Winner: MWW
MWW takes its clients’ reputations pretty seriously. Nothing Earth-shattering there; all PR agencies say that. But MWW goes well beyond bromides about clients’ reputations, thanks to the agency’s Total Stakeholder Approach. It’s a proprietary strategy for identifying key stakeholders messaging: branding, employee communications, the company “storyboard.” They all play major roles in how the agency helps to enhance its clients’ reputations.
But MWW wants to serve the reputation management industry as a whole. The agency’s blog, Return on Reputation, for instance, gives MWW executives a vehicle to communicate with both industry professionals and the public, and to offer their opinions and insights on a given subject. To spread the word, blog items are regularly posted to online media sources such as Social Media Week’s blog. Another effort to engage stakeholders and protect clients’ reputations is MWW’s “Network PR,” a strategic planning process that identifies, analyzes and engages myriad voices that move a company’s reputation needle.
Unlike traditional PR, the approach operates in an environment that is more self-segmented and measurable than was the case just a few years ago. That means it’s more important to MWW to be heard rather than to be loud. Indeed, MWW doesn’t “spray and pray,” as it were, but maps out a network of influencers and voices who determine a company’s corporate reputation and builds a program around that map. It’s a model that other agencies could stand to adapt: Don’t build it and they will come, but first tap into the desires and demands of an audience and develop the communication strategy from there.
Honorable Mentions:
- iMiller Public Relations
- The Marcus Group