When a company’s actions contradict its brand story, audiences notice before the company does. Customers, employees, partners, and investors do not need to read the fine print to sense when a brand is being less than authentic. The gap between what a company says and what it does erodes trust faster than almost any other force in business. Johnson and Johnson’s Credo promises that its first responsibility is to consumers. When the company fought a $570 million court judgment related to its role in the opioid epidemic rather than moving to resolve its mistakes, that promise was broken in full public view. The company had spent decades building trust through products designed for the most vulnerable populations, infants, children, patients in recovery. That trust, once broken, proved extraordinarily difficult to rebuild. A brand story is not just a marketing asset. It is a commitment the organization makes to every person who chooses to trust it, and the standard against which every decision will eventually be measured by the people who believed in it.
Learn how Woden builds the foundational story that gives your organization something to live up to.
