PUBLIC RELATIONS: CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS

Your company's reputation is the foundation of your brand. Without that, nothing else matters.

Protecting your reputation is a full-time job in a world where the media tends to amplify failures and minimize successes. Your company's reputation is under constant scrutiny from customers and potential customers, government officials, neighbors, community leaders—even from your employees. A skewed perception—even if it's based on misinformation—often shapes public opinion.

Fuel can assist you in building your company's reputation as well as help protect the reputation you've worked so hard to attain.
Effective corporate communications can:

• Motivate employees
• Boost productivity
• Attract and retain top-quality people
• Create a "halo" around your business
• Reinforce your brand
• Solidify your corporate and product positioning
• Minimize threats to your company's reputation, financial position, and product credibility during a crisis
• Corporate Positioning

Fuel works to build and strengthen your company's position in the market by focusing on four characteristics:

• Differentiation.
  We'll create a clear distinction between your company and your competitors in the areas that matter to your stakeholders.
• Credibility.
  We'll show you how to earn it and enhance it.
• Consistency.
  To achieve credibility and differentiation, your company must deliver its corporate messages consistently and, more importantly,
  live them.
• Relevance.
  Your positioning must be relevant: your customers and your employees must value what your company does.

We provide analysis that reveals how your company is currently perceived, versus how it should be perceived. Then we'll show you—through corporate communications and brand positioning—how to achieve the intended perception.

Crisis Communications
When your business is humming along, a crisis is probably the last thing on your mind. Some companies are less susceptible to crises than others. But if your company is one whose services and products touch the community, or whose operations rely on the goodwill and loyalty of your customers, it makes sense to prepare yourself in the event something happens that might tarnish your reputation or undermine your credibility.

A crisis can assume many forms. And it could lead to media coverage that affects your company's ability to conduct business. How you react in the first few hours is crucial. There's very little time for head scratching. The best time to defuse a crisis is before it reaches boiling point. We work with you to make sure your first response to a crisis is the most effective.

Your best defense against crisis is to identify areas where you are vulnerable and have a response plan in place ahead of time, ready for implementation if and when it's needed. Fuel develops crisis preparedness and reaction strategies, training spokespeople to deal with media and providing on-site counsel and logistical assistance.

Employee Communications
As critically important assets to your company, your employees' attitudes and on-the-job behavior, how they work with customers and what they say, shape your brand and reputation. They can be evangelists for your business or, in the worst case, contribute to its undoing.

We know from experience that effective communications with employees can help build and protect a positive work environment and your brand. Our experience in developing employee communications strategies that reinforce your company's mission and encourage employee teamwork can make a difference. Not only when times are good, but also during times when change is about to occur as the result of labor negotiations, merger integration, business restructuring, and other challenges.