Combating anti-Americanism around the globe is too important to be left to the government alone. Business, led by multi-national companies, must step up to the job of restoring trust and improving America's reputation.

That was the message that came through loud and clear at the Corporate Communications Institute symposium held April 28 at Fairleigh Dickinson University. With attitudes towards the U.S. deteriorating rapidly, in large part because of unpopular American policies, global brands are confronting one of the most hostile business environments in years.

Keith Reinhard, chairman of DDB Worldwide and president of Business for Diplomatic Action, made the case. With favorable views of America dropping in most countries and the U.S. losing friends at an alarming rate, Reinhard said, "business must take collective action to change perceptions of this country." What is happening overseas is having a negative impact on global brands, he said, and is hurting business in many ways including rising costs of security, threats of boycotts, danger to facilities and personnel and attracting top talent.

Many of the causes of resentment against the U.S. are related to business activity, Reinhard said. Globalization is creating a feeling in many countries of being left behind. American businesses are perceived as exploitive and a corrupting influence. "All we appear to care about is getting people to buy our products," he said.

It doesn't have to be that way, Reinhard said. Business for Diplomatic Action, the organization he helped found, is intended to get U.S.-based multinational businesses to better communicate universal values, increase social capital and build lasting, enriching partnerships with local communities around the world.

Why is U.S. business better able than the government to attack these critical issues? Because, Reinhard said, the representatives of U.S. companies overseas are more likely to be locals, there is less bureaucratic involvement, and things that need to be accomplished don't face the restrictions of a four-year election cycle. It is in the "enlightened self-interest" of business, he said, to make restoring trust and improving America's reputation a priority.

To change overseas perceptions of this country, Reinhard said, "Business must be willing to listen before acting and do a better job of communicating with local citizens. We must share best practices. And we must make ourselves a global listening post." His recommendations for actions by business also included offering free English language training, organizing collective intern programs and creating educational content for third party distribution.

Thomas Miller, managing director, Centers of Excellence with NOP World, reviewed the Roper Reports research on changing perceptions about America and the impact on U.S. brands. "Attitudes toward the U.S. have deteriorated rapidly over the last few years," Miller said, "raising new and significant challenges for American brands."

Most of the world sees American values as favoring wealth, power, freedom and enjoying the good life, Miller said. They don't see values such as honesty, equality and faith being that important in America. In recent years, power and striver values such as wealth have moved up in world perceptions of the U.S. while internationalism and altruistic values have dropped.

Research shows that there is a growing disconnect in how Americans view their own culture, Miller said. Values such as power, freedom and family have remained fairly constant, but other values such as environmentalism, internationalism and socially oriented values have not faired as well.

Is America in tune with world values? Miller said the top global values are protecting the family, honesty and health and fitness. And yet, Muslim nations don't think protecting the family is as important to American culture. Western Europe and the Middle East also don't think honesty is as important in this country.

Miller said that in the last year, the reputation of global brands has begun to decline. Part of the reason, he said, is the loss of trust and the fact that key brands are not associated with honesty in many countries. "We are going through a period of reassessment," he said, "when the worsening attitudes toward the U.S. culture are having an impact on the marketplace. Attributes such as quality, reliability and value are still important, but trust and honesty may be more important than ever."

A panel wrapped up the day's proceedings. On the panel was Michael Sperling, associate provost for global learning at Fairleigh Dickinson, Gary Knell, president and CEO of Sesame Workshop, and Peter Hirsch, executive vice president, corporate/public affairs, Porter Novelli.

Sperling said education has an important role to play in improving relations with other nations. More language training, study abroad programs, and courses in international studies are needed, he said, to build understanding and global perspectives.

Three years ago, Sperling said, Fairleigh Dickinson began to place new emphasis on global education to support its mission of providing students with an education "of and for the world." Taking advantage of the Internet, the University built a Global Virtual Faculty Program that links students online with scholars and practitioners around the world. They have established a lecture series with current and former United Nations ambassadors and diplomats. They have also taken advantage of the more than 1,000 international students on their campuses to create a learning community that embraces diversity.

"Global learning," Sperling said, "can be a powerful anecdote to anti-Americanism."

Knell told how Sesame Workshop turned Sesame Street into a powerful global teaching tool. Through public/private partnerships, they have been able to establish locally produced and staffed Sesame Street television programs in countries around the world.

"Our model," Knell said, "is to build a local research facility, usually with a university in that country, train the production team locally and hire local actors. Our goal is to empower our local partners wherever we have taken the program."

The program content is aimed at local problems, he said. That includes, among others, tackling the stigma of AIDS in South Africa, female illiteracy in Egypt, and inter-communal conflict in Israel, Palestine and Jordan. "It's not an American program teaching American values," Knell said. "It's about making a better world for children everywhere."

Knell said that Sesame Workshop is providing alternatives to local broadcasting that tends to be anti-American. But they never lose sight of that fact that they must mirror the values of the country they are in.

The third panelist, Hirsch provided a corporate perspective that stressed the importance of CEOs listening to what is happening in other parts of the world. "We need to create a dialogue with others," he said, "and learn now to deal with different cultures. We also need to produce a more powerful story of what America is doing in the world."

One of the values that is not coming through in our communications, he said, is the diversity of our ethnic makeup and the opinions that are expressed.

By establishing community relations activities in other countries, Hirsch said, we can transport overseas some of the ideas we use here. "But we have to improve our own situation," he said, "before we can export our own model."