No More Heroes

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he erosion of faith in political institutions and corporations is often dated back to the countercultural 1960s. But Kate Watts, a London-based marketing expert, says a turning point could have come as early as World War I, with its senseless slaughter of young European men. She quotes two lines of a poem by Rudyard Kipling: "If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied." In the business world, the issue goes beyond corporate image. Watts points out one big conundrum for firms today: traditional forms of advertising and marketing are proving far less effective than in the past, as skeptical consumers stop believing what the ads tell them. "We appear to be spending more and getting less," Watts concludes.

Global institutions, especially the IMF, are also feeling the direct impact of their unpopularity: in the past few weeks, both Argentina and Brazil have announced that they are paying back their entire outstanding debt to the IMF—a combined total of $25 billion—in order to wriggle free of its policy conditions. Argentine President Nestor Kirchner accuses the IMF of causing many of his nation's economic woes. In the Ivory Coast, it's the U.N. that is the focus of government wrath. Following a recommendation last week by a U.N.-backed international working group that the Ivorian parliament—which is dominated by supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo—be dissolved, more than 300 U.N. peacekeepers were forced to pull out of bases in the west of the country after they were attacked by armed groups loyal to Gbagbo. In the main city of Abidjan, protesters surrounded the U.N. headquarters and were held back by tear gas and rifle fire.

So what's the solution? Transparency and a willingness to listen and adapt can help. While November's unrest and arson attacks affected many suburbs around Paris, the town of Issy-les-Moulineaux to the south of the French capital was largely spared. There, Mayor André Santini has bet heavily on technology infrastructure in a successful bid to attract international firms such as Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems. He's also used technology to interact more openly with Issy's 63,000 residents. Issy was the first French town to start an Internet-based local TV service, and last December it held an online election for councilors for Issy's four districts. Candidates campaigned via their own blog pages and discussed issues with voters through the town's website. Such measures have bolstered Santini's local support: he won a landslide victory in the last municipal elections.

Corporations seeking to rebuild their image can always open their checkbooks. For example, oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, excoriated in the 1990s for polluting the Niger Delta, is spending millions of dollars to combat malaria and aids in Africa, and is funding other initiatives aimed at improving the lives of those affected by oil exploration. Other firms have tried to make their peace with often-critical NGOs. British oil company BP, French retailer Carrefour and Swedish packaging manufacturer Tetra Pak are working with the World Wildlife Fund on environmental issues.

But spending money is no guarantee that trust will be quickly won back. At least 17 people died earlier this month after an attack by armed militants on a Shell facility in the Niger Delta only days after four oil workers were kidnapped. Corporate alliances with some activist groups are often viewed suspiciously or derided as "greenwash" by more radical NGOs. Furedi, the University of Kent sociology professor, says that companies may ultimately be more hurt than helped if they try to make over their public image too aggressively, because they risk repudiating who and what they really are. "BP is spending billions to change its image, saying 'we are not a petroleum company.' They've lost belief in what they are doing and are trying to be something else. But in doing so they discredit the foundation on which they were built," Furedi says. "They are building a destabilizing dynamic that's going to blow up in their face."

Heavy-handed marketing can be dangerous for governments, too. In the U.S., recent revelations that a group close to the Republican Party planted news stories in Iraqi newspapers and allegedly paid off some prominent Iraqi religious leaders caused an uproar in Washington. Simon Anholt, an international consultant who advises political leaders on ways to improve their nations' brand images, thinks the answer lies in moving away from the current obsession with polls and focus groups. "Most governments provide second-rate customer service rather than leadership," he says. "Governments are popular when they have real problems and deal with them well."

Clarity of purpose can help with political leaders, just as it can with companies. Frustrated by constant blockage of his plans to reform the country's financial system last year—including by members of his own party—Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appealed over the heads of the naysayers to the public, and won a landslide election victory. The only trouble: sometimes, clear leadership engenders not too little trust, but too much of it. In the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, the reformist King Jigme Singye Wangchuck is so popular that he is having trouble persuading his people to replace his own feudal monarchy with a parliamentary democracy. That's not the sort of popularity that is likely to give Jacques Chirac problems any time soon.