In the 20th century, Kodak was truly one of the world’s powerhouses. Its rise to prominence began when it launched its affordable Brownie camera in 1900. In the decades that followed Kodak established a dominant position in the lucrative film business, with its “you push a button, we do the rest” slogan demonstrating its commitment to making photography accessible to the masses.

By 1976 Kodak accounted for 90% of film and 85% of camera sales in America. Until the 1990s it was regularly rated one of the world’s five most valuable brands.

Then came digital photography to replace film, and smartphones to replace cameras. Today people turn to digital cameras embedded in their mobile phones, share pictures over the Internet, and eschew prints altogether.

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Social media have created a participation culture. We no longer merely watch and consume culture. We create, share and interact with it.

Social media has forced openness and transparency in businesses that was not possible before. The power has shifted to the customer who can – if dissatisfied with the business – impact the business:

• Customers have the power to make changes – Molly Katchpole started an online petition that gained more than 306.000 signatures that later forced Bank of America  to drop its decision to impose monthly fees on debit card users
• Bank customers hitting back through social media – Bank of America rewarded one of their customers loyalty by repeatedly raising interest rate – than the customer turned to YouTube
• Social media has shifted the bal­ance of power – United repeatedly refused to listen and take corrective action after damaging the guitars of Dave Carroll

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Executives spend a lot of time worrying about their companies’ products and prices, but they don’t spend nearly enough time worrying about corporate character.

A lot of them don’t believe companies even have a character, and others don’t see what difference it could possibly make.

But is there a direct correlation between employee investment and performance? As Prof. James L. Heskett wrote in his latest book The Culture Cycle, effective culture can account for 20-30 percent of the differential in corporate performance when compared with “culturally unremarkable” competitors.

Kotter and Heskett’s landmark study Corporate Culture and Performance documented results for 207 large U.S. companies in 22 different industries over an eleven-year period. Kotter and Heskett reported that companies that managed their cultures well saw revenue increases of 682% versus 166% for the companies that did not manage their cultures well – stock price increases of 901% versus 74% – and net income increases of 756% versus 1%.

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Apologizing has become one of the standard practices of crisis communication and reputation management. The problem is, they are all starting to sound alike.

Johnson & Johnson, already under fire for a string of product recalls, had another public relations issue on its hands after its o.b. tampons temporarily disappeared from stores and little was said about what happened.

O.b. users, many of whom have a cult-like loyalty to the product, said they were outraged when they could not find the brand in stores. They asked clerks why shelves were empty and demanded answers from Johnson & Johnson.

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