As our lives have shifted, so have our attitudes, and the current social context may be widening the distance between ordinary Americans and large corporations. It was never a close connection to begin with, of course, since large companies are generally seen as faceless, remote, elite, and profit-driven. But the double whammy of a massive economic crash and an isolating global pandemic seems to have injected new suspicion into that relationship. The situation has created new opportunities for the jury pool to view large companies as callous (in bringing employees back to work in unsafe conditions), greedy (in laying off workers even after receiving bail-outs) or dishonest (in taking public funds meant for small businesses).

For these reasons, there is a strong chance that the dissociation — treating big business as “them” not “us” — is greater than ever. Americans, including jurors, will be less likely to see companies as acting in their interests or for the public good, less likely to identify with a company’s goals, and less likely to believe a company witness. Some recent research shared by Persuasion Strategies, as well as other consulting groups, adds support to idea that the current crisis is widening that gap. In this post, I will share some of that research and discuss its implications.

The Research

As part of a Persuasion Strategies research project, we have collected our own nationwide longitudinal data, comparing survey participants in early 2019 with those of April 2020. Because we were able to return to the same individuals to repeat the same question before and during the coronavirus emergency, we are able to more precisely get at the attitude change. In this case, the proportion saying that the government favors large corporations over ordinary Americans has increased by 11 percent.

We see an even stronger pattern in a recent Law 360 article entitled, “How the Pandemic is Changing Juror Worldviews,” by Alison Wong and Jocelyn Cinquino of Salmons Consulting. They surveyed the juror-eligible population in Delaware and Eastern Texas districts, and found that 25 percent say their opinions of large corporations have become more negative in recent months. While some big companies are seen as doing a good job of continuing to meet customer needs during the crisis (i.e. grocery stores, online retailers, big-box stores, home improvement stores, hospitals, manufacturers and insurance companies), other companies receive bad marks for staying open too long (Hobby Lobby), endangering workers (meat packers), or taking too much in the way of public support (large restaurant chains like Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and Shake Shack, big airline companies, and even Harvard University). Interestingly, Amazon and Walmart score highly on both the best and worst lists, depending on whether respondents focus on the frame of serving customers (good marks), or the frame of treating employees (bad marks).

The Recommendations

With or without a pandemic-driven recession, those defending corporations, or otherwise advising companies on communication, are wise to account for anti-corporate bias. Based on our continuing research, around 8 in 10 Americans tend to harbor at least some animosity toward large corporations. The main responses have been discussed in this publication before:

• Differentiate yourself: Show that you are not just “a corporation,” but one with unique commitments and contributions.

• Humanize yourself: Lead with the credible people who make up your corporation, to put a face on what is otherwise faceless.

• Embrace profit motive: Show that the company is motivated to do the right thing, in many cases because the right thing is also the profitable thing.

Wong and Cinquino’s analysis also contains a useful rubric focusing on the ways people will evaluate corporate responsibility in the form of three questions that matter generally, but particularly in the context of the current economic and social disruptions:

• What are you doing to help the customers?

• What are you doing to help your employees?

• What are you doing to help the greater good?

That is not a bad three-part checklist for companies in many contexts, and it helps to have a good answer for all three. They also offer good advice for corporate messaging generally:

“In assessing the conduct of large corporations, the respondents to our survey make one thing very clear: any contributions made by these companies must be meaningful in order to receive full credit. Lip service won’t cut it. Nobody wants to hear from a clothing company that “we’re all in it together” without also hearing what that company is doing to pitch in and pull its weight. People need to see evidence of assistance now, not intangible promises for later.”

Companies will continue to defend themselves in court, and the current crises are likely to bring their own lawsuits as well. Knowing that the public and the jury will feel more distance from corporations, the imperative is to think about how you will repair and extend your company’s credibility.

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Image credit: 123rf.com, used under license