How conscious communication can build corporate reputation

A company announces an ambitious sustainability target. It launches a polished campaign explaining how it wants to contribute to a better future. But increasingly, consumers may ask a simple question: what is the company actually doing to get there?

A clear example of this is the clothing business Shein, which launched evoluSHEIN to promote circularity and eco-friendly goals. However, the company failed to provide transparent steps or substantive evidence, ultimately facing regulatory fines over vague and misleading claims.

Many companies communicate frequently with their audience, but more communication isn’t necessarily better. Building a credible reputation relies more on a business showing how it is achieving its goals.

In a recent article in Harvard Deusto Business Review, Oriol Iglesias, professor at Esade Business School, sets out a framework for ‘conscious communication.’ The approach starts with a simple principle: reputation should be built on substance before communication.

Reputation starts before communication

The framework begins with the idea of the ‘conscious company’. This is an organization with a clear transformational purpose and values upon which its strategy and operations are based.

Systemic communication aims to encourage customers and stakeholders to adopt more sustainable, ethical, and responsible behaviors

This is more than just traditional corporate social responsibility (CSR), where sustainability initiatives sometimes remain in a separate department while the business operates differently. Conscious companies ensure that their economic, social and environmental practices are aligned with their identity, and establish non-financial metrics to assess whether they are doing what they say.

Communication functions across multiple levels. Marketing communication aims to generate demand and business results. Corporate communication works over the medium term to build a solid corporate reputation and maintain the organization’s license to operate. Systemic communication has a wider goal: encouraging customers and other stakeholders to adopt more sustainable, ethical, or responsible behaviors.

The three tests of credible communication

Iglesias’ framework says that transparency, tangibility, and traceability should form the basis of all three forms of communication.

Transparency means that organizations have to tell the truth, even when things have gone wrong. As Iglesias explains, consumers are more likely to trust companies that communicate their achievements and their failures, as well as the plans they have to correct them.

A great example of this is when the fast-food chicken restaurant KFC had to temporarily close 700 of its 900 UK stores in 2018 when a supplier failure caused it to run out of chicken. Initially, with angry customers and mocking media, it was a PR disaster. But KFC turned it around, literally. Switching the letters of its brand to ‘FCK’, they took out full-page ads in major UK newspapers, with an image of an empty KFC bucket with crumbs spilling out. The letters on the bucket were rearranged to spell ‘FCK’, with a statement below: “A chicken restaurant without any chicken. It’s not ideal. Huge apologies to our customers, especially those who travelled out of their way to find we were closed.”

This radical honesty resulted in the brand sentiment score rebounding from -17% to +31%. They actually gained more consumer trust than they had before the crisis.

Honesty is particularly important when it comes to sustainability claims made by companies. Scrutiny of corporate environmental claims is increasing. The European Commission reports that 53% of green claims in the EU provide vague, misleading or unfounded information, while 40% have no supporting evidence.

Progress should be made tangible. This means an organization should show how it is progressing towards its objectives rather than merely announcing distant ambitions. A plan to become carbon neutral by 2035 can sound impressive, but consumers can’t judge the progress unless the milestones are clear. Regular progress updates help build consumer trust.

The chocolate company Tony’s Chocolonely illustrates this approach. It informs customers about its supply chain, including the prices paid to farmers and its progress in addressing labor conditions in cocoa production. The business doesn’t just publish sustainable goals; it demonstrates what it’s doing to reach them.

Traceability is also crucial. The US outdoor clothing company, Patagonia, is a useful example. The company has publicly declared that it maps entities across its supply chains and uses third-party certifications and audits to verify the materials used in its products.

Together, the principles of transparency, tangibility, and traceability create a progression from assertion to evidence: can stakeholders see what the company is doing, understand its progress, and verify its claims?

Don’t communicate everything

It may sound counterintuitive, but the key to conscious communication is actually determining when not to communicate.

Iglesias presents a matrix that serves as a guide. It has two dimensions: identity and legitimacy. A business must first consider if the topic in question is aligned with its stated purpose and principles. The legitimacy aspect encourages a business to ask whether it understands its audience and if it has the capabilities to deliver a message that is genuinely of value to them and consistent with its overall messaging.

When both identity and legitimacy are strong, communication should be a priority. When identity is strong, but legitimacy is weak, businesses should pause before putting out a message: research the audience, develop the necessary capabilities, and compile evidence before launching an emotional campaign.

When there’s low identity and low legitimacy, then communicating poses a greater risk. Starting a campaign about an issue that isn’t related to the company’s identity and also outside its areas of competence can expose it to accusations of greenwashing, pinkwashing, or other forms of ‘x-washing.’

One example of a business choosing to communicate with its consumers about topics unrelated to its product comes from the razor brand Gillette. In 2019, the campaign became one of the most disliked videos on YouTube, generating significant backlash. The controversy illustrates the risks of communicating on issues that may not align with a brand’s identity or its relationship with its core audience.

This example supports Iglesias’ point that companies should not communicate about issues that are neither aligned with their identity nor supported by the capabilities needed to address them credibly.

From corporate storytelling to credibility

When it comes to emotional communication, Iglesias also draws on Aristotle’s concepts of logos, ethos, and pathos.

Logos is about the rational argument; ethos establishes credibility and moral authority; pathos creates the emotional connection. Problems can arise for businesses when they begin with emotional storytelling without first establishing the evidence and credibility that make the story believable.

A campaign may be compelling, but it can’t compensate for an inconsistent business model. Emotional communication can strengthen a credible message, but it cannot create credibility on its own.

The strongest reputations belong to companies whose purpose and ethics are proven by how they operate, not just what they say

The future of corporate communication

Today’s consumers can deeply research companies, their products, and supply chains. Businesses have very little space to hide if they aren’t honestly communicating their reality.

Every company can tell a convincing story about its purpose and ethics, but those who want to truly build an enduring positive reputation may not actually be those with the most ambitious messages.

The companies that stand out will be those capable of demonstrating that their messages reflect how they actually operate. The future of corporate communication could depend less on finding better ways to tell a story and more on building organizations whose actions make the story credible.