At a Populus Perspectives event in London last Thursday (2 July) some of the industry’s most forthright communicators spoke about the significance and power of reputation in the modern age.

The scene was set by Rita Clifton, chairman of Populus, who explained how our current environment is defined by its transparency - the internet and social media makes everything visible.

The Trust & Reputation one-day conference welcomed a host of senior communicators and business professionals, journalists and heads of representative organisations. The first speaker was Graham Beale, CEO at Nationwide, who spoke about the bank’s ability to weather the financial crisis due to a well-executed, transparent communications strategy and the good practice that inevitably underpins that. The idea of a strong reputation being something you can’t fake was a key focus during the event overall. As well as providing a "safe haven" during the crisis, Beale said that Nationwide continues to maintain trust by fighting for greater practice in the financial sector. The bank currently campaigns against unfair credit card terms.

The second talk relayed some research, conducted by Populus, which summarised the current trust and reputation landscape. Laurence Stellings, associate director at Populus Politics & Reputation, said that the research showed that the public feel disconnected from big businesses and 71% believe that the Government needs to be tougher on big businesses.

A panel discussion, led by associate city editor at the Daily Mail, Ruth Sunderland, expanded upon an element of Populus’ research that became another recurring theme of the day; CEO salaries. People tend to have an unrealistic idea of quite how much more CEO’s are paid than their employees, but even so they are less than happy about it. True transparency would include the disclosure of that kind of information but would not necessarily help to gain the trust of stakeholders and the public.

Another panel discussion at the Trust & Reputation conference, with a particularly impressive line-up including Anthony Browne, CEO of the British Bankers Association, Rebecca Reilly, head of corporate communications at Sainsbury’s and Lesley Smith, director of public policy in the UK and Ireland at Amazon, spoke about identifying triggers for reputational risk. It was generally agreed that corporate communications people should move up the business agenda, however, good conduct should be the starting point.

Brendan Gormley, chair of the INGO Accountability Charter, represented the NGO sector at the event and spoke about its specific challenges. He explained how a donation can actually cause disengagement, because the donor feels that their job is done once they've donated. Gormley said that charities are becoming more focused on resolving the cause of a problem, instead of providing isolated relief.

A highlight of the day was Nick Hindle, senior vice president and chief communications officer at McDonald’s, who gave an account of the fast food company’s journey as it rebuilt its reputation over the last decade. Hindle said that, “Leading brands can lose their way”, McDonald’s, which had always enjoyed success, became complacent while competition grew around it. The communications team went beyond marketing to change the core direction of the brand, instead of opening more restaurants, they made huge investments in the restaurants that already existed, even the poorly performing ones. They targeted their key external audiences but also prioritised their staff as a key audience. The results were staggering with sales rising exponentially.

The day ended with another strong panel and a talk from David Wheldon, who has just taken the role of CMO at RBS but who previously worked as the head of brand for Barclays Group. Overall, the day bought together some of the best minds in repuation management and covered a broad range of sectors and contemporary issues.