[Global View] 평판관리 실기한 영국 레킷벤키저
2001년에 영국 다국적기업인 레킷벤키저는 한국의 옥시를 인수하면서 옥시가 1996년 처음 출시한 가습기 살균제라는 시한폭탄도 함께 인수했다. 2011년 한국의 질병관리본부가 밝힌 내용에 따르면 이 살균제는 유해한 환경에서 가족을 보호한다는 취지와 달리 오히려 사용자를 질병에 걸리도록 하거나 죽게 만들 수도 있었다.

기업의 고위 관리자들이 어떻게 위기를 관리해야 하느냐에는 두 가지 대조적인 방식이 존재한다. 첫 번째 방식은 법률 자문팀이 주로 지지한다. 회사 책임을 부인하고, 각종 비난이 회사와 관계없다고 강조하면서 다른 대상에게 이를 떠넘기며, 각종 요구에 강력히 대응하고, 보상을 구하는 사람이 있다면 그것을 차단하는 장치를 계속 추가하는 방식이다. 이 방식은 최고경영자(CEO)가 책임져야 할 1차 대상은 어쨌든 주주고, 소비자가 아니라고 본다.

보상보다 잘못 인정에 관심

두 번째 방식은 주로 기업의 평판을 담당하는 관리자들이 주장하는 방식이다. 문제에 대한 회사 책임이 명백해지면 최대한 빨리 회사가 이를 깨끗이 인정하고, 진심으로 사과하며, 공정하게 보상하는 것이다. 대중은 보상에 대한 관심보다 회사가 자신의 잘못을 인정하고 어떤 재발 방지책을 내놓는가에 더 관심을 기울인다는 게 이들의 생각이다.

양쪽 다 근거가 있다. 하지만 ‘기업이 자기 잘못임을 확신하지 못한 경우에도 뉘우치는 것을 보여주는 것이 더 좋은 선택’이라는 쪽이 점차 힘을 얻고 있다. 1999년 서유럽에서 보여준 코카콜라의 대응방식이 그 교과서적 사례다. 당시 상당수 어린이를 포함한 100여명이 병원에 실려 갔는데, 이들은 오염된 코카콜라 제품을 마셔서 그렇다고 주장했다. 정부 조사 결과에도, 회사 조사 결과에도 특별한 문제는 발견되지 않았지만 코카콜라는 공개적으로 사과하고 보상을 제안했다. 장기적으로 코카콜라 브랜드는 아무 해를 입지 않았다.

이와 대조적으로 레킷벤키저는 한국 지사와 영국 본사 모두 책임 인정에 주저하는 모습을 보였다. 법적 대응방식을 선택했고 2011년 이후 피해자와의 소통은 법정에서만 이뤄졌다.

기업 평판은 벚꽃만큼 연약

이달 초부터 이 같은 레킷벤키저 전략이 바뀌었다. 지난 2일 이 회사는 보도자료를 통해 “우리는 해당 제품이 한국에서 사망자가 발생하는 등 건강에 영향을 미친 것에 대한 모든 책임을 받아들이기로 했다”고 밝혔다. 해외 언론들도 한국에서 일어난 일을 보도하기 시작했기 때문에 수많은 제품을 판매하는 레킷벤키저는 한국뿐 아니라 세계적으로 매출이 감소할 위기에 처했다.

많은 한국인은 레킷벤키저의 전략 변화가 너무 늦었다고 말하고 있다. 언론인, 유통업체 관계자, 정부 관료, 학계 연구원도 자기 분야의 전문가이면서 또한 인간이다. 만약 한 회사가 잘못을 저지른 뒤 부적절한 반응을 보였다면 그들이 하는 말이나 행동은 신뢰를 얻기 어렵다. 기업 평판은 벚꽃만큼이나 부서지기 쉽다. 갖고 있을 때는 아름다운 자산이지만 폭풍과도 같은 대중의 분노 앞에서 순식간에 사라져 버릴 수 있다.

한국경제신문은 영국 맨체스터대 비즈니스스쿨 교수진의 기고문을 한 달에 1회 독점 게재합니다.

아래는 원문

The Crisis at Oxy Reckitt Benckiser

The British multinational Reckitt Benckiser purchased the Korean Oxy company in 2001. It also purchased a ticking bomb, a product launched by Oxy in 1996, a steriliser for humidifying machines. Far from protecting families from harm, as the Korean Centre for Disease Control was to discover in 2011, the product would be linked to injury and death. During 2011 Reckitt Benckiser‘s share price fell back slightly but since then it has more than doubled, so good crisis management or not?

There are two contrasting views as to how senior managers should manage a crisis, the first and often an approach supported by legal advice, is to deny responsibility, to push any blame away from the company and onto others, to challenge any claims and put barrier after barrier in front of anyone seeking compensation. After all, the primary (legal) duty of any CEO is to the shareholder and not to the customer.

The alternative way of thinking, and one which is frequently argued by reputation managers, is to admit liability as soon as it is clear that the company is responsible for the problem, apologise sincerely and compensate fairly. The financial cost, reputation managers often argue, will then be far lower than the long term cost of lost sales due to bad publicity, let alone any legal costs when trying to defend the indefensible. Members of the public are less concerned about compensation and more concerned to be convinced that the company recognises its fault and is doing something to prevent any similar occurrence in the future.

The evidence guiding companies as to which option they should choose is mixed but increasingly the balance of opinion is that being contrite is the better choice, even if the company is not convinced that it is at fault. The text book example here is Coca Cola in Western Europe in 1999 when over 100 people including many children were hospitalised, often blaming their condition on drinking contaminated Coke. No problems with the product could be found either by Coca Cola or by government scientists, yet the company was required to remove its products from sale across Europe. After a week or so when still no explanation for the crisis could be found, Coca Cola issued a public apology, even though they did not believe they had done anything wrong, and offered compensation. The problem disappeared as quickly as it had appeared with no long term damage to the brand.

In contrast Reckitt Benckiser has appeared reluctant to acknowledge responsibility both in South Korea and in its home country of Britain. It chose the legalistic approach and the only dialogue between the company and those its products had harmed after 2011 was through the courts. Since early May 2016 the strategy has changed. On May 2nd its press release stated, ’We have accepted full responsibility for the role that this product played in these health issues, including deaths, in Korea,‘ and, ’We have announced today our intention to establish a Compensation Fund for those directly impacted, to be administered by independent experts, and a Humanitarian Fund for all others who believe they have been affected by the HS issue‘. In a subsequent release Rakesh Kapoor, CEO of RB plc was quoted as saying he wanted to, ’regain the confidence of Korean society.‘

By now Reckitt Benckiser was in trust recovery mode; sales of all their many consumer brands were at risk not only in South Korea but increasingly globally as the international media had started covering the story. The offer of a compensation fund to be managed independently of the company is an example of what academics label as ’hostage posting‘ a tactic widely recommended as a part of reputation recovery. The organisation makes itself vulnerable to external scrutiny in the hope that this will make its actions appear genuine and the company appear more trustworthy.

Whether the tragic case of the humidifier disinfectant will create long term damage for Reckitt Benckiser or just become a case study to try to teach future generations about how to, and how not to, manage a crisis may only become clear in a year or so. Their offers of money and their change of tactics, appear to many Koreans, I am told, to be too little and certainly too late. Meanwhile we should alsol remember that journalists, retail buyers, government officials and academic researchers are human beings as well as professionals in their working lives. If a company does wrong and if its response is inappropriate, we won’t trust what they say or do in the future. The attitudes of such opinion formers towards Reckitt Benckiser will be just as important in the longer term as those among shoppers in Korean supermarkets. A company‘s reputation is as fragile as cherry blossom, a beautiful asset when you have it but something that can disappear quickly in a storm of enraged public opinion.

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Gary Davies is Professor of Strategy at Alliance Manchester Business School in England where his main research interests are in reputation management and branding. He is a frequent visitor to South Korea and has given talks to the Korean Chamber of Commerce, the Korean Franchise Association, KODIA and at a number of Korean Universities. His research has been published inter alia in the Harvard Business Review, the Strategic Management Journal, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and the Journal of International Business. His latest paper, in the Journal of Business Research, with two Korean academics, concerns the value to Korean companies of the Hallyu.

정리=이상은 기자 selee@hankyung.com

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