Becoming a cHamPion BRanD: - APCO Worldwide

Becoming a cHamPion BRanD: 

Differentiating Yourself in the Marketplace 

RoBeRt ScHooling 

President, Americas 

APCO Worldwide 

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JANUARY 2012 

The below is a speech presented on January 27, 2012, by Robert Schooling at 

the Conference Board’s Corporate Image and Branding Conference: Powerful 

Strategies that Build Loyalty and Value. 

Good morning. I’m Robert Schooling, president of APCO in the Americas. I 

appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today about the revolution that is 

underway in the expectations for corporate brands, and how smart companies can 

lead that revolution. 

I’m going to suggest a total re-evaluation of how we think about corporate 

brands and the demolition of the idea of reputation as a way of thinking about the 

corporate brand, but beyond that, nothing too ambitious. 

Before joining APCO, I was in politics, where the questions seemed more important. 

We weren’t just communicating—we were building relationships with constituencies 

and engaging in common purpose to elect the right candidate. The future of 

democracy hung in the balance every November. 

In fact, it wasn’t about the candidates at all; they were just individuals who were 

symbolic of something more meaningful. We were working for a cause, something 

bigger than ourselves. 

Over my years at APCO, I was still interested in working on “something bigger 

than ourselves.” My work turned to reputation as a way of helping clients—both 

companies and industries—define themselves in ways that would give them an 

advantage in dealing with a variety of stakeholders—from policymakers and NGOs 

to customers and investors.



At the same time, something was changing. All the old castles crumbled. The walls 

came down. We’ve heard a lot during this conference about the transformation 

we are all going through. But I don’t think we can overstate the extent of 

this transformation or the extent to which its implications should be seen in 

fundamental—not just tactical—ways. 

I believe we are in the early stages of a reevaluation of the relationship between 

people and companies—and for companies, that reevaluation is going to create 

winners and losers. 

Muhammad Ali wasn’t just the greatest boxing champion of all time, he was also a 

social activist whose words still have the ring of truth today: “It isn’t the mountains 

ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” 

Two different pebbles in our metaphorical shoes have transformed the way 

companies need to do business if they want to get to the top of the mountain: 

1. Technology has upended the relationship between individuals and companies 

by democratizing information. Corporate information is available anytime, 

anywhere—and because only a fraction of that information comes from the 

company itself, the result is blurred and limited message control. Information 

is no longer mediated by the media and other institutions. As a consequence, 

the ability of traditional communications to control corporate imagery has 

been radically diminished. 

2. The expectations for companies have changed. We are seeing governments’ 

ability to meet needs weaken and the scale of corporations grow inexorably 

larger. The lines are blurring between the province of government and 

the province of corporations—and like government, the companies need 

the permission of the people to operate and succeed. As a consequence, 

stakeholders’ expectations of companies are not only increasing but 

increasingly important to the success of the company. 

The most successful companies, the Champion Brands, will need to keep pace with—or 

better yet, get ahead of—the revolution in communications wrought by technology at a 

time when expectations of companies have increased exponentially. 

As we think about these trends and the implications for creating greater corporate 

brand value, we first need to recognize that the people we are talking to have also 

changed. 

The NeW STAkehOlder hAS GreAT exPeCTATiONS 

Muhammad Ali famously said, “A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did 

at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.” If you still think about your stakeholders the 

way you did five years ago, The Champ would tell you you’ve wasted the last five years. 

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WhO Are The NeW STAkehOlderS, ANd WhAT dO They WANT? 

The new stakeholder is: 

1. Often self-appointed 

2. Feels invested in the success of your company 

3. Expects companies to be champions for their interests 

I like to think of this modern stakeholder as the new Renaissance person. This 

new Renaissance person is no longer defined by a single characteristic like their 

occupation or place of residence. They wear multiple hats—they are simultaneously 

an accountant, a mother, a community volunteer, an investor and an environmental 

activist. The traditional means of segmenting people or groups into discrete 

audiences is over. 

The old “Renaissance man” was someone of high culture who spoke five languages 

and read Plato in the original Greek—but this new incarnation is much more 

democratized, a function of ideas and engagement, not just knowledge alone. In the 

new world almost anyone can be a new Renaissance person. 

The new Renaissance stakeholder is invested in the success of your business. They are 

financially invested—witness the huge increase in the number of people who actually 

own shares in companies and actively manage these portfolios. But these people also 

are invested because you are: 

• Creating jobs 

• Influencing public policy 

• Determining whether communities thrive or die 

• Creating a cleaner, healthier environment 

• And on, and on 

Indeed, these people understand and recognize that a company’s influence often 

outpaces the influence that government can have on their lives. 

We need to undergo a mind-shift in the way we think about all these people—these 

stakeholders—who matter to us. Because they have real power and influence, they 

are no longer “audiences.” They are truly partners in the success of your enterprise 

who have very specific and informed opinions about your company. We can’t expect 

to only share information with them—we also have to share power with them. 

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The NeW STAkehOlder NeedS TO be eNGAGed 



These new stakeholders understand that something sits behind the product brands— 

that there is a corporate entity that can and should be engaged with them. 

• Corporate sloganeering is now dismissed as cynical. It isn’t enough to have 

clever advertising—stakeholders are looking for a relationship. 

• Having a Facebook page and Twitter handle are tactics, not strategies. Of 

course, we need to be digitally engaged—but we need to know where that 

engagement is taking us. 

• Corporate responsibility and philanthropy can be important tools, but they 

only address a certain group of stakeholders and don’t always speak to the 

core values of the company operating in society. They, too, need to be part of 

a singular integrated vision for how the company enters into a relationship with 

its stakeholders. 

There was an interesting study published recently by Harvard that looked at what they 

called “high-sustainability” companies—those that more fully embraced sustainable 

business practices, non-financial reporting and certain governance practices. The 

study found that those companies substantially outperformed other companies that 

did not adopt those same measures. 

My suspicion is that this study is a clue to something larger—that these companies 

are more likely to be better at building relationships and engaging sustainably with a 

variety of stakeholders—not just those traditionally defined by “sustainability.” 

Real engagement is the way Champion Brands will be built in this new environment. 

Creating enduring, non-transactional relationships between companies and their 

stakeholders is the way to get the pebbles out of our shoes and climb up the mountain. 

The relationships we help create open the door not only for creating stronger 

brands, but also for gaining better insights about the marketplace and identifying 

opportunities to create more innovative solutions that will pay off for both the 

corporation and its stakeholders. 

eNduriNG relATiONShiPS CreATe eNduriNG brANd VAlue 

Warren Buffett said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to 

ruin it.” In the current environment, I think that sentiment is truer than ever—and 

a reasonable conclusion for a CEO to draw is that we shouldn’t be investing in 

reputation if it is so easily destroyed. I agree. 

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We need to create a new way of thinking about corporate brands that is more 

enduring. 

We are now in an environment where the idea of reputation has limited utility and 

meaning. When stakeholders can mobilize opinion and allies in minutes, reputation 

as we know it is temporal. Companies that rely on the idea of reputation alone in 

building their corporate brand are going to lose ground. 

After all, we’ve all watched companies whose good reputations have come crashing 

down to earth when faced with bad facts. For many companies there appears to be 

cyclicality to their reputation, while other companies are more resistant to downturns. 

What is the difference between them? 

We’ve deduced some important trends when looking at our clients and over a 

decade of research. There are qualities that separate the merely good corporate 

brands from the Champion Brands—qualities that make them more resistant to bad 

news, better able to adapt to changing market conditions and better able to innovate 

and succeed. 

So the question we set out to answer was whether or not there was a methodology, 

both for research as well as for implementation, that could yield better results— 

an approach to creating Champion Brands that would be more meaningful, less 

mercurial and better suited to this new environment. 

buildiNG A ChAmPiON brANd: The FOur A’S 

We developed a new way to measure, understand and ultimately create corporate 

value by creating Champion Brands. Our model is based on what we call the “Four 

A’s.” Think of it as a credit rating for your brand—are you a single A-, double A-, triple 

A- or quadruple A-rated brand? 

1. The first A is Alignment: This is the extent to which you are aligned with the 

expectations of your stakeholders. We can identify the most persuasive ways 

to close the gap between current perceptions and stakeholder expectations. 

It’s the way almost all corporate and reputation research is done, and it is a 

critical first step—without it you can’t progress through the other stages. But it 

isn’t sufficient. 

2. The second A is Attachment: Most companies understand the need to 

create an emotional connection between their products or services and their 

customers. But few companies understand the need to create an emotional 

connection between stakeholders and the company itself. Companies are 

brands too, and stakeholders need to feel an attachment to, and have a 

relationship with, the company. 

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Pushing those disciplines together would be a good start—but still not enough. 

3. In the world we live in—of increasing transparency—there is a third A— 

Authenticity. Companies must say what they mean, mean what they say and do 

what they say. The degree to which their actions and words are truly reflective 

of their corporate character is critical. There has been a fair amount of good 

thinking and writing done about this from groups like the Page Society and 

others. They claim that the best companies find the sweet spot for their brand 

in the places where they are truly most able to make a difference in the lives of 

all of their stakeholders, and to do so sustainably within their business model. 

Building a positioning on a false premise is doomed to fail. I don’t think we need to 

name names, but we’ve all seen companies that have attempted to be something 

they are not. The results are a huge waste of resource and a cynicism about the brand 

that is hard to erase. 

When companies are aligned, create attachment and are authentic, they have a very, 

very strong brand. But there’s a fourth step to become a Champion Brand. 

The ChAmPiON brANd iS AN AdVOCATe FOr iTS STAkehOlderS 

There is an old saying in politics that “great campaigns are about the voter, and bad 

campaigns are about the candidate.” This is particularly apt as we think about the 

meaning of corporate brands in the current environment. In addition to Alignment, 

emotional Attachment, and Authenticity stands the fourth differentiating factor: 

Advocacy—standing for something bigger than yourself. 

Instead of thinking about how to turn our various stakeholders into “brand 

champions” for us, we should be asking how we can become champions for our 

mutual interests. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ask not what your stakeholders can 

do for you, ask what you can do for your stakeholders. 

Companies are now being asked to show how they add value to society. Don’t 

mistake advocacy for cause marketing, or corporate responsibility, or philanthropy— 

they are all potential subsets of the idea, but not the idea itself. Advocacy is about 

what you stand for—explaining why you’re in business in a way that works in common 

cause with your stakeholders. It means acting on your mutual values. It means 

building your business while improving society. 

The very best and most powerful brands in the world already do this. They stand for 

something bigger than themselves, and in the conduct of their business they are 

also advocates for their stakeholders. Their customers and their stakeholders believe 

that the company is actively working for their interests, and because of that, they are 

willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt when and if it slips. 

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We also found that this insight has tangible meaning in the execution of traditional 

programs. We were able to show quantitatively that the impact of communications 

was greatly enhanced when the nature of the communication was oriented toward 

engagement and advocating common cause rather than toward conveying information. 

Most importantly, Champion Brands generate outcomes that strengthen their 

business—they are better able to avoid the cyclical effects of a reputation based 

solely on dry and changing facts. Champion Brands talk differently, act differently 

and build more enduring relationships with their stakeholders than other brands that 

simply have good reputations. 

ChAmPiON brANdS PerFOrm beTTer 

We’ve seen in our research a clear correlation between perceptions of the corporate 

brand and business outcomes such as sales, employee loyalty, policy outcomes and 

shareholder value. 

Let me give you a few examples from two different industries: 

First, we recently conducted a study of the retail industry. Our research found that 

companies that create two-way dialogue—that truly engage—with the communities 

in which they operate are more likely to have favorable business outcomes. Our 

analysis revealed that improving perceptions of companies in the retail sector by only 

one point on our Index (from 0-100) leads to: 

• Greater spending by consumers—$133 more per year for the average 

consumer. If every retail company in the United States moved up the ladder one 

point toward being a Champion Brand, we could inject nearly $35 billion into 

the economy and the retail sector. 

• Enhanced employee engagement and retention—503,000 more retail 

employees would stay with their companies. 

• Stronger shareholder value to the tune of half a percentage point increase in 

market capitalization (that’s many billions of dollars for some of the largest retail 

companies). 

These tangible business results apply to not only those companies with 

prominent consumer-facing brands. We have also found that in industries like the 

pharmaceutical sector, where the corporate brand is several steps removed from 

the consumer, those companies that are seen as advocates for society and their 

stakeholders perform better. The research shows that standing for something bigger 

than producing safe and innovative products leads to stronger brands. Specifically, 

we discovered that being seen as a leader in addressing public health challenges, 

such as chronic disease, is a key opportunity to improving perceptions and business 

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outcomes. The data shows that companies that improve perceptions of their brand by 

only one point would see: 

• An average increase in annual sales of 3.33 percent. 

• An additional 83,000 activists actively and vocally speaking on behalf of the 

company. 

Investing in your corporate brand isn’t only about being trusted or admired—it’s about 

being more successful. These are tangible metrics executives and Boards of Directors 

will expect from us. Our model proves that it really pays to be a Champion Brand. 

ChAmPiON brANdS FulFill A NeW CONTrACT WiTh STAkehOlderS 

I’d like to conclude by discussing what I think this means in the big picture for all of 

us—both wearing our hats as stakeholders and as representatives of our companies. 

Building a Champion Brand is about embracing a new contract that reframes the 

relationships between companies and their stakeholders. 

Just as governments have always needed the permission of the people to operate 

and succeed, and companies then required a “license to operate” from governments, 

companies now need the direct permission of their stakeholders to grow. 

This new contract is based on working in common cause to add value to society while 

adding value to the company. It leads to more direct interactions, more successful 

negotiations and better results for both stakeholders and corporations. 

Advocacy is at the core of this new contract. The new stakeholder demands it. Growth 

requires it. Now there’s a methodology both for research and implementation that 

pinpoints a company’s need to advocate based on shared values, creates advocacy 

programs based on common cause, and pays back in predictable, tangible ways. We 

know it pays back, because we measure the outcomes. 

I think the good news for people in our business is that we have an opportunity to help 

shape reality, not just react to it. We are at a critical turning point—and all of us in this 

room are lucky to be at the right place at the right time to do something about it. 

Thank you for your time today. I’d be happy to answer any questions. 

For more information about the Champion Brand, please visit www.apcochampionbrand.com. 

© 2012 APCO Worldwide Inc. All rights reserved. Design: StudioAPCO ® 

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Becoming a cHamPion BRanD: - APCO Worldwide

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