Should Lloyd Blankfein have gone on Oprah?

Last winter, when Goldman Sachs was beset by civil fraud charges, a criminal investigation and a falling stock price, the investment bank toyed with mounting its first ever mass advertising campaign - including an appearance by CEO Lloyd Blankfein on Oprah.

The New York Post claims the firm became obsessed with restoring its image on Main Street as well as Wall Street. Even if the Oprah idea wasn't totally serious, it showed that the negative buzz around the firm - exemplified by Rolling Stone magazine calling Goldman Sachs "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity" - was getting to it.

But Goldman's European media chief Fiona Laffan told a meeting of communications industry professionals in London: "There are [Goldman executives] who think we should go on Oprah...  I'm not one of them."

However, something still needs to be done to repair the bank's image, according to Paul Argenti, a professor of corporate communications at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "Focus on explaining to people what you do because your value to society is being questioned," he said.

Read a full report at the New York Post. ·