“The public has a habit of deciding on their own what is and isn’t important.”

Those words were leveled at me many years ago while I was working on a complex media relations strategy that included governmental, business and consumer components.

A savvy old public relations pro who served as one of my mentors early in my career selected a teaching moment after I’d had the temerity to suggest that a certain point was either irrelevant to the public or none of its business.

I’m reminded often of that moment as we work on reputation management plans that, by necessity, have crisis management/communications components.

Many of the crisis communications activities we conduct for clients involve product recalls. While in the adrenaline-pumping throes of a recall–conducting interview prep and producing media statements, talking points and the like–it is easy to forget that the product isn’t the only thing being recalled. The public, in the process of exercising free thought if not free speech, also is in the process of recalling a company’s reputation.

Mattel experienced this phenomenon a few years ago. However, the biggest and best example of a reputation recall may be happening right now. Toyota, long a member of the corporate reputation elite, is undergoing a product and reputation recall as we speak (or blog).

Toyota, it would appear, is beyond the initial wave of negativity that always accompanies a recall and necessitates a defensive communications posture. The company now is in the process of trying to move to offense and taking stock of just how much of its reputation the public has recalled.

It will be very interesting to see Toyota’s next move.