PricewaterhouseCoopers

Challenge

As information surrounding Enron’s irregular accounting practices began to surface in late 2001, Enron’s accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, until then one of the largest and respected of the Big Five accounting firms, was forced to closed its doors.

PriceWaterhouseCoopers – the accounting firm famously entrusted each year with the “sealed envelopes” containing the winners of the Academy Awards –felt the pressure to differentiate itself from the broad brush of suspicion with which the media and industry watch dogs were painting the remaining accounting firms. They wanted to protect their longstanding brand image as a trusted audit and consulting partner.

Kurtzman Approach

We created a SWAT team to address, assess, and respond to any unforeseen problems. The global team, based in New York, included members from the firm’s high-risk practices: London, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam. Also included were global CEOs of client companies and global and regional strategic PR and communications teams.

We conducted strategy discussions and perception audits among key stakeholders to ensure a full vetting of potential issues and unknowns that might arise.

Solution

The image of the firm that emerged in the ideal: safety, trust, and partnership. We crafted a core set of messages around these ideas. The global SWAT team ensured that the firm was on message everywhere in the world.

These messages were then carried forward in a variety of communications vehicles, including a book authored by the firm’s Chairman. Entitled Building Public Trust, the book was researched, written, published, and released at a National Press Club meeting in D.C. and circulated to members of Congress within 90 days.

Results

PriceWaterhouseCoopers was able to promote a reassuring global brand that protected the firm and associated it with the most desirable attribute of the times: Trust.