4 proactive steps for preserving brand reputation

Among the many disruptions of 2020 is a re-examination by companies about how to deal with their own histories, especially given racial tensions that reached a fever pitch over the summer. A recent sketch on “Saturday Night Live”—in which three executives try to cut ties with Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben, “the Allstate guy” and even Count Chocula—is a humorous, but perhaps “too real” take on how companies are struggling to deal with their problematic pasts.

The sketch aired on the heels of Lloyd’s of London’s apology for its role in the Atlantic slave trade, JPMorgan Chase committing $30 billion to help close America’s racial wealth gap and California requiring racial diversity on corporate boards and exploring ways to make reparations for slavery. The global chocolate industry is grappling now with the legacy of long-term child labor. But amid this understandable soul searching, new research by History Factory shows that executives tend to overstate their grasp of potentially problematic issues in their companies’ pasts—and that they are somewhat out of step with the issues that customers care most about.