Brand Communication and Reputation Management: A Critical Analysis of Huawei and Boeing Cases

This report provides a critical analysis of brand communication and reputation management with a focus on Huawei and Boeing cases. It examines the response of UK ad agencies and their clients to avoid environmental and social impacts, brand which has managed to exceed customer and stakeholder expectations with its activity to address climate change, brand which has fallen short of expectations and impacted its reputation negatively, critical analysis comparison, and approach to climate change, communications, reputation, marketing and brand, going forward.

Brand
Communication and
Reputation
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Response of UK ad agencies and their clients to avoid the environmental and social impacts
................................................................................................................................................1
Brand which has managed to exceed customer and stakeholder expectations with its activity
to address climate change.......................................................................................................3
Brand which has fallen short of expectations and impacted its reputation negatively...........4
Critical analysis comparison...................................................................................................6
Approach to climate change, communications, reputation, marketing and brand, going
forward...................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
The concept of brand communication and reputation management refers to the trust of
customers in the organisation as well as its products and services. Brand communication and
reputation management is one of the most important factors that determines the effectiveness and
efficiency of the organisation in fulfilling its ethical, moral, social, economic and environmental
obligations so that least negative impacts can be obtained and maximum positive impacts can be
generated. It particularly showcases the trust of the company's stakeholders and society in its
activities that influences the overall growth and expansion of the business. The introduction of
brand reputation and strategic management could be used by the organisation to manage its
impacts on the environment and society that can help it to achieve competitive advantage.
Effectively managed brand image can develop a positive impact of the activities of the
organisation among its customers and stakeholders that is beneficial for providing greater
competitiveness in the current world (Kogler, Rokka and Hemetsberger, 2017). The
advertisement agencies and mass media play an important role in impacting the lives of people
and it is their responsibility to urge towards the true problems of people like changing climate
and ecological emergency. Most of the organisations are preferred or denied after the
recommendations of media and their reviews. The report focuses on outlining certain ways by
which the UK advertising agencies could respond to address environmental and social impacts.
In this context, it will analyse two organisations one which have managed to exceed and another
which has failed customer and stakeholder expectations for addressing climate change and
ecological tragedy. In the end, it compares the problems given about managing approaches to
climate change, communication, reputation management, marketing and brand image for
organisational growth.
MAIN BODY
Response of UK ad agencies and their clients to avoid the environmental and social impacts
Management of brand reputation is helpful for an organisation for fulfilling all the basic
requirements by the organisation for creating positive environmental and ecological health. The
company can fulfil its corporate social responsibility activities so that a positive brand image can
be generated and the organisation satisfies its responsibility towards the society and environment.
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The effective brand image of the organisation implies that its clients trust the products and
services provided by the enterprise and they feel comfortable and privileged to purchase them
(Laine, 2018). There are many components that can help in managing reputation activities, along
with certain strategies for brand communication. The advertisements and media play an
important role in improving the brand management activities by presenting the image of the
organisation (Barhorst and et. al., 2019). The management of a brand in a given advertisement is
complicated and requires a lot of time to do so. There are many tools that are used by the
advertisement agencies such as social listening tools that help to manage the brand's reputation of
the organisation.
The concept of brand management with the help of advertisement can improve the
reputation of the organisation by shaping the ways in which the customers look towards the
brand and create a link between the organisation and the stakeholders. The advertisements can
focus on those organisations that are highly reliable in having positive impacts of their activities
on environment and climate so that other organisations can be influenced for enhancing their
activities. The brand management focus is on improving the repetition of the organisation
through a process in which the views of the customers are aligned with the business objectives to
achieve greater chances of growth. The advertisements that showcase the negative sentiments
through the company might have a negative impact on organisational performance (Ford, 2019).
The advertisements that showcase the positive sentiments of the organisation towards the
climatic conditions and ecological health have a positive impact on the organisation. There are
various aspects of examining the reputation of business and the potential customers include
manufacturers such as trustworthiness, friendliness, quality of product, impacts on environment,
sustainability practices, etc. (Loureiro, Sarmento and Le Bellego, 2017). The major aspect that
must be considered by the advertisement agencies in regard to the improvement of climatic and
ecological values of the organisations includes ascertaining the true image of business. The use
of the internet must be done to manage the overall reputation of the organisation and its activities
related to creating better ecological balance and improved climatic conditions. There are many
ways of managing the overall reputation of the business and advertisements are among the most
common ways of managing the reputation of the brand. The media and advertising agencies can
show the true position of the business towards their impacts on climatic conditions and ecology
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(Butkhuzi and Ghaleb, 2019). This will help to improve the business functioning and its ethical
behaviour for improving brand communication and reputation management.
Brand which has managed to exceed customer and stakeholder expectations with its activity to
address climate change
Huawei Case
It is regarding the ban of Huawei in the United States when the organisation has appeared
on the blacklist due to the arrest of its CFO. According to the reports it has been stated that the
organisation has been in the low prices and its return to the list of prices has highlighted the
image of organisation as a lightning rod for certain geopolitical scrutiny. In the year 2019 the
organisation's head faced continuous opposition and reverence from the government of the
United States. The arrest of the CFO of Huawei has pumped the fuel for the government to ban
the organisation from the communication network of the country. The United States has
succeeded in making the other Nations ban Huawei with the effect from the arrest (Ahmad and
et. al., 2018). Countries like Australia have banned the organisation as well as its products in
respect to the preservation of national security but the countries like Germany, New Zealand and
many other Nations have not shown their final declaration on the company. The efforts of the
company to win from international scepticism are not a very rare aspect (Bartikowski, Fastoso
and Gierl, 2020). For improving their activities various organisations and Chinese tech giants
have utilised this stopping of certain products in these countries. This has made it easier for the
organisations to ease suspicion especially across the Western Nations that connect to the
Government of China and make it an easy target to focus on its activities. Huawei is not the only
organisation that has many complaints regarding unwarranted scrutiny from the west. Even after
receiving continued depression in countries like the US, continuous growth of the organisation
can be seen. The organisation has improved its strategies to gain recognition and brand
reputation in and across the other countries (Dittmer and Emtö, 2019).
Many reports but various investigators claim that the organisations must have been proud
of themselves for putting efforts for growth in the phase of pandemic. None of the companies has
been a lower player to the trade names that were carried out by Donald Trump for Huawei. Even
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after the degradation the organisation continued its activities and has developed specific deals
that can help them to stay loyal with themselves and improve their brand reputation. The
advertisements have played an important role in emphasizing the business communication and
enhancing customer loyalty towards the organisation (Hemsley-Brown and et. al., 2016). It has
also created the image of the organisation with its efforts on the global perspective that were
faced by the organisation and how the organisation has overcome it. Huawei officials as well as
the daughter of the owner have blacklisted many networks of the organisation and its
acquisitions regarding the privacy hacks and the outcast of fake news. This helped the
organisation to improve its image in front of the audience and manage its reputation effectively
with the help of proper advertisements. The company has popularised itself with depriving
continuous opposition from strong contenders.
Brand which has fallen short of expectations and impacted its reputation negatively
The Boeing Case
In 2020 the authorities of aviation and transportation industry throughout the globe has
minimised the reputation of a specific passenger carrier airline naming Boeing, it has lowered
reputation due to the consecutive plane crashes that has costed hundreds of lives of the people.
The organisation lost its brand image due to the plane crashes which has lowered its reputation
among the customers. One of the airplanes of Boeing flight A737-800 crashed in August 2020
that significantly lowered the reputation of the organisation and its brand communication.
Another flight Airbus A320 also crashed in May of 2020 that was the second big hit on the
company's image. Various air crash investigators have discovered certain statistical data that a
specific automatic control system that was found in the plane with manoeuvring characteristics
augmentation system has failed due to various reasons in these planes. This led to the decline in
brand reputation of the organisation and it sent the aircraft into the mode of nosedive (Kuznetsov
and et. al., 2019). Just after a week of the accident the company advertised its strategy to tackle
such situations and US Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing had updated their directives
for handling the plane when MCAS malfunctions by disabling MCAS. The organisation has
witnessed many critics for removing many systems from the manuals of the crew for the purpose
of their training. The advertising agencies published certain facts about the predictions done by
the FAA that the accidents will further continue due to the MCAS. Even after many
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controversies the company focused on advertisement agencies to upgrade the brand reputation
and management. But the consecutive accidents have lowered the image of Boeing throughout
the world (Ledikwe and Klopper, 2019).
After the crashes of the plane the civil aviation administration of China has ordered the
grounding of the organisation throughout the nation. This was followed by many legislations,
rules and regulations one after another. The FAA has confirmed the worthiness of airlines in
March, after which the company and its operations were grounded and all the evidence was
collected to identify the similarities of the accidents. Within a week the organization grounded
approx. 60 planes throughout the world. During this phase the company has closed all the
operations of airlines. At the time of these groundings the organisation produced another set of
planes before its complete production activities were stopped in 2020. The air crash of planes has
been investigated by air crash officers, US flight operations, FBI and the Ad-Hoc panel. It has
questioned the delegation of authority for the organisation and had produced the issues and
defects that were in the production activities of the organisation (Martínez-Ferrero and García-
Sánchez, 2018). Many air crash investigators have obtained initial data about the accidents and
published their findings regarding the accidents. An organisation belonging to Australia has also
blamed the designing of planes along with its certificate and maintenance by the flight crew that
has caused the plane accident. An organisation from America has also blamed that various
malfunctions have occurred in the plane due to continuous interruption by the alerts that created
confusion among the crew members in the cockpit. Ethiopian ECAA has discovered certain
factors that included the attempt for recovery by flight crew that shifted the blame on software
design of the aircraft. The air crash investigators from US and India have discovered the culture
of concealment at the time of certification that was discovered in the case of both the plane
accidents. For this Boeing have revaluated its strategies and have provided recommendations for
improvement in flight simulator training so that accidents can be reduced. It was among the
biggest losses for the organisation which was also delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic
(Mazurek, 2019). By the end of the year these activities resulted in decline and cancellation of
200 orders for Boeing planes.
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Critical analysis comparison
This particular section provides a detailed comparison of both the above cases that
occurred with different companies. It has been discovered from the initial crisis that the company
was guilty of not taking the first catastrophe seriously that resulted in decline of the business
operations and has increased the frequency of accidents. It has incurred huge costs on the
organisation and it could be recommended that the organisation must have taken some serious
steps for resolving the issues identified by the plane and crew members just after the first
accident; this could have easily prevented the occurrence of a second accident. On the other
hand, the second case demonstrated the company's ability to tackle or handle allegations and
criticism from the international market regarding their concerns related to privacy. This
organisation has focused on operating its activities in those Nations where it has strong power as
compared to the other countries which affected its operations in theirs. The organisation has
faced many elevations and criticism but it kept on operating and it showed its best operations in
the industry across other Nations. The performance of the organisation is highly considered and
agreed by many professionals and investigators from different organisations (Park-Poaps and
Kang, 2018).
Approach to climate change, communications, reputation, marketing and brand, going forward
As per a public relationship theory considered as a situational theory, it can be explained
that a company should plan its operations as per the given situation and the present conditions in
the environment (Proserpio, 2016). This theory has been used in the second case where the
organisation has understood the issues of the customers and tried to improve its relations by
communicating effectively about its products that help the organisation to continue its business
activities effectively and efficiently in other Nations in spite of getting banned in some Nations.
In the case of the second crisis the decision theory of crisis management was highly applicable
due to which company has adopted this theory for changing its decision at the time of impact
(Qalati and et. al., 2019). Huawei was initially banned from carrying its activities across a few
Nations but it has changed its decisions respectively to improve its operations in the other
countries across the world. The company has tried to improve its products as well as develop its
reputation management activities for improving communication with the customers and avoiding
further bans from other Nations.
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There are many ways by which the company can improve its approaches to climate change,
communication, reputation, marketing and brand, to grow forward.
 Media coverage is helpful to identify whether the media has covered the issue fairly or
not (Ryan and Casidy, 2018). In the first case the organisation has faced severe losses due
to the ad agencies because they have not covered the issues fairly and the faults of the
organisation were only showcased. The company was highlighted as the major cause for
the accidents but the media didn't show the fault of suppliers of the raw materials who
had not provided graded products to the company. In the second case the media has
shown the facts and represented the case fairly because it has shared the banning of
organisations in some nations due to its privacy concerns, on the other hand the media
has also stated the comeback of organisations in its field with the help of better products
in the other Nations.
 Media handling is also essential so that the organisation successfully communicates
through the media. In the case of Boeing planes the media was not communicating with
the organisation and the organisation did not represent the facts in front of the media that
led to the gap of communication among the organisation and media. This reduced the
ability of the media to understand the issue and viewpoint of the organisation which
lowered the organisational reputation in the market. The investigation has found the
lacking of some professionals from the organisation who were guilty for the poor
performance and failure of devices in the plane that resulted in air crashes. In the second
case the company has effectively communicated with the media which resulted in
bringing out the clear case in front of the people which helped the organisation to operate
smoothly in other Nations. Due to the case the company has vested in fue Nations but it
does not result in failure of the company.
 Social media can help to drive social communications and improve the reputation of the
company (Sihite, Assauri and Halim, 2018. ). According to the reports, social media acts
as a leveraging force for organisations in various crises. In the first case the organisation
did not handle social media effectively due to which the company was alligator with fake
news and data that lowered down the brand image and reputation of the organisation. In
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the second case the customers considered that the organisation will rebound in other
Nations because it has developed a clear goal to achieve success across other Nations.
 Internal and external catalysts can help to improve the marketing and branding of the
organisation (Wiedmann and et. al., 2017). The cases have arisen internally because it has
been seen in the first case of Boeing that the efficiency of organisation and lacking
processes have led to the occurrence of the next accident. In the second case crisis some
Nations have banned the organization because of security reasons with their products and
other Nations have still retained the company that helped it to grow. Hands it could be
confused that there was no external catalyst to accept the media and add agencies and the
complete crisis within these companies occurred internally.
 Handling the technical aspects of the given problems helps in getting future growth of
the companies. The technical aspects within the first case were not handled by the
organisation effectively because the organisation had initially not taken any actions for
improving the conditions and this has led to consecutive accidents one after another. In
the next case the organisation has understood the critical aspects and identified the
technical issues and solutions for improving its performance across the other countries so
that its products can get success in the other Nations across the world.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above discussion that management of brand reputation
requires gradual activities that must be followed by the organisations and companies from time
to time. It has been identified that many organisations are not able to see the bigger picture and
this leads to the failure of organisations in the market. There are no actual results just after
implementing the strategies by the organisation but it has been discovered that brand
communication and reputation management can bring positive results for the organisation in
future. Moreover, it has been identified that there are various elements that must be utilised by
the companies before managing their reputation and brand communication activities. Some of
these elements include brand monitoring and other strategies that can help the organisation to
generally utilise these strategies for creating better performance in future. Furthermore, it
mentions the use of online methods as well as manual processes that can help the organisation to
examine the results of its performance in the market. The reputation management approach has
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also been discussed in the report that provides major benefits to the company which does not
require any additional tools. Finally, it has been obtained that the companies would require
improving their approaches to climate change, communication, reputation, marketing and brand
for future growth.
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