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How Corporate Culture Impacts Brand Perception

I find the article “Amazon's PR Troubles Show How Corporate Culture Impacts Brand Perception” written by Michelle Greenwald very informative and at the same time exciting. I tend to agree with the information the author wrote as I could relate it with everyday happenings in our lives. Notably, corporate culture impacts brand perception in that, with the modern age, the spread of information is faster and more convenient and hence it may take only a couple of hours to tarnish or build the name of the brand.

I agree that culture is very crucial in influencing people’s perspective of a brand. A notable instance involves the trouble experienced at Amazon where some employees claimed that the company penalized its employees in cases where they were distracted by life-threatening illness facing them or their children was not given much attention as it would have been expected (Greenwald, 2015). Notably, the reports did not have a significant impact as they lacked the credibility of the New York Times and Jeff Bezos being an active public face of the Amazon Company. Jeff Bezos public relations front was mainly displayed during his interviews at The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Daily Show with John Stewart, where warming up the audiences with his infectious laughter proved to be useful during that trying time. [That’s not what I got from the article. Previously, Bezos was the happy face of his company, appearing on Leno and the Daily Show. But the later New York Times article seriously damaged his image and consequently, the brand perception of his company.]

Surveys have also indicated that millennials are more interested in the work culture of their employers and this is likely to influence the sales, the perception of the brand, and recruitment of employees (Greenwald, 2015). The power of millennials can be cited where a few days ago the mother of a worker, Nathan, at Walmart posted on Facebook claiming that the manager was threatening a greeter at the store and that he may lose his job, as his job description was changing. This saw the Internet blow with negative comments from the public claiming never to revisit the stores. Walmart on the other hand responded and cleared the air claiming that the transition would see the people with a disability getting assigned different roles. [You need to mention earlier that the greeter had a disability and how the change in job description would affect him.]

Moreover, in this digital era, public communication is surely one other marketing strategy as customers feel that their issues are addressed translating to the employer having their best interests at hand. This encourages the customers to maintain brand loyalty and in turn, boosts the sales of the company. This is the dream of every company to have loyal customers and reach out to as many prospective customers as possible. This will enable the company to grow steadily and finally emerge to be one of the most prominent firms in the world if they can maintain the consistency in reaching out to new markets. To me, page 2 of the article emphasizes that Generation Xers are interested in the ethics and practices of a company, and that is what sells a product to them. Note the examples there-Googleplex, SAS, Ideo with its 91 year old employee. I think that’s what you need to emphasize in this paragraph.

Jeff Bezos will, therefore, be a force to reckon with individuals who will try and tarnish the name of Amazon Company given the right public relations that he has maintained. Moreover, some claim Amazon has built a Darwinian culture forced by circumstances (Greenwald, 2015). However, the end justifies the means, as the culture is working for the company well and propelling their sales. This together with the excellent public relations will see the company continue growing bigger and bigger with time. [But doesn’t he have to deal with the now public relations scandal that Amazon is a terrible place to work? Consider revising this paragraph.]

Lastly, I enjoyed reading the article as it enabled me to look deeply in the organizational culture of Amazon Company and also check on updates from the Walmart allegation of sidelining the disabled employees in their stores.

Reference

Greenwald, M. (2015). Amazon's PR Troubles ShowHow Corporate CultureImpacts Brand Perception. AdAge.