- Twitter to lose its reputation as a free speech platform?
- IIPM worried about Google Suggest, why is it so?
- Reputation Management Tip for 2012: Brands need to tap into social media search!
- Facebook Timeline and Reputation Management
- Apple Siri gender bias or glitch?
- Google+ vs Facebook – its not over yet!
- The Ethics of Self Promotion Through Charitable Causes (A Case Study)
- Google scraps sidewiki – will you miss it?
- Facebook, the trust factor
- BlackBerry Blackout- RIM’s Reputation Takes another Hit
Examples
Santander Claus delivers the wrong letters
December 23, 2010 | 
Author 
If something comes down your chimney on christmas eve, it could just be somebody’s else bank statement courtesy of Santander Bank who have admitted sending 35,000 customers to the wrong addresses following what they termed a printing glitch. “Glitch” is the banking term for a monumental customer service cock-up from the bank with nearly the worst customer service reputation in the UK. Santander is the Spanish bank that seems (“seems”) to have avoided the Spanish property meltdown and has gone on a bit of a buying spree since 2007 buying the UK bank/building society Abbey. Since then it has managed to obliterate the bank’s customer service reputation regularly polling at the bottom of customer service surveys.
You really wouldn’t want to be a reputation manager at Santander. The bank has failed to deliver on many of its promises and the brand has picked up little traction since the massive rebrand over the past few years. Of course, bank reputations have not really recovered since 2008 and for most customers, one bank is equally as bad as another. However banks try to position themselves as a “friend for life”, most customers know that the friendship does not extend beyond the first second of an overdraft and they know that all banks are exactly the same!
Santander are likely to be fined heavily by the regulators at the FSA for their latest failing, but it would change the core challenge for banks to make themselves more central to their customers’ lives in a positive way.
Posted in Bank Reputations, Company Reputation, Examples, Product Reviews | 
Tags: Abbey, Bank, Business, Business/Finance, Customer Service, Grupo Santander, printing glitch, Santander Bank | 
1 Comment »
Flixster CEO, Vanessa Hudgens and lessons in Reputation Mangement
Shameless self-promotion is a dangerous thing and can end up biting you back one day! Flixster CEO Joe Greenstein’s realizing this by now…
TechCrunch has come out with a screenshot of Greenstein’s review with five stars for his own application on iTunes and that’s not all! Greenstein has gone on to wax lyrical about his love for 22-year-old Vanessa Hudgens’s music and trashed his competitors through reviews.
The thirty something Greenstein gave both Movie Night Out and Showtimes a measly one star each on his iTunes review along with the following comments…
“It tries to do too much and fails,” he said of Movie Night Out. And Showtimes “does not include a full list of movies – just the current ones.”
In reputation management terms not a wise thing to do, even if you have community of people in your social networking-movie review site who may enjoy your smart-alecky ways. And to gush about a twenty something …err… just plain weird!
Certainly a lesson for all the young guns of the social networking site-millionaire club and a couple of points to remember…
- Do not trash your competition on a public forum- It’s just plain uncool not to mention unethical.
- Be brief, pithy even, about your love for popular stars on online platforms; such phases can bring out unnecessary insights into your life.
- Rating your own application high on other sites – that’s really low for a CEO.
The response Joe Greenstein made to TechCrunch surely reveals a far more interesting person than what comes out with this incident. Well clearly an example for all CEOs in online behaviour.
Tony Blair memoir and celebrity fixation!
Former heads of state are increasingly showing their frustration of having the limelight leave them. While all of them would worry over their legacy, the latest breed of former Prime Ministers and Presidents are looking upon themselves as celebrities. While most go onto forming foundations and world peace projects and massive libraries like the US presidents – it seems they all want to continue making world deals. And nothing packs a punch like a tell-all memoir!
Tony Blair’s autobiography, ‘A Journey‘ has had a Facebook campaign on to banish it into the ‘Crime’ shelves of bookshops. Eggs and shoes flung at Blair in Dublin all continue to show that on home-ground his popularity remains low and no amount of candid thoughts on people are going to get him out of having gone to war with Iraq.
The interesting thing here is how politicians are enjoying their celebrity status and like a celebrity memoir would do Blair wants to distance himself from Gordon Brown and even goes on to call his successor a few names. Spice is nice, so throw in a bit of gossip about the Royals and you have a best-seller from which he will not take a penny, no sirree!
Nowadays after national politics all former heads of state look forward to an international career. Well… they know all the leaders everywhere and look forward to continue keeping their career in the limelight. And nothing like a tell-all memoir to settle some old scores and re-launch yourself into active public life.
While celebrity memoirs are usually taken with a pinch of salt, PMs’ and Presidents’ autobiographies are studied at length and Tony Blair seems to have achieved BROWN(ie) points (pun intended) for his candidness even though he seems to have kept to his views on Iraq and Bush.
From a reputation management angle Tony Blair’s ‘A Journey’ may well be a start to more candid autobiographies from heads of states; celebrity candidness cleverly merged with legacy management and even a few pot-shots at some old rivals may soon be the norm. In fact a memoir is a nothing but double winner for both reputation management and PR, really!
Posted in Celebrity Reputation, Examples, Personal Reputation, politicians, PR / Public Relations, Product Reviews, Reputation Management, Reputation News, Social Network Sites | Tags: A Journey, Autobiography, Gordon Brown, PR / Public Relations, Reputation Management, Tony Blair, Tony Blair Memoir | No Comments »
Dudley do right for BP?
BP is making some serious PR changes quite like how political parties field local guys for elections Robert Dudley comes in waving the American flag. We hear about him talking of his times fishing and swimming in Mississippi growing up. While outgoing CEO Tony Hayward has termed the oil spill crisis like “stepping out from the pavement and being hit by a bus”. He seems to be stepping down to appease the masses.
BP will have its first non-British CEO and this is sending a message to the US that they have someone who will think about their side of the story – someone who has a genuine interest in cleaning up the mess and someone who has admitted to facing colossal issues to tide over the problem. Bob Dudley sure seems like the man we need.
BP also needs to understand the horror people feel knowing that stringent security measures could have averted this enormous problem. Well there is also the politics of further deep sea drilling to considered and the oil lobby’s sheer power on the other side. BP has made quite a few PR duds to its credit, like publishing full page glossy advertisements, censoring press and sponsoring events during the crisis. Hardly the right time to seem looking for PR and not to mention the neat retirement amount and pension fund that Tony Hayward is set to take away.
Whoever made a lot of the decisions that BP made needs to go and that is where the new CEO steps in. And this is what Dudley said..
“We will fulfill the promises we’ve made”
“Meeting our commitments is critical for BP’s long-term success. Taking over this role, I will not reduce my commitment in the region.”
“It’s not our intention to exit the U.S. nor do we believe we will have to. We fully intend to maintain those businesses and restore our position in the Gulf.”
Posted in Bad Press, Company Reputation, Damage Limitation, Examples | Tags: Bad Press, BP, BP Oil crisis, New Chief, Oil Spill, Robert Dudley, Tony Hayward | 1 Comment »
Mel Gibson reputation – Is the worst over?
As we mull over how Mel Gibson’s reputation, future plans and how even a comeback can materialize, he seems to have found some reprieve. Mel’s ex-wife has come out with a signed affidavit saying he was never abusive towards her or her children. This coming from a 28-year marriage does bring in some good tidings for the star.
However, there is still that question – “Will Mel Gibson go to jail?” to be dealt with and the legal teams are probably going to battle it out over extortion threats from Oksana Grigorieva and spousal abuse from Gibson being fought at length. From a celebrity crisis and damage control angle, Robyn Moore’s affidavit is like a God-sent for Gibson.
It’s almost certain that Hollywood will let things play out and wait for the outcome of the legal case for child custody. Whoopi Goldberg’s attempt at supporting her friend is frankly not enough, apart from the ‘racist’ tag Gibson also needs to fight his ‘misogynist’ and ‘abuser’ tag.
Like Tiger Woods who is now battling golfing trouble after his reputation debacle Mel Gibson will have to make a comeback that is so awe-inspiring that all’s forgiven in the name of art and cinema. Tiger Woods is well aware of this as well as he fumbles to get his groove back on the green.
Related post:
Posted in Celebrity Reputation, Damage Limitation, Examples, Online PR, Reputation News | Tags: Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson reputation, Misogynist, Oksana, Racist, Tiger Woods | 1 Comment »
From a popular PM to the shortest-serving leader in Australia – Where did Kevin Rudd go wrong in managing his reputation?
It was only a year ago that Kevin Rudd was compared to Australia’s most popular leader Bob Hawke, but today he is coming to terms with the disreputable fact of being tagged “the most unsuccessful Prime Minister in Australian history”, the shortest serving one as well. And his once - popular campaign slogan “Kevin 07″ is today subverted to “Kevin 07, Gone By 11.” So where had he gone wrong?
Right from angering MPs, an unravelling personal image, getting no support in opinion polls and a series of other events (which were definitely not favourable for him) that finally culminated in Kevin Rudd being dumped by the Labour party and forced to hand over his office to Julia Gillard (Australia’s first woman Prime Minister), the reputation of Kevin Rudd has been badly damaged for quite some time now. And the speed of his demise showed the extent to how bad it was!
People who felt fooled at the last election were desperately looking for a hero in Kevin Rudd. How far did he meet their expectations? Mistakes were many, right from ratifying Kyoto to apologising to the stolen generation and the people who elected him to power felt he forgot why they got him to power.
One can get a fair idea of how Kevin Rudd’s reputation got drowned in the sea of the very same people who elected him to power from their views . Most of the people in the streets are of the opinion that Rudd failed in implementing most of the economic policies he himself introduced. The muffed home insulation farce, the school halls building program and the $900 stimulus handout are just a few examples. Finally to top it off , Rudd attacked the mining industry, which is the backbone of the Australian economy. Well now, the reputation of a PM obviously depends a lot on how far you are able to carry out the new economic policies introduced and failing to meet it will have consequences similar to the one Kevin Rudd had to go through.
There are people who say that Rudd has not kept a single election promise since being put in the PMs office. Earlier this week the media were saying that he only won the election because of his wife’s media campaign to get him into power. And, to say you have not kept promises is pretty bad from the reputation management point of view for a PM.
Past experiences whether it was in the case of Gordon Brown or Kevin Rudd speaks out the fact that PMs and politicians will have to keep in mind that people are empowered to throw anyone out of political office and hence they will have to above all maintain their reputation without any blemish at all.
As regards Kevin Rudd the only good news for him is that he does have a few people with him, who do believe that a PM being human can make mistakes or that Australia is not ready for a PM like Kevin Rudd.
But now with Kevin Rudd declaring (almost pledging) he will contest his seat of Griffith in Queensland at the next election, and http://www.google.com.au/ giving suggestions like “Kevin Rudd sorry” and “Kevin Rudd apology” for people typing his name at the same time, Kevin Rudd will have a hard job clawing back support and it necessarily does call for some serious reputation management too!
Posted in Celebrity Reputation, Examples, politicians, Reputation News | Tags: first australian women prime minister, julia gillard, kevin rudd, kevin rudd apology, kevin rudd prime minister, kevin rudd reputation, kevin rudd sorry speech, politicians reputaion, politicians reputation management | 5 Comments »
Justin Beiber Reputation, Brand building & Marketing via Social Media
If there’s one person trending worldwide on Twitter daily like clock-work it’s Justin Beiber! Justin who? Well, its not long before you realize that he is a 16-year-old who has become quite the rage among school girls and social network savvy teendom. While the rest of us may feel a little pained to see someone like him ruling Twitter daily, a little research and you realize this is a great PR story!
A marketing campaign like no other built up the ‘brand Beiber’. It all began with a couple of video clips on YouTube by his mom. These were seen by a few teenage girls, picked up by talent spotters on the prowl on YouTube along with Twitter doing its bit to help.
And today if you type ‘Justin’ on Google and you’ll see ‘Beiber’ being suggested before ‘Justin Timberlake’, another child star who made it big.
Within a short time Beiber has been to the White House, been on Oprah and his music video is the third most viewed of all time on YouTube! Well, any PR person or ORM expert knows this is the ultimate to aspire to both online and offline.
Safe to say, Justin Beiber is a classic study in the power of social networking sites in brand building and sustenance. Have to admit I’m yet to listen to a Beiber number, so will refrain from commenting on that and of course escape the wrath of his screaming teen fans! 
Mark Twain Autobiography- 100 years of Reputation Management & PR
Mark Twain sealed his autobiography for a 100 years after his death and we’re the lucky ones to see all his secrets being released. Well, this is, if you look at it closely Reputation Management at its best and not to mention PR.
Dead celebrities and their estates continue to amass wealth and media space. Maryln Monroe, Elvis and Jim Morrison are all great examples of this. However, Mark Twain does it all in a well-planned, calculated manner. A century later we’re all thinking of what he might have said that he thought his reputation may have been affected?
Well for his foresight and PR skills this post is a salutation. He sure knew how to get back into the news.
Whatever Mark Twain felt may have ruined his reputation may not seem much today, but, with reference to his times we can expect to gossip about him and he probably would have enjoyed it. The Independent article had historians saying this about Twain…
“He had doubts about God, and in the autobiography, he questions the imperial mission of the US in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. He’s also critical of [Theodore] Roosevelt, and takes the view that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. Twain also disliked sending Christian missionaries to Africa. He said they had enough business to be getting on with at home: with lynching going on in the South, he thought they should try to convert the heathens down there.”
So clearly lots of interest building up, plus the 400-page section on his liaison with Isabel Van Kleek Lyon who later became his secretary is sure to be intriguing.
Shock-value may not be there, but, oh, won’t the tongues wag again about the man who was known to have loved his celebrity status.
Thailand Reputation- Bangkok businesses suffer losses
Thailand’s democracy is being tested yet again after the coup lead by the Yellow Shirts that put the present PM Abhisit Vejjajiva in office. Surprisingly he was then backed by Thaksin Shinawatra who is now behind the Red Shirt protesters.
If the present Bangkok protests worsen it will lend a huge blow to the economy of the country. About 40 people have been killed and more than 250 people injured till date.
Tourism brings in 6% of the country’s economy and provides employment to 15% of the working populace.
With the business districts being targeted businesses are likely to move out if protests and coups become regular fare. BBC reports the following:
Thai Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij has forecast economic growth of between 4.5% and 5% this year, but the civil unrest is threatening to reduce that figure.After meeting with business associations, Mr Chatikavanij has said the protests could cut 0.3% off his forecast.
The much revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej is unwell and is not likely to intervene; while ousted Thaksin is not likely to back down either. This could go on for a long time and at regular intervals and we can only speculate the implications on the economy.
For now tourists are continuing their plans to visit the islands and are staying away from the northern districts.
There is no question that all these political issues will have a far-reaching impact on Thailand’s national reputation and is taking away from the very essence of being Thai – land or ‘Freedom’ land as the word is said to mean.
Related posts:
Google suggests- Gordon Brown Bigoted Woman
When I began my Gordon Brown post yesterday and typed ‘Gordon Brown’, Google, the ever helpful imp that it is, suggested “Gordon Brown bigoted woman”!!! The news had just broke and there it was picked up and urged by Google for all to see. In a matter of hours the Labour campaign is shaking under the onslaught of this gaffe. Questions are being raised about the character of the PM who is a week-away from election.
This is a great example of how biased Google can be when it comes to negative news. To illustrate the damning effect, here are two screen shots of both Google.com and Google.uk when you type ‘Gordon Brown’.
This is the kind of damage a negative news can do to your carefully built reputation. Still grabbing headlines and soaring on social networking sites, Gordon Brown will have to face Google’s suggestion horror for quite a few days and with elections a week away this can be a total disaster.
Now, this brings us to what it can do to affect companies that face serious negative issues. There is Google suggesting your worst nightmare to millions of people around the globe. In short, news in any form directly has an effect on Google’s suggested queries.
This is another reason why negative press always seem to have an effect on Google. It’s a vicious cycle and for now Gordon Brown will have to hope for something really big and positive probably in the debates today to stop this negative effect.