Can the Reputation of Sony Be Saved?

Just how many lessons does one brand need? 

The Short Answer: Probably

Connie Kaldor is a wonderful Canadian singer-songwriter who introduces a song about heartbreak by saying, “This is about what my mother would call 'a character building experience.'”  I always wonder, just how much character does any one woman need?” 

And that’s what I’m wondering about Sony: Just how many times do they need to see their peers go under the bus before they realize that the rules apply to them? First there was Toyota. Last year, after a string of accidents and recalls, Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda, remained silent on the issue for days. Finally, the US Toyota team jumped into action and in the end mitigated much of the damage. 

Then we had Tepco and the nuclear disaster at Fukishima. For days after the earthquake and tsunami there was almost no information flowing from power plant executives. Most of the conversation was driven by calls for explanation by the Japanese government. Finally, the government simply took over PR responsibilities from Tepco. There are still significant questions about whether or not the industry, or at the least Tepco, will survive.

The Sony audience: Engaged and enraged

Now we have Sony, whose PlayStation Network was hacked on April 19th. Sony immediately took the site down. A week later they admitted that the intrusion compromised millions of customers’ data. To its credit, the PlayStation Blog has had brief updates since Day 1. But Tweets and notices are no substitute for real conversations. Sony is clearly only interested in one-way communication. They have lots of fans out there. But those fans, who are frustrated by not being able to use the network and know their data has been compromised, need to have their trust in Sony restored. Or they’ll go elsewhere.

We know from lots of research (See “Greater Transparency is the Key to Building Greater Trust”) that the way to build trust is through transparency, openness, and two-way synchronous dialog. You do that by showing that you are listening, not to “your audience,” but to the individuals that make up that audience. 

At the moment, Sony is just using social media as another way to get their messages out. They need to understand that it is also the place to establish connections and ease frustration.  While it may not be possible to respond to all of the hundreds of hostile comments that have greeted every blog post, there’s no sign that Sony is even listening to this very engaged and enraged constituency. 

How many lessons do we really need to learn that silence and/or one-way yelling is not the way out of a crisis?

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 Katie Delahaye Paine is CEO of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine is a dynamic and experienced speaker on public relations and social media measurement. Click here for the schedule of Katie’s upcoming speaking engagements.

Comments

[Sophia Karakeva]

you are absolutely right