I recently listened to part of The New York Times Dealbook Summit, a live virtual event, hosted by the popular Andrew Ross Sorkin. One particular session titled “The Race for a Vaccine” included Bill Gates, Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, and Professor Heidi Larson, director of the Vaccine Confidence Project. It was a great session, and something Bourla stated about company brands is worth repeating.
Reputation is lost in buckets and earned back in drops.
It was Bourla’s version of a quote attributed online to Kevin A. Plank, founder and executive chairman of Under Amour, who had said in the past, “Brands are all about trust. That trust is built in drops and lost in buckets.”
I often explain to my clients, especially ones who work in a start-up environment, that marketing communications is about all the various marketing pieces working together. If you have one or two of the elements off, the brand will quickly deteriorate and look fragmented, sloppy and disjointed. And who wants to purchase from a company with that kind of feel to it?
The quote also emphasizes the important fact that it takes a lot of time to build trust in a brand and once you lose that trust, it is extremely difficult to regain.
One side note, thanks to The New York Times for an excellent summit. Prior to the session above, they had Dr. Anthony Fauci who was awesome as always. Senator Elizabeth Warren was up later. Impressive selection of people!
