International branding and marketing expert Stephen Greyser came to the Lipscomb University campus this October to receive the annual MediaMaster’s Award, which honors communications professionals whose body of work stands as a model and inspiration for the next generation.

Greyser, a long-time Harvard Business School professor and frequent national commentator on consumer marketing, sports management and crisis communication, commented on various corporate publicity nightmares over the past few years, including BP, Tiger Woods, Toyota and Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, at the awards ceremony on Oct. 5.

The MediaMasters Award at Lipscomb is presented annually by the Department of Communication and Journalism in the College of Arts and Sciences.

During the course of the day, Greyser met with faculty, staff, community members and the Lipscomb student news bureau, stressing the importance of “building, sustaining and protecting a corporate brand.” He also taped a “Conversations with the Dean” webisode, to be posted on the Lipscomb College of Business website, and a “Sound Leadership” podcast, to be posted on the Institute of Civic Leadership’s http://leadingvoices.lipscomb.edu website.

Greyser’s appearance at Lipscomb was sponsored by the Department of Communication and Journalism, the Nelson and Sue Andrews Institute for Civic Leadership and the College of Business.

Too many companies today over-promise in their brand marketing efforts, and end up losing the public’s trust, Greyser said. He illustrated his point using the example of how BP marketed itself as “the pro-environmental energy company” without acknowledging that inevitably BP’s operation was bound to have an environmental problem that would become public and undercut the brand language. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill accident in the Gulf of Mexico, was just such an event that destroyed the public’s trust in the BP brand, he said.

At the awards events, Greyser described a 2002 article on BP’s marketing published before the spill, that stated, “BP is setting itself up for real problems. Any energy company is eventually going to have troubles in either exploration… or in transmission. It’s inevitable; you have to have a plan, and BP came up short.”

Greyser and his research colleagues have dubbed this problem among companies the “promise performance gap.”

Greyser is a frequent speaker, television panelist and commentator on advertising, consumer marketing, sports management, crisis communications and consumer issues both in the U.S. and abroad. His views on the meaning of the Olympics for China were seen by millions in China on CCTV after the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremonies.

He created Harvard’s first corporate communication course in Harvard Business School and has authored hundreds of case studies and articles for the Harvard Business Review. He is also an award-winning author/editor of 16 books, including his latest work, “Revealing the Corporation.”

Greyer is currently working on a new book along with Craig Carroll, chair of Lipscomb’s Department of Communication and Journalism.

Greyser was twice a public member of the National Advertising Review Board for U.S. advertising self-regulation. He was the first academic trustee of the Advertising Research Foundation, a past national vice chairman of the Public Broadcasting Service, a past executive director of the Marketing Science Institute, and has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards.