WPP-owned PR and comms agency Burson has launched Reputation Capital, an AI-powered technology and consulting solution designed to connect drivers of reputation to specific business outcomes such as stock price, sales or purchase intent.
The agency said the offer “fundamentally advances” how reputation is measured, valued and managed, offering leading businesses a live view of this dynamic, multi-faceted asset.
Burson’s approach facilitates immediate decision making so businesses can act with speed and precision against reputational shifts that have a direct bearing on commercial success. Reputation Capital is available through WPP Open, the AI-enabled marketing platform.
“Our core belief at Burson is that reputation is the most valuable asset that any organisation possesses,” said Corey duBrowa, global CEO, Burson.
“It’s complex and constantly evolving, influenced by a variety of factors beyond any singular element such as trust. Traditional tools for measuring and shaping reputation simply can’t keep pace with the velocity and volume of challenges our clients are navigating today. With Reputation Capital, we’re pinpointing the specific drivers of reputation, forecasting the impact of potential actions, connecting these insights directly to business outcomes, and pairing them with expert counsel. This empowers our clients to make informed decisions with speed and agility, ensuring their actions and communications positively impact corporate perception and business performance, and ultimately build a lasting competitive advantage in the marketplace.”
The Reputation Capital methodology defines eight levers of reputation management, ranging from citizenship and social responsibility to management and leadership, to creativity and innovation, among others, and uses advanced data and AI models to predict the potential impact of the media environment, news, narratives, events, or actions on each lever.
The models ingest and analyse information from proprietary sources and technology platforms, capturing signals ranging from client-owned information to digital and social media. This analysis yields an up-to-the-minute reputation score that illustrates how a brand is perceived overall and isolates which specific levers need action to improve reputation with a direct impact on business. Burson’s expert counsellors then develop strategic and creative messages and ideas, which are then tested and perfected for their potential for impact.
Reputation Capital analyses brand-specific signals across segments – including geography, sector, reputation lever and audience – and uses near real-time AI analysis to pinpoint hidden or emerging reputational risks and opportunities and forecast their likelihood of scale and impact. Reputation Capital’s breadth of data and its modeling capabilities can deliver reputation scores and insights for thousands of global companies, both public and private.
“Traditional reputation management tools only offer a backwards view of corporate perception,” said Chad Latz, global chief innovation officer, Burson. “Reputation Capital changes the game by providing a dynamic understanding of a brand’s reputation in the marketplace and predicting the impact of actions relative to key business metrics. This latest innovation is unique in the marketplace and especially valuable during periods of turbulence or emerging opportunity, when advanced intelligence, urgent action, and sophisticated communications counsel are critical for safeguarding reputation or seizing potential.”
The Reputation Capital platform models the shareholder value of a company’s reputation by focusing on business outcomes, such as stock returns, that differ from market expectations – to provide a clear picture of the impact of specific factors, such as reputation, on shareholder value.
Modelling of technology sector companies proved that reputation contributes significantly to shareholder value. In this sector, shifts in company reputations contributed, on average, 0.97 per cent in additional weekly returns – which in shareholder value ranges from USD $2.5B to USD $38B depending on the company being analysed. Simply put, a one percent increase in its Reputation Capital score equated to USD $2.4B in added shareholder value for a technology company profiled in the platform.
“This profiling exercise underscores the critical role of reputation in driving financial outcomes,” duBrowa noted. “For businesses, it highlights the tangible economic value of building, maintaining and enhancing reputation. For investors, it emphasises the importance of considering reputation when evaluating potential investments. For boards, it makes reputation – always a subject in the boardroom – a more tangible asset for every company and brand.”
Grant Toups, Burson’s global chief digital and intelligence officer, “Imagine knowing that perception around corporate integrity and governance, for example, or creativity, was having outsized impact on shareholder value creation compared to the other levers of reputation. Reputation Capital delivers that specificity, arming our clients with the predictive intelligence needed to build and sustain the reputational currency that drives business performance. By transforming perception into actionable intelligence, we can help clients make reputation a distinct and quantifiable competitive advantage that can be optimised for maximum ROI.”
Reputation Capital was validated by Augmented Intelligence Labs, an Oxford University enterprise, and includes features that are part of Burson’s proprietary cognitive AI solution, Decipher, created in partnership with Limbik.
“Burson’s Reputation Capital is an exceptionally advanced platform that takes the most comprehensive view of reputation – and provides the most actionable intelligence – of anything that’s currently on the market,” said Dr. Felipe Thomaz, associate professor of marketing, Oxford University, and Co-Founder and Managing Director of Augmented Intelligence Labs, who counseled Burson on the solution’s development. “The empirical evidence that Reputation Capital reveals about the attributes that comprise reputation is extraordinarily valuable information that can guide Burson’s counselors and the C-suite.”
Reputation Capital is the latest addition to the Burson Innovation Portfolio, a suite of AI-enabled tools that equip Burson’s communications experts to provide clients with faster, better insights; precision audience targeting; and culturally relevant creative.
