Uncovering the $7 trillion reputation economy

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1:20 Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. Bob, I had boards and C suite asking me like Hey, if this thing goes really sideways

1:39 What does it cost us? Reputation is not an extra thing you bolt on at the last minute and go, oh shit, what if something goes wrong? It's it's a part of the process. The entire world is reacting. To the actions of this administration, right? This administration is engaging like no other in history, not even The first instance of the Trump administration.

2:03 The stakes are a lot higher. We knew they were a lot higher, but now we can actually affix a value to those stakes. That's Corey DeBrawa, CEO of Berson, the global communications firm, at a time of incredible disruption from AI to ice shootings in Minneapolis. I wanted to talk to Corey about the unprecedented reputation challenges facing businesses and brands. Corey's pre-burst and roles included advising Howard Schultz at Starbucks, Mark Benioff at Salesforce, and Sundar Pishai at Google.

2:43 He talks about why reputation is still one of the most powerful and most misunderstood assets in business and the high stakes decisions companies face right now about whether, when, and how to speak up. Whether you're leading a major business or contributing to a team, Corey offers great insights for navigating a volatile era. So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

3:13 I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Corey DeBrawa, CEO of Burson, the Global Communications Agency. Corey, thanks for uh being here. Bob, thanks for having me. It's great to see you sort of in real life for the first time in twenty twenty six. So Yeah, I I I see you have your Seattle Seahawks hat on. You were saying you're feeling a little FOMO about not being at the Super Bowl parade. I'm feeling a huge amount of FOMO this morning. I'm literally before we got on was watching uh on Twitter sort of scrolling through like Crowd shots and was just remembering. the last Super Bowl parade that I was a part of, which was in Seattle, the Marshawn Lynch edition way back in the day when I worked at Starbucks. So yeah, a little a little phone, though the hat's gonna have to

3:57 That'll have to tide me over for this one. I think so. Exactly. You took over at Berson in twenty twenty four and it it's just been kind of wild time since then. Disruption error everywhere. Not not because of you, of course, but it like do you thank you for that clarification. Do you do you long for the simpler days when you were in house advising just one business like Starbucks and Google? Or or does this perch give you a a broader understanding of of what's going on in the landscape.

4:30 So I had spent fifteen years sort of monomaniacally focused on like one business, one client, one thing. Eight of those were at Starbucks. Uh one of those was uh with Benny Off at Salesforce, and then the last six Uh we're at Google What I found is that your focus kind of tends to be a little bit

4:48 Lather, rinse, repeat in the sense that you're really focused on The message. The messenger And the platform. You're s you're you're trying to get everybody to say the same thing consistently over and over and over again.

5:01 You are. You're very deep on that business, but sometimes you lack the periscope to sort of put it up and determine what's happening in the world. And I'd forgotten How much fun it is to have such a liberal arts purview. So I feel like I can actually still be. helpful to our clients, but in a different way than when I was actually responsible for sort of running the message, messenger and platform. I mean you and I have talked about it. privately in in recent months about how hard it is in this environment for

5:29 brands and leaders to figure out what to say, sort of where the risks are and where the opportunities are when so much seems like it's up in the air. Is that what you're hearing from your clients? They're sort of Asking, looking, or trying to find that clarity. Yeah, a hundred percent. Pop. You know, we're in year two of Trump's second presidency, and so you know

5:48 Uh there's renewed protectionism. Certainly tariffs are sort of one aspect of this, deregulation, the American First Trade Policy, and so helping companies. To navigate these shifting priorities and global trade and frankly regulatory uncertainty. That's that's sort of one Thing.

6:05 There's been a global shift to the right, and so there's a conservative resurgence across, you know, Japan, France, Germany. Uh UK to name but a few. And so Helping clients, uh to be able to again kind of navigate that volatility, that societal polarization that everybody is kind of dealing with. We in this country, because we sort of pay attention to our own news, will be focused on things like Minnesota, but you can also point to Iran.

6:31 Um Gen Z led protests across Asia. Budget protests in Bulgaria, which were huge and probably not on most people's radar here. So Guiding clients through Social listening and activist engagement and brand neutrality, you know, how do you stand for things without necessarily putting yourself in the line of fire. Like that's that's a thing. Um

6:51 There's The global AI governance race, you know, there's competing rules about how to shape AI's futures. I mean, it was so fascinating to me watch Google of all companies, a company that has never really lacked for resources go into the bond market and raise more than thirty billion dollars worth of hundred year debt. That's that's a whole new thing. Yes. Because AI is expensive. And so

7:15 How that's governed and the way that investments work in that world is is a whole separate thing. There's Erosion of trust in traditional media. The Washington Post. You and I both have friends at the Post, you know, a third of their Staff is gone and so At the same time that you know, only twenty eight percent of US adults trust mainstream media. This was the Gallup poll that came out last year.

7:36 Yeah, I mean that number was like in the seventies. In the seventies. Seventy two percent. Nineteen seventy two. 'Cause it's all fake news now, right? I mean y you don't you don't know who to trust. Even even the entities that are financially solvent people have very strong feelings about Absolutely. And you know what we're observing more and more, Bob, I certainly saw it at Davos and I saw it again with the Super Bowl.

8:00 Four and ten US adults, according to that same Gallup poll. Get their news from digital influencers, right? And I'm not saying Influencers or fake news at all. frankly come from the world of traditional media. But the fact that, you know, the trust is so upside down now where you have fewer than one in three Americans saying they trust traditional media forms, you realize that, you know, company owned media channels and storytelling are becoming more important Than they ever have been. Clients have to navigate

8:28 All of this At the same time that they're thinking about things like the erosion of institutional credibility, their own institutions. confidence and that AI for all the advantages that it has, it actually amplifies miss and disinformation. At scale.

8:46 Um, and so I I think there's a lot for clients to sort of wrap their heads around. And that's that's the job that we have is helping them to kind of navigate a very confusing and frankly pretty fragmented. Landscape. I mean as as you go through all of these Disruptions and changes. It i in some ways it's a it's a great time to be in the business you're in because you're you're needed more and the stakes have never been higher.

9:10 But at the same time, the pressure's also never been higher, right? I mean, there is more that is that is at risk based on the way you communicate than it ever has been before. That's totally true. For fifteen years as a client, Bob, I had boards and C suite asking me like Hey, if this thing goes really sideways. What does it cost us? Or if this thing goes really well, this initiative, like what's the upside for us? And so we At Davos launched uh a study.

9:39 That proves that corporate reputation actually has quantifiable value. That companies with strong reputations realized almost five percent, four point seven eight percent unexpected additional shareholder returns. Creating a reputation economy that's worth almost seven trillion dollars. The stakes are a lot higher. We knew they were a lot higher, but now we can actually affix a value. To those steaks. Like what defines a strong reputation in this environment.

10:05 For years I think we have been told or it was received wisdom. Та да вас звертай реліш в trust. Like to be trusted or not trusted. And what I always knew is that reputation was actually comprised of different things. There's a uh a lab within the University of Oxford that helped us to develop this model. It takes into account eight different levers that comprise

10:29 Modern reputation. Citizenship. You know, the degree of good that a company may or may not do in the world. But also Creativity. How creative are your solutions. Governance. The structures and policies and integrity that sort of help the company to be managed innovation. You know, how forward thinking are you? What new technologies or ideas are you putting forth? Leadership.

10:50 How you manage at scale, the way that you navigate things, um, performance, the financial results, products, the the quality, reliability. and perception of your products and and maybe more importantly, although I'm not sure it gets the the play that it should workplace. The culture You know, the uh well being of your employees, the the ma the way that you manage talent. So

11:11 If you think about how Companies manage these eight levers. It's pretty bespoke. Right. There isn't a one size fits all model for how every company like the way Starbucks would have thought about these eight levers would be pretty profoundly different.

11:27 Then the way that Google would think about those late levers. The lens of this research was was around psych kind of financial impact. But Do do business leaders have I don't know, have responsibility to think beyond just sort of financial impact. Is there a connection between sort of reputation?

11:46 And courage. Every company sort of has the opportunity and frankly responsibility to think about among these eight levers how they show up. Right. Your citizenship, the how creative or innovative you are, uh the products or or services you put out in the marketplace. You as a company have to determine What is your unique value that you can

12:06 offer in that space, um, and the extent to which you really choose to pull that lever hard or or don't. Pull that lever hard because citizenship. is one of these eight levers. I think all companies have And also some risks attached to that. You know, they have to think about, you know, are we

12:24 picking a side a political side, or are we doing something that may really please our employees But for our customer base may be a different thing. So this gets into the whole realm of stakeholder management, the way you start to think about how The actions that you take. 'Cause you only really get to communicate, Bob, after you've taken action. Your actions give you the hall pass to communicate. And those actions Sure. They can very well be related to things like corporate citizenship out in the world, but you you have to be mindful of

12:54 The way that people are receiving things. So the way, Bob, that we did things. At Starbucks back in the you know, mid twenty ten political environment with a different administration would be received, I suspect, in a very different way in this administration in this The the year of our Lord twenty twenty six compared to what we did then.

13:14 Doing doing exact choosing to do exactly the same things. And you might not necessarily choose to do them the same way because of that environment. Exactly. Or you might choose to communicate about them in a different way. You know Context matters, right? And so I think you have to start thinking about things like context. And the actions in that context before you're thinking about message. Message is almost the last thing that you're thinking about.

13:39 You mentioned stakeholders for for for some business leaders today. Their public communication often seems targeted to an audience of one in the White House, you know, some CEOs want to at least appear to cooperate with this administration. A few seem prepared to push back. And and most Seemingly wanna kind of hide. Like a am I being too simplistic about it?

14:02 I don't know that you are. The influence of this administration has been immense in terms of the the global order. The entire world, I mean, I you know, you don't have to go to Davos. It helped for me to see it that way. But like the entire world is reacting. to the actions of this administration, right? So you look at Tariffs. You look at a president who was tweeting about Greenland before he even arrived.

14:25 You really start to realize this administration is engaging like no other in history. Not even The first Instance of the Trump administration you can't debate The influence that's being wielded by this this White House. So from a business standpoint, as a business leader,

14:43 I mean I think For companies, maybe it's not so much about being pro Trump or anti-Trump as it is about being pro business continuity. In this hyperpolarized world, right? How do you maintain that that continuity when there are all these changes going on around you?

14:59 Every day gives a new wrinkle. in how to manage continuity with policies that can change. They're they're mutable, right? They've kind of evolved from day to day or week to week or month to month. And so sometimes silence can be a calculated strategy to protect the brand in the bottom line. And other times It's simply because That company doesn't have anything meaningful to say on that topic. You know, Dara mentioned this, I think, in your podcast uh from last week. I'll take a different spin on it, but I think companies have to first and foremost be thinking about

15:34 What are their values? What do they stand for? What are sort of the immutable truths of that company that have been true since it was founded. You know, PG, when they were first founded, By and large, those things are still true. Certainly Starbucks, you know, the the mission statement may have changed. Uh But the objectives are still the same. For you know, our friends at Audidas, it would be the same thing, right? You know, if it if it's not

15:58 A meaningful connection. To you. Uh to your brand, to your values, to your mission. Uh then you have to seriously question like well, why are you in the business of talking about that then? Corey is getting right to the heart of it, and actually he's just warming up. Next we talk about corporate reactions to ICE activities in Minneapolis, how AI is impacting the reputation of tech companies, and more. That's after the break.

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18:18 I hope to see you there. Before the break, Corey DeBrow of Burson talked about the importance of reputation in today's Charge Business Marketplace. Now we talk about the letter that 60 Minnesota Companies signed responding to ICE activities in Minneapolis, how AI is impacting the story Silicon Valley tells about itself, and what each of us can do to safeguard our Our own personal reputations, plus stories from inside Salesforce and Google? Let's jump back in. There's been activity or communications that in some ways has been performative. thinking of a conversation I had with Ken Frazier at one point where he said, Well listen, if you if you believe in something,

19:03 Only when it doesn't cost you anything. Then it's not really uh you know, then it's not really a core value. And and I guess I wonder how you have those conversations with you know, with clients, with CEOs, with leaders about like What are the things that are immutable for you? It's kind of the same as talking about reputation in the sense that it is a

19:25 It's almost like a pie chart, right? You're not looking at something finary. Trusted, not trusted. Citizen not citizen. You know, you're really looking at something that has more nuance to it than that. I think you and I both know that like nuance doesn't travel very effectively on the internet. It doesn't travel very effectively in today's world. But You know, I think most business leaders have learned that the era of commenting on each and every social or news event has kind of passed, right? And I think for the most part, companies are relieved, but it doesn't necessarily mean staying

19:55 mute in the face of major events. So you know, as we've seen Even pretty recently, Minneapolis or Minnesota, and you look at this letter and you know There were different views on the letter, right? Some people thought that it was pretty performative, pretty weak, didn't say a whole lot, that you know it really didn't have much teeth. In it. There's probably some validity to that, but I think the fact that you had companies willing

20:17 As a cohort. In a pack. To speak up about something that was meaningful to them, meaning their local community, the place where they're Employees live, work. Uh connect with one another.

20:28 That's smart business, I think, for those companies. It's it's not performative. Maybe it wasn't as strong as people would have liked for it to be given the stakes, given what had happened in Minneapolis. I mean I had a I I I I had a private exchange with a CEO in Minneapolis just when the when the letter came out and I was like, it's pretty lame. Like it's not really, you know, getting into anything harsh. And this person said Maybe but Getting a whole group of people to agree to anything these days and to do it publicly.

20:59 Like is a bigger deal than it might seem like. You know, that that they all band together. I I did you get called in at all on on These discussions around it. Well we we certainly advised, you know, clients uh who signed up as a part of the letter. And I think to your point, You know, anytime you're doing something in a cohort or as a collective

21:23 There are going to be edges to that conversation, right? So there will be companies who believe that it wasn't strong enough, or companies who barely made it to the table as it was. Like to me, that letter was a good sign in the sense that you know, exactly to the point of the person that you were speaking with. Getting that many people to sign on to something that at least pointed in a direction of saying, like, we disagree with the way that you are handling immigration and the way that you're standing up a presence in our community. That is a start. The start of a much longer and more meaningful conversation as opposed to the finale or some sort of bookmark that says they're there. You know, we've we've done our bit and we could we can piece out. I I don't think most companies thought of it that way.

22:05 Your reputation report also warns that corporate America overall could be a target heading into the midterms. You know, the the the billionaire heroes of business are also villains, right? Like How how concerned should leaders be about that and kind of w what can they do? I think it's a very real thing. If I go back in time To

22:29 My time at Starbucks, I mean I I had never experienced a personal death threat. before for doing my job. I did then. Uh I did a Google too, and I wasn't the only one.

22:41 The first conversation that I ever had with the late Susan Wajiski, literally the first conversation I ever had is when I was at Salesforce. And I was interviewing for the Google job and she very sort of secretly Came up to me because she was on the Salesforce board. So at lunch, she kind of snuggled up to me and was just like, you know, I hear Sundar wants to talk to you. He's great. You should go talk to him. And I asked her about the shooting At YouTube.

23:08 They had had an active shooter. In their building. uh in Northern California and that it was known Uh that the shooter was looking for her. Personally.

23:19 And her view of it was pretty sanguine. She was like, you know, we're here We're here because we have a creator community to look after. I have an employee base that I'm responsible for looking after. She was very focused on safety of others, which I thought was Incredible. She was a remarkable person, and that for me was sort of the first thing like Maybe this is what leadership looks like, right? When you're constantly having to sort of juggle this idea of exposure, social exposure.

23:50 real life exposure, reputation exposure, and her first thought was about The safety of her people, the safety of her creators. And So I think that you know, corporate America And so while every Situation is unique, right?

24:07 Our general counsel clients is to focus on stakeholders, just like Susan was doing, employees, customers, investors. And the goal isn't To garner headlines, I don't think it shouldn't be. It's really staying consistent with your corporate and leadership value. You're not scoring points. You know, you're managing a business, you're managing your reputation. Those things are Interconnected with one another. When I think about the the reputation of not just Google, but sort of Silicon Valley and and big tech overall these days, it's like it's gone through these ebbs and flows. I mean, there was a point where it was

24:42 Just uh you know, adoration, right, for for a lot of those companies. And now the bigger they are, the more successful they are. Where do you see the reputation of Silicon Valley and and sort of big tech right now? Yeah.

24:59 Well it's really interesting. I mean to go back to the AI point that we were speaking about before, the one thing that was totally clear to me at Davos was you couldn't walk down the Davos plots. You couldn't walk down the promenade without being bombarded by AI messages. Like Every company that had a storefront or a presence had a different AI message. You know, whether it was AI as empowerment, whether it was AI as simplicity, whether it was AI as

25:28 executing better at scale, whatever your company's message may be. You can do so much more. Than you ever could before. Uh with digital means. But by the same token with great

25:39 power comes great responsibility. We value As a society and certainly Silicon Valley values. Innovation. Pushing ahead.

25:49 breaking boundaries, kind of getting to a new place as opposed to the Kumbaya of getting everybody on you know the Minneapolis thing, getting everybody to agree on a difficult thing, you know, around a table and kind of sign their name to it. I think that's For Silicon Valley, that's the challenge. It's both the upside of the potential. And it is the potential downside of the risks that come from a world that's catching up. From a regulatory point of view and sees that

26:14 For every cool part of AI, there are there's some downsides. I mean, I've I you know, I I've always assumed that Google. could have released a chat GPT like product. earlier but chose not to because of reputational risks. Which of course open AI as a newcomer didn't worry about, right? Like

26:35 Wait, did you have conversations about things like that that sort of how to deal with those risks? I'll tell you the way that the Sundar would think about this. Sundar would think about this more as a Engineering problem.

26:48 To solve. Sure, reputation is is wound up in or bound up in the decisions that you make about the parameters of a product like that. If you think about like Gemini. Right. Like maybe why it took A while for Gemini. to get to the point where it was ready for mass consumption. And and now you look at where Google is with Gemini, I mean, I think it's it's pretty well accepted across the industry that this version of Gemini is a considerable leap ahead.

27:15 Of where chat GPT is. I think Google is playing a long game. You know, and I think that Sundar thinks in longer terms than many of the people that do his job across the industry. And In my experience, he's thinking of it as a

27:32 Of which reputation is a part. But it is also user experience. Reputation is not an extra thing you bolt on at the last minute and go, oh shit, what if something goes wrong? It's It's a part of the process. When we saw the video of Nancy Guthrie's uh

27:49 A say one. perspective to Salem. I don't think we know exactly what it was. On the porch of her house. through a Nest Cam that she wasn't s a subscription. Uh consumer for

28:01 That is An example of Google doing something that I am certain Bob required engineering backflips that I can't even get my head around. Right. It's backend data that's collected in an ambient way. That probably took considerable resources to find Um

28:18 And here's Google being helpful and saying, like, look, we have the means to do it. And so I think that helpfulness comes from This combination idea of Beautiful design. That works at scale. That also

28:32 You know, manages the reputational risks and upside in any given product. It's true across everything from cloud to YouTube to Gemini. I mean yeah, w when you mentioned Sundar's sort of engineer's perspective. I mean it makes me think. Certainly earlier in days in Silicon Valley. Like

28:53 Storytelling. Wasn't necessarily prized, you know, the the communication it was like the product sort of speaks for itself. In in a lot of ways. And and that engineering mindset obviously still still exists for you as someone who's there to sort of help. craft a story, help reinforce the story? Like how how much is that

29:17 Is that frustrating or do you feel like No This community's figure this out. They know they need to they need to be Better storytellers. I think

29:28 Bob, they're figuring it out. I think that the idea of story as being the way that you can best connect The innovation that you're developing and the Audiences that you intended for, like story is the bridge, you know, between those things. I certainly think that the valley, generally speaking, has gotten better at that. Is it perfect? Probably not. I think there are there are examples you and I could both

29:51 uh pick them pretty easily of of stories that feel pretty ham handed or maybe they feel pretty self serving. The interesting thing about Sundar. He is a gifted storyteller. It does help. I think that his ability to connect Intent with impact.

30:07 We intend to help you. Here is what it means. Uh It it does give A company like Google

30:15 uh a leg up reputationally, I think. Your own reputation. has remained strong through a lot of career shifts and moves. What kind of advice do you have for for business folks who are listening about how they protect and manage their own personal reputation.

30:34 Hm. Well I mean Yeah, I'm a teacher's kid from Long Beach. California.

30:44 Right. So I spent eight years on some form of public assistance like when I was first Growing up. So'cause we've never paid teachers what they were worth. Right.

30:54 So I just try to never forget that. I just try to Hold on to that. And I think If you're too worried about like reputation

31:04 Through the The various chapters of your life, you're you're fussing with things that are not True. But if you're just focused on like where you came from. uh who you really are, like who you who your people R

31:17 Then that feels to me like a more Solid. foundation to kind of come back to. We started by talking about how challenging the past Year has been

31:28 You know, uh you were also on the front lines of crisis at Google during the pandemic. How does this period of disruption feel compared to those pandemic days and kind of What's at stake for business leadership now? The pandemic days were

31:47 They were just so annous, right? Like it was uh It was hard to wrap your head around the idea of being disconnected from everyone. managing in that environment. Like You're you're looking for different signals, I think. You know, like you and I having this conversation here online, like

32:07 I was trying to learn to pay more attention to like facial expressions and Yeah, we probably were all in our heads about what we were texting one another because that was The lifeline we had, you know, we were missing body language. And so you fast forward to today. And you're like, well, we're we're back in that in real life world again. Um, but it's so much more complicated now. You know, the uh

32:29 The multiplicity, I I I'm trying to remember uh at Davos what they were calling it. I guess it was poly crisis, you know, the idea that there's so many things. coming at people at the same time that it's almost impossible for the human brain to kind of like discern well. How do you parse the landscape in a way that makes sense? So To me the We learned some interesting things during the pandemic about how to take care of each other.

32:53 You know, at a at a distance. Um, I sent one of my people home. uh from Google. Like she was uh Really excited to move to the UK. Uh she was living in a city she didn't know. with people she didn't know. She was brand new.

33:09 Uh she was kind of stuck in her apartment block with a medical condition. And I was just having a one on one with her and I was like How'd you feel about going home? You know? Yeah, how do you feel about just picking up and coming back? Uh, and it was the best decision I think that she and I could have made for her mental health, for her well being and all that, but it was hard, right? Like she this was her dream and it wasn't working.

33:31 Um and so we needed to make a different decision. And so I think you you take Lessons from that experience. And that empathy. You know, that button that we pushed a thousand times a day, sometimes during uh the pandemic.

33:43 And you try to apply it to a world that seems less empathetic, that less sympathetic, less Uh connected. Uh to one another. Like it's weird. in real life to be even more fragmented and more Polarized than we were.

33:58 Even online. But that is that's a fact. And so Those are the lessons I try to draw from. You know, it was like the you gotta remember the empathy and you gotta remember that like at the end of the day, we're Trying to be in service of this idea of being helpful.

34:12 And Today's lessons in some ways are the same. Th that it is about empathy, that you go back to that same core. Totally. Different landscape.

34:24 Different president. different world leadership, different challenges. Same Lessons. You're just looking for different applications of those lessons.

34:34 Well um Corey, as always. Great to chat with you and and thanks so much for doing this. Bob, I really appreciate you asking me and I hope I can come back.

34:46 Oh yeah, we'll have Corey back. While he can't share all his private conversations, he gives us a window into how business leaders are thinking and acting and struggling. What stood out to me is Corey's emphasis on context and on nuance, and on how it's our actions that give us license to communicate effectively. Crafting the perfect statement matters less than showing up authentically and determining when you shouldn't show up at all. Reputations like financial results compound over time. They can also erode quickly. So start by clarifying what you really stand for and then act accordingly.

35:22 The right messages will usually follow. That's how to earn lasting trust. In a world that's constantly testing us. I'm Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.

35:42 Rapid response is a wait what original. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our producer is Alex Morris. Associate producer is Mashimaku Tonina. Mixing and Mastering by Aaron Bastanelli. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Le Tal Malad.

36:04 For more, visit rapidresponsshow.com. Yeah.

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