Getting the Word Out

Every corporate leader believes theirs is a great organization (or ought to). Convincing others of that fact is the hard part. Here’s how some of Alberta’s Most Respected Corporations did it

by Derek Sankey

A hippopotamus might seem an unlikely candidate to help a company succeed in the telecommunications business, but Telus Corporation scored a coup when it launched an advertising campaign focused around the strangely endearing creature last Christmas. Set to the nostalgic notes of “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” the campaign was an unexpected hit and triggered a run on all things hippo at toy stores across Alberta and B.C. Responding to the demand, Telus sourced a line of plush hippo toys and sold 10,000 of them through its phone stores as a benefit for the Calgary Zoo. For the telecommunications company, it turned into a perfect opportunity to align its marketing and business goals with its reputation among key stakeholders.

“It was more of a charitable, giving event to raise funds through the sale of these (toys) to finance upgrades at the zoo,” says Simon Vincent, vice-president of business marketing for Telus. But for a company that, as indicated in Alberta Venture’s Most Respected Corporations survey conducted this spring by Leger Marketing, commands enviable respect from the business community but still has work to do on its popular image, it was public-relations gold.

Reputation is an important thing for a company like Telus that must simultaneously court customers in a competitive consumer marketplace, investors on the public markets, suppliers and partners within the business community and other stakeholders in what is still a regulated industry. But as the accompanying story (“The Worth of Being Worthy,” p. 35) makes clear, respect matters in virtually every business.

So what makes the companies on this year’s Most Respected list any different from other firms operating in this province? What are they doing right? According to business communications experts, a lot of factors drive positive reputation, beginning with financial results and continuing through customer satisfaction, effective communications, employee buy-in and good corporate citizenship. In the wake of high-profile corporate scandals, public trust especially is hard to earn these days. The sixth annual Edelman Trust Barometer survey found only one in five Canadians believe senior executives are credible, confirming similar findings from previous studies. And good reputation requires much more than trustworthy behaviour. It calls for a careful mix of just the right ingredients and an overriding, clear dedication to open, transparent communication rooted in sincere values.

If building respect was a multi-step program, the first step would be corporate performance. Business people in particular, highly attuned as they are to the nature of corporations and how they work, admire organizations with consistently above-average sales growth and profits for their industry. “It appears one of the best things companies can do to get this (Most Respected Corporations) designation is to make a lot of money,” says John Peloza, a business professor at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary.

“There’s some research that shows there is a very strong halo effect, though, on the other factors than financial performance,” Peloza notes, particularly when broader public opinion is taken into account. The public is more likely to view corporate performance through the lens of the company’s size, market share and longevity and, especially for businesses serving consumers, its record of meeting and exceeding customer expectations. This leads us to the second building block of respect: effective communications. In addition to doing its job well, a company needs to employ the full spectrum of tools available to it to communicate that success and get its corporate message out.

Gerry Protti, executive vice-president of corporate relations for EnCana Corporation, says one of the reasons his firm made the list in the category of financial performance, aside from its solid growth and stock performance, is a dedicated effort to address every single method of communicating its brand image and corporate message to the business community. “We’ve found that you cannot communicate enough,” explains Protti. Sure, every public company has to issue annual reports and plenty of hard data about what it is doing, but reputation isn’t gained from numbers alone. “You earn your reputation every day on the ground. It’s not going to be a statement made at the executive level that’s going to define (reputation), it’s going to be how you operate on the ground.” EnCana achieves this through industry task forces, more than 100 open houses and town hall meetings last year and a mix of face-to-face meetings, printed material and website content.

After demonstrating hard performance and communicating effectively, the third step might be to bring employees solidly on board. That’s been a cornerstone of Westjet Airlines Ltd.’s formula for more than a decade. WestJet ranked among the top three Most Respected Corporations in the category of human resources practices this year. It also took the top spot of all companies when it came to respect among the general public, with an astounding 90% approval rating and only 3% disapproval.

“As a business, the only real, sustainable source of competitive advantage is achieved through your people,” says Matthew Handford, executive vice-president of people for the Calgary-based no-frills airline. The company has become legendary for its down-to-earth approach to doing business. It routinely ranks as one of the most admired companies and Handford attributes much of that success to employee engagement and communication.

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