Reputation Walfare

Reputation Warfare by Leslie Gaines-Ross

Artwork: Alex MacLean, Fleet of B-52 Bombers at the “Boneyard,” 1995, photograph, Tucson area, Arizona Listen to an interview with the author of this article.

Corporations now operate in a landscape rife with new threats to their reputations. Equipped to do battle with large competitors, they may be caught unawares by small-scale adversaries in command of a surprisingly potent new-media and social network arsenal: blogs, tweets, text messages, online petitions, Facebook protest sites, and digital videos. Some companies have already experienced the damage that can be done by a single highly motivated critic lashing out from a personal computer. No one has failed to hear the stories. After the explosion of BP‟s Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, for example, Leroy Stick (an alias) began publishing the tweets of a totally made-up representative of a similarly bogus BP global public relations division. While crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, devastating the regional ecology and economy, the satirical Twitterer (@BPGlobalPR) tweeted about the division‟s lunch menu and other inane matters. Tens of thousands followed his updates—far more than the number who followed the real BP Twitter account. Through this low-cost effort, Stick helped keep Americans‟ rage boiling as BP scrambled to plug the well and restore faith in its brand. On the Attack: “Leroy Stick” (Located at the end of this article) As this incident demonstrates, the rules of engagement have changed. Critics no longer need the resources of an institution. The internet has leveled the playing field between large corporations and individual activists. Although some antagonists are truthful, not all of them are. Often their diatribes are only partly true; sometimes they are entirely, demonstrably false. Attackers are probably not levelheaded. Those who take on large companies single-handedly are almost always highly emotional, if not irrational. And...