The dereliction surrounding Toyota's dire handling of the crisis has since stirred it from slumber and the sops being thrown our way, such as the latest advertising campaigns' claims, may calm our ire for now. Especially relevant if you consider studies that have shown that companies who handled a catastrophe well have recovered and even exceeded pre-catastrophe stock price.

Trait 5: Gestures V. Actions

A brand's integrity is compromised through fear. Toyota's inviolable reputation is besmirched and the gap between the two determinates of Toyota's brand equity: affinity and performance will grow. Toyota's trauma has focused car buyers' minds in a salutary way - it costs 5 times more to win a new customer than retain an existing customer.

Consequently, Toyota will spend the coming months fighting hard to rescue its market leadership and its reputation, whilst balancing contention with compromise on major issues affecting the company's future performance. Ask Jeffrey Skilling and he would tell you that Enron's corporate values were perfect also.

Toyota might still be an industry leader, as far as raising its earnings outlook for 2009 are concerned, but that was before the ($2 billion) recall and the public backlash that belabors the brand.

The disconsolate nature of Toyota's initial crisis response has shown that it is less a Gibraltar-like castle than a stool resting on three legs.

Perhaps behind Toyota's recalcitrance are three heroes who are the core of Japan's culture? Legend has it the three were presented with a bird that did not sing; Nobunga said “kill it,” Hideyoshi said “make it sing” and Leyasu said, “wait.” In deference to this legend lies the conundrum for Toyota as it attempts to purloin the crisis. Therefore, it should remember an ancient Samurai saying, “difficulty is here, I give thanks.”

Dean Crutchfield is chief engagement officer at Method.

Over time, two words have changed least: I and who. These are the cornerstones of what makes a successful brand i.e. creating “I want” from your customer and knowing “who you are” as a brand. In Toyota's pursuit of manufacturing excellence (“Monozukuri”), these two critical brand building blocks have been defenestrated.

Trait 3: Intransigence

Crisis begs bold and virtuous action, not soggy corporatism. Toyota now faces a litany of complaints, a morass of stories, customers, dealerships, and Congress have only just begun to vent their spleen. Prior to the current crisis, Toyota's intransigence has not been imperceptible e.g., making essential design changes without informing customers with existing models of those changes! This potent combination to combat crisis without ossifying their customers and the short-term myopia that has plagued Toyota's recalcitrant board, tainted by the belief that nothing matters more than the next profit announcement or Monday's share price, has opened them to a volley of imprecations. Punch Lehman's ex-CEO, Richard Fuld, and he'll make this crystal clear.

Trait 4: Expect v. Inspect

Execution is essential - you've got to be in it to win it. The unconscionable reaction Toyota demonstrated revealed impotence within their management approach to crisis, along with a lack of effective decentralized decision-making. Lengthy company procedures are less important than the ability to marshal a crisis team and take action to calm people's fear. In a global crisis trust is essential and Toyota's “stop the line” manufacturing philosophy should have been applied immediately to the crisis.  After weeks of ruminations and preceding the reluctant CEOs statement on February 9, there was some wisdom from Toyota's spokesman, James Wiseman, on February 7. He said, “we acknowledge that we could have communicated better as a company.” Really James.

Dean Crutchfield is chief engagement officer at Method.

When anatomizing the Toyota debacle, the most interesting machinations will not weigh on Toyota's car failure, but its failure to handle crisis; quality issues had been metastasizing long before they accelerated over recent weeks. Toyota's lust for operational excellence and its pursuit of "just in time" delivery was its ultimate undoing and revealed five distinct traits.

Trait 1: Failure to analyze failure

If brands are belied as perfect, their skills to handle crisis atrophy. Since 1996, Toyota has experienced five debates surrounding the safety of their products. Each time Toyota has failed to think ahead and lacked a swift response.

Toyota's protestations of “we care” seem blithe and distrustful, portraying itself as too perfect to fail, and its willingness to avoid anything peremptory to stay aloft. Consequently, trust in Toyota is experiencing blunt impact trauma, which could have been avoided. Not to alter one's faults is desultory, just ask John Edwards.

Trait 2: A derisory crisis plan

Even the best of plans fall apart on impact, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't have one. Responding to the crisis with alacrity would have offered some palpable success for Toyota's woes. Instead, Toyota displayed the dexterity of goop and the personality of ash. The simplest answer is to act, because to the court of public opinion, no answer is an answer. And when you fail to even respond to the US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, you risk harsh brand depredation.

In crisis, necessity saves us the trouble of choosing. It took Toyota's CEO Akio Toyoda too long to move his company beyond its internal sloganeering and denial. The pusillanimous response of Toyota has deracinated its reputation for quality and beckoned the dangers of a reputation for dodgy cars. The gaffes are too many to enumerate. Hide nothing, tell all -- just ask Tiger.

More traits coming in the next post.

Dean Crutchfield is chief engagement officer at Method.

Each week, PRWeekus.com features a guest blogger on its "Insider" blog. This week's blogger is Dean Crutchfield, chief engagement officer at Method.

*Correction: This post had previously listed Dave Armon, VP of strategic accounts at Context Optional, as this week's blogger. Armon will be next week's guest blogger.

In my last post, I mentioned the concept of relationship capital. Yesterday, I received several e-mails asking about it.

Here are some thoughts on the concept: Companies recognize physical and tangible assets on their balance sheet (facilities, equipment, cash). Over the past decade, companies have begun to recognize intangible assets, such as brand value (as measured by Interbrand, for example), and the concept of human capital as an asset has gained credibility.

I think it's time to develop a measure of relationship capital and recognize it on the balance sheet of a company, with a monetary value. Here's why: Companies don't go to market as single entities anymore. They go as networks or ecosystems of relationships, including business partners, suppliers, employees, alumni, consultants, and influencers. The competitiveness of a company can be assessed based on the quality (height, width, and depth) of these relationships.

A case in point: If you were in a position to buy a company and you had two companies to choose from, wouldn't you place a higher value on the one that could measurably show that it had tighter relationships with thousands of key stakeholders rather than the other one, which didn't systematically cultivate those connections and couldn't show the quality of their relationships?

The bottom line is this: Imagine what would happen to the perceived and real value of the public relations discipline if management started asking for regular updates on the value of their company's relationship capital and started including the metric in the annual report.

Rob Flaherty is senior partner and president at Ketchum

I wish more of us in this field were engineers. I'm certainly not but as a result of working closely with some of the best technology companies in the world, I've been able to interact with a lot of engineers -- and communications pros that could have been engineers. To be an engineer requires a high aptitude for algebra, calculus, and physics. You need to have a brain that arranges, anticipates, and calculates the tangible and intangible interrelationship between values, forces, and unknowns.

Those would be extraordinarily valuable skills in our field given the complexity of networks of stakeholders and the need to anticipate game-changing new forces that affect an organization and its success (competition, technology, globalization).

One of the most powerful concepts that engineers adhere to is systems thinking. Systems thinking is understanding how different elements of an ecosystem influence one another. In nature it can be how plants and animals interact in the food chain, in photosynthesis and decomposition. In engineering it can be how energy and materials interact to support a bridge or building. 

In our field, systems thinking can be a powerful source of thinking and strategy as companies and brands seek to build relationship capital across an ecosystem of stakeholders. Why? As you know, more than ever, building relationship capital isn't about one-way communication to consumers, business partners, influencers, analysts, activists, and other communities. It's about peer-to-peer networks, identifying mutual benefits, evaluating risk, determining friction and resistance, and other factors and forces in the ecosystem. Done well, our discipline isn't linear or simple anymore. It's complex and requires an understanding of interdependent players and variables.  

So next time you're searching for a new hire, consider an engineer or at least someone with an engineer's mind.

Rob Flaherty is senior partner and president at Ketchum

The most interesting line in a certain famous golfer's appearance 10 days ago was when he noted that his wife told him that his "real apology to her will not come in the form of words; it will come from my behavior over time."  

In our very transparent world, all that matters is action, policy, and behavior. A brand is what a brand does, not what it says. I felt this ring true while watching the Olympics over the past week. Some athletes came into the games with a lot of hype, but all that really mattered was how they behaved at the games and whether they could deliver a medal-winning performance.

So if reputation is now right where it should be -- reality based -- what is our communications-centric profession doing about it? Is the programming for our brands, products, services, and companies still primarily an exercise in carefully crafting messages and creatively driving visibility? Do we expend an equal amount of energy and focus on action? Hopefully most of us do. But here's a higher bar: do we ask if the company or client organization can actually deliver what we're being asked to amplify? When was the last time that you saw an outline of a recommendation that went like this: situation analysis, objectives, due diligence to check facts, strategies, tactics, measurement? 

I'm surprised there are still companies that separate responsibility for the creative communication of the brand message from responsibility for the delivery of the brand experience. That's still left to operations, customer service, the call center, and front-line employees. 

I believe those of us in PR should be advocates of a more progressive definition of brand marketing, in which the function is as interested in keeping the brand promise as it is in making the promise.

At the Copenhagen Summit in December, policymakers, celebrities, and CEOs filled the hotels; 200-plus global media gathered in one location; 190 heads of state flew into one airport; investors and philanthropists littered the restaurants; more than 20,000 youth prepared for mass demonstrations. Word-of-mouth was rife.

The PR lesson learned from the Summit was a big one: if you want to elevate your green platform, commit to a multi-stakeholder strategy.  I saw clear winners and losers. It was a simple case of “don't put all your eggs in one basket.” The firms that did - whose only engagement comprised of sending their CEO to the Danish government-backed conference eight months prior - lost.  The best of the mediocre media coverage was dominated by activist headlines claiming ‘Corporate sabotage of climate'. Whereas the firms that offered up “a little something for everyone” won.

“A little something for everyone” looked like this:

• Striking, thought-provoking, and well-placed exhibits and ads in the Copenhagen airport.
• Mini-ads on hotel TV.
• Billboard sponsorship of public-facing climate campaigns (‘Hopenhagen' and ‘Seal the Deal').
•  Major media announcements and press conferences within the conference.
• Campaign partnerships and presence with key influencers, like NGOs, trade associations, and celebrities.
• Dinners and networking events with policymakers, NGOs, and other C-suite.

Applying these lessons, I now respond to a client's request for media recognition for a green initiative by asking:

• How does this announcement fit into what reporters are writing on this quarter?
• How can we build a total stakeholder engagement program to support your overall green efforts?

By taking this holistic approach, it helps to ensure a better understanding of the PR challenge and sets a more realistic baseline for client expectations. Besides, offering “a little something for everyone” pays off in life, too.

Mark Grundy is a VP in Edelman's CSR practice

I spent a lot of time last fall with multiple domestic and international clients who wished to attend the Copenhagen Climate Summit for media opportunities. Like many others attendees, afterwards I was exhausted, and basically sick of climate change. If I was sick of it, then how must the media be feeling?

To gauge the level of green fatigue, I did some quick research of 160 media outlets. I asked wires, top-tiers, bloggers, and broadcasters worldwide two questions:

1)      Is there green fatigue among your editors?

2)      Which topics of interest will you cover in the first two quarters of 2010?

With a healthy 15% response rate, I analyzed the data quantitatively, as well as qualitatively. The following points highlight key conclusions:

• Green fatigue is not a relevant problem for a majority of reporters who responded. While this is heartening, it is also important to note that a large portion of the reporters who were surveyed work exclusively for environmental/energy/green based publications or departments. 

• Europe-based reporters were much more likely to report noticing green fatigue among their editors than their American counterparts.  

• An increased emphasis on the ‘human-interest' side of green topics was noted internationally.  While Copenhagen and domestic climate change policy continue to be strong issues, writers reported a shift to the ‘who' rather than the ‘what', both in looking at solutions to environmental problems and its effects on the average person. 

•  Biodiversity is a burgeoning trend. Several writers labeled 2010 as “the year of biodiversity” and expressed strong interest in writing stories related to the topic. 

•  Post-Copenhagen issues were of particular interest to many reporters. Issues relating to the fallout from the summit include annexing responsibilities, US-China climate relations, deforestation, and Copenhagen's effects on global oil demand, domestic policies, and the average consumer.

Mark Grundy is a VP in Edelman's CSR practice