In recent days, a conference organized by theWeb Observatory and Legality (OWL Italia – acronym which in English means owl), entitled to its own “Web and Legality: corporate reputation”. The group, created with the aim of providing information for the promotion and protection of rights with respect to crimes committed in the telematic field - copyright above all - to the rights of the personality of private individuals and the corporate brand and privacy.
Among the most brilliant interventions, that of Head of Marketing of Mediolanum Di Montigny it is certainly the one that most of all has attracted the attention of an audience of insiders and that has well directed the discussion on the topics it has touched upon.
Di Montigny articulated his presentation on seven ideas along which, according to him, the study of the communication dynamics that companies have to face when they relate to the web and, above all, to social networks must move. “Either you make your reputation or they make you, therefore no company can avoid bothering to communicate who he is and how he intends to present himself and present his product”. This is the starting point of his speech, which then evolves towards the concept of Sharing Community: the must for companies must be to share what they do.
To do this, there is an absolute need for connection, "because where there is connection there is business". The problem is that today's corporate decision makers have different neurological processes from today's web users - the so-called digital natives - and therefore a gap needs to be filled. In other words, one must equip oneself with tools to listen to the social community, from which our ability to build a reputation as suitable as possible for our business will derive. Hence, therefore, the need for companies to invest in tools that allow sharing, as well as the product, also the idea of values that a company wants to export – a company that is increasingly a media company. Whoever deals with communication for a company today cannot avoid being personally and privately involved in the social life of the web, which is no longer virtual but has taken on the full dimension of reality.
In his speech, Vittorio Cino, director of the Public Affairs & Communications division of CocaCola, remember how important it is to be able to decide if and how to intervene in the event that the company's reputation is attacked on the web. “Non-communication, for example, is already negative communication – says Cino – but it is not always possible to respond to every single attack that the company directly or indirectly from some web user”. We need to understand, according to CocaCola's Italian communications chief, whether the attack is really dangerous for the company's legal and social reputation, or whether it is a harmless folkloric debate with the company's product itself as the protagonist (there is the suspension of the police officer who posted his claim for the raid on Diaz, or the dismissal of the journalist Sky Saluzzi following an offensive tweet against the F1 driver Alonso).
With the interventions of Ugo Ettore Di Stefano, Head of the Legal Department of the Mondadori Group e Marcello Ciannamea, director of the Rai programming, another concept is added to the topic of corporate reputation. When considering the reputation of a cultural and information company, it is essential to take into account the fact that a communicative reaction and interaction on the web to an attack on the corporate brand must always be accompanied by legal tools designed to repair the damage resulting from an attack on the image of a magazine, a journalist, a book, etc.
Paolo Calvini, another insider in charge of communication Mediasetfinally enriches the debate with another food for thought. “We are not the coachman flies capable of influencing the web – comments Calvani”. A company's reputation is not defended with communication, but with advocacy and the tools to do so are corrections, articles in response to targeted attacks, warnings, etc. “The problem – continues Calvani – is that the sensational emerges from social networks, which does not necessarily correspond to the truth. The extreme is what sells on the web”. In conclusion, the number one of Mediaset's communications quotes the recently deceased Eduardo Galeano: "When we learned all the answers, our questions changed".
