We were thrilled to have Brandi Boatner, the ‘Beyoncé of the Business World’ as our keynote speaker in the 2019 edition of our annual PRSA Tri-State District Conference. As the Social and Influencer Communications Lead, Global Markets at IBM, she is responsible for developing a consistent, coordinated approach to influencers in each global market.
In her lively keynote talk, Brandi Boatner discussed the need to integrate brand and reputation management into one single, cohesive function.
Reputation management is no longer something you dust off when a crisis hits. What’s more, brands must be willing to “go bold” like General Mills did when they started to get social media hate for their Cheerios commercial.
Key Takeaway:
Brand resilience is the new “reputation management.”
When the gap between the brand promise and the brand experience widens, brands become more susceptible to breaches that violate customers’ trust, and customers form brand impressions that are incongruent with the values and image that the company tries to represent.
To close the gap between brands and consumers, you need to position your brand in a way that creates a sense of belonging – where people recognize themselves, feel understood, and believe that they own a bit of the brand narrative they’re buying into.
Practice Brand Resilience: the ability of the brand experience to live up to and remain consistent with the brand promise, maintaining its integrity even in the face of damaging interactions, events, or circumstances.
Brandi Boatner is a member of the Loyola University New Orleans Hall of Fame, a member of the PRSSA Hall of Fame, and a board member of the Westchester/Fairfield Chapter of PRSA.