For the first time in quite a while, the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) is opening up one of their exclusive webinars to non-members. We’ll be the presenters and our readers are free to join. See Below.

If your management hasn’t asked you what steps the company is taking to improve its ability to manage reputational risk, chances are they will. Risk of all kinds has climbed to the top of management and board agendas and reputational risk ranks within the top ten of CEO concerns.

If past experience is any indicator, 10% of the Fortune 1000 will have a severe reputational event over the next decade that costs them 25% or more of their share value. Worse, virtually every organization today is unequipped to fully manage, measure and monitor the “reputational defects” that occur daily across their operations -contributing to what is the lowest trust environment in a century.

Fortunately new ideas and performance-based practices are emerging.

JOIN MENG ON THURSDAY, APRIL 22nd AT NOON EASTERN TIME FOR…

SECRETS TO AVOIDING THE 7 DEADLY REPUTATIONAL MISSTEPS
Open to Non-Members
Practical New Rules & Strategies to Help Management Teams Reduce Reputational Risk and Improve Corporate Performance

APRIL 22, NOON ET

Jarvis Cromwell and Jerry Doyle bring years of experience to the topic and have consulted to and worked for the highest levels of corporate, government and nonprofit management. They will explain how the environment has radically changed in recent years and offer new techniques that you can begin applying immediately. Learn what the 7 deadly missteps are – so you don’t make them!

by JARVIS CROMWELL

We got pounded by lots of fresh white stuff up here and the skiing is going to be epic this weekend. Really. Dudes, bust out of work and head up now.

Trust that report? Well, putting promises of epic runs down the mountain aside for a second, what really gives us confidence when it comes to leaders and brands is pretty straightforward: Tell it like it is, be highly competent, and deliver on your promises.

Painfully, the news media reminds us daily of how organizations wander off the tell-it-like-it-is reservation.

The latest industry to take the perp walk? Ski resorts. Two economists at Dartmouth recently published a study, Wintertime for Deceptive Advertising, finding that resorts have a tendency to, shall we say, boost the snowfall count.

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STEPHANIE FIERMAN

A recession landmine is like a real landmine. It’s going to kill or maim whomever steps on it. The guilty, the innocent… it doesn’t matter. A landmine does not discriminate. You just explode.

And so it was with a recent Pepsi ad for G2 (low-calorie Gatorade).

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NICOLETTE WURING

Garage Tip: In Today’s Low-trust World Your Promises Are Less Likely to Be Believed. Focus Instead on Improving Your Ability to Deliver Meaningful Interactions With Customers — the kind that Build Trust

A cable company in Europe launched a re-branding soon after a roll-up of acquisitions by a group of venture capitalists. The investors demanded that the re-branding take place almost immediately.This was not only premature and meaningless to employees and customers, it proved harmful.
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When my brother sent me an Amazon link to Playmobil’s Security Check Point toy I was sure this was either a joke or a phishing scheme.

Nope. It’s real. Buy it here. Cost of the toy: $62. Customer reviews: priceless.

Welcome to planet earth circa 2009. If we had to pick a symbol for the low-trust headwinds blowing a destructive chill around the globe, this might be it.

Needless to say some Amazon customers are having fun with this one, as in this example:

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By Jarvis Cromwell for The Reputation Garage

A majority of the most-looked up words in the online Merriam-Webster dictionary once again reflect the current historically low public trust environment. In this year’s top ten the standout candidate for low-trust word of the year is “vet”, which comes in at #2.

Webster’s top ten list for 2008, based on total number of searches of their online dictionary, is as follows:

1. Bailout
2. Vet
3. Socialist
4. Maverick
5. Bipartisan
6. Trepidation
7. Precipice
8. Rogue
9. Misogyny
10. Turmoil

We doubt many people will have to look up the meaning of “bailout” in 2009.

The dictionary’s list has been mirroring the low-trust environment for several years. The #1 word for 2006, “truthiness,” was popularized that year by Stephen Colbert, who defined it as “truth that comes from the gut, not books.” Webster gives truthiness an alternative meaning as “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than facts known to be true”.

We suspect many of us will be looking for a little more “truthiness” in 2009.