with the appropriate content as a key competence for successful PR work. A press release only has a chance of being picked up by the media if it not only represents the interests of the sender, but also meets the needs of the readers and this is also quickly and clearly recognizable to the editor. The best means to achieve this are facts that are relevant and resilient from the editorial point of view. Dr. Roland Heintze is also an expert in reputation management, PR campaigns and social media concepts. In his blog Reputation Professionals, he regularly addresses how companies and managers can nurture and protect their reputations. In addition to his work for Faktenkontor and numerous voluntary commitments, Dr. Roland Heintze was a member of the Hamburg Parliament from 2004 to 2015, where he chaired the Budget Committee from November 2009 to March 2011 and served as deputy parliamentary group chairman from 2011 to 2015. Today he is CDU state chairman.

 

Threats to the reputation and standing of a company and its leadership have multiple sources: Product development, investor relations, supply chain, IT, sales, finance, marketing and so on. This is why we speak of a meta-risk. Structurally, companies often only work on preparing for crises and managing the crisis itself. This area is complex enough. The crisis communication guide of the Federal Ministry of the Interior alone comprises 52 pages. However, preparation for a crisis, no matter how professional it may be, does not result in a program of action for avoiding crises. This is where this book comes in. It gives top managers a simple thought pattern for a complex task. The Chinese general Sun Tsu helps with this. His thoughts and insights are around 2,500 years old. Some of these are still taught today at military academies and used in business, especially marketing. The authors of the book, experienced crisis communicators who have proven themselves in numerous assignments, transfer a narrow selection of Sun Tsu’s strategies to today’s business life and thus provide top managers with recommendations for action that can be easily integrated into day-to-day business: Know yourself – Know your opponent – Know the terrain.

 

About the author and other contributors

Jörg Forthmann is a graduate industrial engineer and managing partner of Faktenkontor GmbH. After a sound journalistic education, he worked as a freelance journalist for the Hamburger Abendblatt and as a PR consultant in Hamburg, among others. He then worked in the press and public relations department of Nestlé Deutschland AG. His scope of work included corporate, brand and crisis communications. From 1999 to 2002, he was head of corporate communications at Mummert Consulting AG. In 2003, Jörg Forthmann founded Mummert Communications, now Faktenkontor, together with Dr. Roland Heintze. At Faktenkontor, Jörg Forthmann is responsible for analysis and in-house editing. He is also Faktenkontor’s crisis PR expert. Jörg Forthmann sees the integration of a business perspective into press and public relations work as particularly important for modern, successful PR. Because PR can do more than just influence the image of a company in the media. By integrating economic principles, professional PR work can also directly promote sales, win new customers and thus increase sales of products and services in a targeted and comprehensible manner. Such a business approach, including a well-founded performance review, also strengthens PR departments within their own companies, because those who can prove that and how much they contribute to the operating result have a much stronger position in budget negotiations.

Dr. Roland Heintze is a political scientist and managing partner of Faktenkontor GmbH. He studied political science and history at the University of Hamburg until 1999, when he received a scholarship from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation to support young journalists. After a sound journalistic education, he worked as a freelance journalist, among others for Die Welt, Welt am Sonntag and Financial Times Deutschland. He worked as a freelance PR consultant for TOPAdvice Heintze & Partner before becoming press spokesman for Mummert Consulting AG from 2000 to 2003. In 2003, Dr. Roland Heintze founded today’s Faktenkontor together with Jörg Forthmann. At Faktenkontor, Dr. Roland Heintze is now responsible for strategy, sales and consulting. Faktenkontor consultants develop customized communication concepts for clients and implement them unerringly in campaigns. Dr. Roland Heintze sees the ability to understand not only the goals of one’s own company but also the view and working methods of editorial offices and journalists and to serve them with the appropriate content as a key competence for successful PR work. A press release only has a chance of being picked up by the media if it not only represents the interests of the sender, but also meets the needs of the readers and this is also quickly and clearly recognizable to the editor. The best means to achieve this are facts that are relevant and resilient from the editorial point of view. Dr. Roland Heintze is also an expert in reputation management, PR campaigns and social media concepts. In his blog Reputation Professionals, he regularly focuses on how companies and managers can nurture and protect their reputations. In addition to his work for Faktenkontor and numerous voluntary commitments, Dr. Roland Heintze was a member of the Hamburg Parliament from 2004 to 2015, where he chaired the Budget Committee from November 2009 to March 2011 and served as deputy parliamentary group chairman from 2011 to 2015. Today he is CDU state chairman.

Prof. Dr. Lothar Rolke is an authority in PR. He taught and researched at the Mainz University of Applied Sciences for a quarter of a century. And in doing so, understood how to combine science with practice. Influenced by his time at the Reporter PR agency, he has always sought the relevance of his research to practical applications, making him an asset not only to students but also to corporate communicators, who have often sought his advice. Now Lothar Rolke has retired, or, as he himself says, entered a new freedom . Those who know him suspect that he will still remain connected to PR. His penchant for the true success factors in PR, for the business significance of corporate communications and the stakeholder compass he developed will continue to drive him in the future, but in moderation, because he already has plans with his wife and family for the time after university. In his many years at Mainz University of Applied Sciences, Lothar Rolke has earned an excellent reputation in a variety of positions. It is futile to try to document this completely. Nevertheless, we have dared to try and ask Rolke’s companions for a contribution about common experiences, memories of encounters and incidents or about topics they associate with Lothar Rolke. The result is a colorful potpourri of sometimes personal, sometimes professional contributions – all in all a breviary about this special person.

“Better to lose money than reputation.” This was a motto of Robert Bosch, the founder of the German technology company of the same name. More than 130 years after Bosch, we should specify based on experience: “Better to lose only money than money and reputation.” Because if you lose reputation and standing, sooner or later you also lose profit.Are the connections really that clear? If you lose reputation, you lose money? And whoever gains reputation, sooner or later it also fills the cash register? In most cases, yes, even if the causalities are confusing, would probably be the honest answer. In this book, we examine the cause, effect, and magnitude of reputational gains and losses through practical cases. And we answer the question of how to manage economically significant, i.e. money-making, reputations.Incidentally, this topic is not only of concern to managers and communications experts, but increasingly also to institutional investors, proxy advisors and insurance companies.

Investors are withdrawing from companies that earn their money with weapons, tobacco, addictive substances, child labor, exploitation or climate-damaging production because they fear losses in returns and reputation. And they, along with influential voting advisors, are pushing for so-called “clawback” clauses to be included in directors’ service contracts. This allows a company to withhold or reclaim variable compensation, among other things if top management has caused reputational damage. Fault in the legal sense, negligence or intent, is not required. In some arrangements, the company does not even have to prove financial damage.The May 2019 draft of the new Corporate Governance Code includes a recommendation for including “clawback” clauses in management board contracts. Most German corporations comply with the requirements of the Code.

The revised regulations will come into force upon publication by the Federal Ministry of Justice, which is not expected to happen until after the parliamentary summer recess in 2019. This would once again clarify for the approximately 700 listed companies in Germany that the Board of Management is responsible for managing valuable reputations – and is liable for damages.In order to be able to understand developments in individual cases as well, we have presented success stories, crises and scandals from practice in their chronology. On the basis of these cases, a clear system emerges for how communications managers and top executives can steer their companies in a crisis and avoid reputational damage. The message behind this book is clear: Reputation can be managed! At the latest after reading this book, there is no longer the excuse that reputation is too diffuse to manage. Reputation can be managed just like other risk classes in the company.

 

If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would spend the first 55 minutes just trying to find the right question because once I had it, I could solve the problem in less than 5 minutes. Albert Einstein is said to have said this once. But what are the most important issues that our industry should address? What moves us forward and ensures success and survival? With this in mind, we approached experienced communicators and asked them to send us their most important questions for the PR industry in Germany in 2020. The resulting collection of questions was the valuable basis for this study project. For the almost most important 100 questions in PR, we looked for the best answers in five rounds of questions. From the very extensive response from the industry, we have selected 329 answers because, in our estimation, they reflect particularly impressively what concerns PR managers. For us, the answerers are the brightest minds of PR 2020 . Our thanks also go to them, because they have devoted themselves to the questions, in part with remarkable energy, and provided an exciting potpourri of impulses that make this book worth reading.

How top managers overcome the dangerous dichotomy between social responsibility and commerce.

This book is about the beginning of a tremendous upheaval. Climate change, the destruction of nature and livelihoods, and the increasing division of societies are threatening the way we live and do business. We can’t go on like this, we are going in the wrong direction. Companies are not just bystanders in these developments. Either they have long been actors by their own choice, or they are forced into positioning. Investors, policymakers, regulators, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and, increasingly, their own employees, consumers, business customers and even the courts are demanding that businesses do their part to fight climate change and keep communities cohesive.

Companies and their products and services must fulfill a purpose, a “purpose” that goes beyond making money, is the appeal. This is not empty fashionable talk. Some products have already lost their raison d’être in this change and have disappeared from the market. Companies and entire industries are rebuilding their product ranges at great expense. Some companies that understood too late or not at all have already gone bankrupt.

From the perspective of crisis prevention and management, a new form of crisis is emerging. Let’s call it the crisis of meaning or legitimacy. Those whose economic activities and products do not protect the climate and contribute to the common good risk being ostracized, boycotted and subjected to regulatory pressure. Neutrality is not enough. Positioning and action are required. We are still at the beginning of this development. The contours of the economic order of the 21st century are still blurred. Nonetheless, violations of the newly emerging rules and values can have tangible consequences, as initial cases from the field show. It’s time to prepare.

Those who do nothing or the wrong thing become targets for activists and politicians pushing for change. In the worst case, a company is stylized via the media as a scapegoat for the failings of many, an inflated symbol. Responsible risk management should try to exclude this case.