Reputation - Made in China

How do you go about building the reputation of an entire country ? And one of the world's biggest countries at that ? Not a small task, you have to admit. I suppose the honest answer to that question is it depends on what damage has been done.

Hot on the heels of the worldwide product recall by Mattel, the Chinese government has launched a week long campaign, promoted on state television, to defend its reputation as a safe exporter. This presents an interesting challenge for the Chinese government. On the one hand, they can rely on a strong heritage of efficient worldwide exports, and on the other, it adds fuel to an already well-stoked fire of those that say manufacturing in China relies on corruption, cheap labour and (at worst) human rights abuse.

Sometimes there's a case in reputation management to take a very light touch and perhaps this is one such case. Granted, reassuring consumers and trade-partners alike that products manufactured in China are not going to be toxic or dangerous is a prudent thing to do. But when the price of raising the publicity in this area to levels that begin to attract an already fervent hotbed of critics, it could actually raise awareness of a whole host of less savoury issues.

But then managing reputation is all about walking a tightrope between being seen as good, but not too good.