This week, Professor Stephen A. Greyser was the honorary recipient of Lipscomb’s MediaMasters award presented by the Department of Communication and Journalism.
Mr. Greyser, is the Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration (Marketing and Communications) Emeritus at Harvard Business School, where he specializes in brand marketing, advertising and corporate communications, sports management, and non-profit management.
He said his interest in marketing and advertising sparked at an early age after completing work with an advertising agency. “I was still just a high school senior,” Greyser said. “I had a relationship that developed totally coincidentally with an organization that turned out to be an advertising agency, so I was engaged in broadcasting and went on to producing.”
“Then, I decided to study more seriously about those topics and eventually wrote my dissertation…and took a lot of courses for my master’s and doctorate,” he said.
Greyser has been active in organizations in the marketing field, serving as a national director of the American Marketing Association and chairman of its publication, on the advisory council of the Association for Consumer Research and as former president and chairman of the American Academy of Advertising.
Greyser is a man of many accomplishments, skills and expertise in Corporate Reputation and Marketing Communications. On Wednesday, many students, faculty and colleagues gathered to hear Greyser’s speech on “Authenticity, Trust and Corporate Reputation.”
“Reputation takes time to build and can have great value,” Greyser said, “and that value manifests itself in terms of attracting new customers and affirming the loyalty of existing customers. But reputation can be fragile…just ask Martha Stewart.”
In his speech, Greyser outlined four elements of authenticity that are crucial for developing a good corporate reputation:
- Talking Authentic (communication)
- Being Authentic (core values)
- Staying Authentic (the ability to have stewardship over those core values)
- Defending Authenticity and Reputation in times of trouble (trust & public phenomena)
Greyser defined the key ingredients for maintaining and building corporate reputation as trust, authenticity and integrity.