Archive for the ‘Reputation Management’ Category

Lindsay Lohan is yet again in news. The 23-year-old actress has filed a lawsuit against E-Trade for $100 million over a Super Bowl ad featuring a “milkaholic” baby named Lindsay. The controversial TV ad features a baby boy apologizing to his girlfriend for not calling her because he was busy trading stocks on E-Trade. Lohan alleged E-trade for breaching of civil rights and use of her name, ‘Lindsay’ and characterization without payment or permission.

This is nothing new for the glam doll who has the habit of being in news for all the wrong reasons; starting from spending a day in jail, her relationship with Samantha Ronson, being shooed away by enraged people in the Paris Fashion Week, Lindsay has it all in her to invite controversy.

If we look back, Tracy Palmer, the Director of Consumer Advertising Sprint, made no fuss when her name was used for the girls character in the sprint ad. So doubts are afloat if this whole controversy by Lindsay is a publicity stunt. The allegations levied by her lawyer also seems inappropriate to stand up in the court.

“Many celebrities are known by one name, and E-Trade is using that knowledge to profit,” Lohan’s lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, said in a statement to the New York Post . “They’re using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn’t they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody’s talking about it and saying it’s Lindsay Lohan.”

The whole drama has done a world of good for E-trade, with thousands of people searching for the controversial commercial online. Wonder why LiLo seems so offended, or is it a mere frustration of hers.  She is in real need of a quality PR and some strategic celebrity reputation management to be in place to regain her lost image as a celebrity rather than as a troubled star.

We, at  Reputation Management For.com, feel that Lindsay has to retain the confidence of the public and should work towards getting back her stardom.  Who will want to sponsor a celebrity who may turn round and sue them later, had she not mentioned anything for the best part the ad would have gone unnoticed, now even we are writing about it now!

The British catwalker is again in the news for all the wrong reasons. The extent of her temper has invited suggestion to instate sirens and lights to alert those vulnerable souls she hires.  They say ‘When you are with Naomi better don’t say “No”, or else you get a bloody nose. This time it was her 27-year-old-driver, who was boxed and slapped from the back seat of the car in Manhattan. Naomi immediately fled the scene. The driver called 911 and the NYPD was looking for her to be questioned.

Naomi Campbell’s reputation is on the rocks. Just Google Naomi and you will find majority of the websites are related to her bad temper than modeling. She had been in and out of trouble numerous time before, the charges she faced ranges from beating an assistant, hurling mobile at her maid and throwing abuses at British Airways staff.

What is it that makes this sultry siren go wild? Is it because she had a trouble childhood and  struggled in life, so all that frustration has to be taken off by beating up people?   Money is not a factor and she doesn’t seem much bothered about her reputation. Serious loss in waiting and she need to realize that negative comments influences everybody and travels faster than her imagination.  Her recent show to raise funds for Haiti earthquake is over shadowed by bad stories.

Is Naomi Campbell adept to change herself? Half way through this blog I came across the news that Ms. Campbell’s driver has apologized and he is  blaming himself for the confusion. How did this happened? Naomi later issued a statement

I have worked very hard on correcting my previous wrongdoings and I will not be held hostage to my past.

We at Reputation Management For.com feel that this was a great PR move by Naomi because she was able to turn this around while the news was still buzzing. But more than that celebrity management is one thing she may need, to realize success and failure in its true form and reputation management to defend her super stardom status.

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• Sarah Palin- Tea Party
• John Terry and Max Clifford

Yelp Extortion

Yelp, the hub for disgruntled clients to put in scathing reviews is now facing class-action lawsuit. The allegations against Yelp is that it asks advertisement money from business houses to manipulate or remove reviews. Strange, but no advertisers on Yelp has a perfect reputation.

Yelp the popular user-generated reviews website, was more popular than Google; users would search for a particular company or local business house before they wanted to deal with it. And anything that appeared negative or positive will be the final impression. So if it is on Yelp, it’s heard.

The company on the other hand denies the allegations, contained in the class-action lawsuit, but the whole affair has put a huge question mark about the reliability of Yelp.

If Yelp’s revenue was solely based on advertising, it was easy to understand why they wanted to tamper with reviews on its website, but it was not to be. Yelp will have some hard time explaining the ethics it follows. It will be interesting to see what the company has to say in its self-defense.

The situation would have been different if Yelp had a big brother with corporate backing like MSN or Google, then meddling with reviews wouldn’t be a cause for worry.

As reputation management goes Yelp needs new principles, new moral code of conduct to bring back credibility before they are totally deserted.

The electronics giant Sony on Monday came up with a message for it’s millions of PlayStation3 users not to use their games consoles. The reason for such a call was due to a glitch in the older ‘fat’ PlayStation3 which stopped the players to connect to the PlayStation network. The bug in the clock system led the consoles to act as if 2010 is a leap year messing up the system’s internal clock. The bug though is said to be more serious for the PS3, which holds a better reliability than the rival Xbox360 of Microsoft.

Being a global name, Sony came up strongly and tackled the situation smartly making sure this glitch won’t torment its reputation. Showing signs of how to deal with crisis management, the company came up with an announcement on it’s blog, that the problem with its PS3 clock system has been resolved and gamers can adjust the date manually or by Internet.

Meanwhile setting an example for those big companies who fail to handle such critical situation, Sony showed the smart way to take control of the issue before it spiral out. Sony has sold over 33.5m PS3’s worldwide, with Microsoft which has sold out about 40m Xbox 360’s and Nintendo,which has sold 67mWiis.

Though its not the first time a Japanese company is facing such a situation, earlier Toyota was also seen battling out to safeguard its brand value and reputation. But Sony true to its reputation about quality and customer service has dealt with the situation brilliantly and not letting their reputation stink.

Related Posts :

• Toyota- Problems deepening
• Toyota- Damage control mode
• Toyota, Honda- Industry Jinxed?

The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver that concluded on a bright note at the Whistler ski complex also stands out for some  unsavory,   boozing related  incidents of the Canadian Ice Hockey team that spoiled the spirit of Olympics. Drunken brawls,  the yelling and screaming at the spectator stands, the dressing rooms and the hotels where the teams were put up, makes Vancouver Olympics a game of drinking as well!

The Ice hockey team of the host country Canada, which defeated USA 2-0 grabbed the headlines and  a few raised eyebrows  when they chose to toast  their victory with beer and cigars in public! The Vancouver games and its overwhelming drunken theme has been the topic of discussion on and off the field not just in the press boxes, but also among the spectators and the ice hockey sports fans, who were clearly let down by the teams’ dismal performance off the ground after a spectacular win on  the ground.

“Sean Gregory, a writer for Time magazine, writes that the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver may be worthy of a gold medal in a particularly undistinguished category: drinking”

The city of Vancouver has always been famous for its well kept streets and an efficient public transit system but from now on, this city and its sports teams will be known for a few wrong reasons as well. The search engines might  spew the alcohol related incidents of the ice hockey team first, before  flashing the impressive score card of the team.

In the coming days, everybody will be interested to know what the Canadian ice hockey team does to remove  the  damage caused to its repute. The team managers need to put their heads together to come up with a  robust reputation management package that will hopefully  pull out the team from the blues caused by the  drunkenness issue of the ice hockey team .

Crisis management is the new buzz word now, everybody from Celebrities, Politicians, Automobile companies to Theme parks are in dire need to salvage their reputation from getting tarnished online.  No organization wants to be in a situation that would stimulate bad press against them and cause disruption to their business.

Some companies that are hard hit recently were not able to handle crisis efficiently. Toyota is one company that is finding it difficult to stop the embroiling situation, the quality crisis refuses to die down for them. This clearly shows that the company is not good at handling crisis. The initial slow response, the half-minded recall, poor communication had adverse effect on the reputation of the company.

Managing crisis is the second best thing you can do for a successful business. To deal with crisis needs accurate and  decisive action. Take for example ‘A Gun manufacturing company loses a gun while on transit and before the public or the media ever comes to know about this the company is able to find it and put it back into the inventory‘. So rapid and precise action saved the company from getting a bad name.

Some of the ways to handle crisis is as follows:

• Identify the problems: The first step towards crisis management is to identify the problems in clear terms, so that you can sort it out easily.

• Collective decision: Fighting crisis can never be a one-man-show, a collective decision and team work is always better. Consider the relevant team and their decisions pertaining to the risk factor and go with the best option.

• Leadership: Lead from the front and talk with everybody in the team. Monitor the function required to minimize the crisis.

• Communicate: The most sought after action is to have continuous communication with the public and media. It is always good idea for the company to have their own portal or hub to update their view.

• Segregate issues: Take the best team out and let them work on every piece of the issue, break the issue until you identify the grey areas. Hire a reputation management company, which has standard practices to deal with crisis related issues.

• Encourage feedback: Read customer/client online reaction, this will help you know the correct pulse of the general public and help you overcome crisis.

• Analyze the problems:  So you know from where it took shape and who is responsible and what corrective measures can be taken to get rid of it.

• Learn: Take a cue from your last experience, this will help you mold a better strategy in future.  Always keep your last crisis experience in perspective and put in place tools so that your company is safe from similar crisis.

If you’re a diabetic, your doctor would have told you this  - “With Diabetes your chances for heart diseases are now higher”!

So what happens if your medication prescribed for diabetes also comes with an added risk for cardiovascular disease? Scary? Yes it is! And this is what’s happening with GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia or  rosiglitazone.

A Senate Finance Committee report had some hard-hitting words for GSK and this was what was said:

GlaxoSmithKline, knew the type 2 diabetes drug had possible harmful cardiac effects several years before a 2007 New England Journal of Medicine study initially raised concerns about Avandia.

It all began three years ago when Dr. Steven E Nissin conducted a study and found that Avandia raised the risk of heart disease and this snowballed into a Congressional inquiry and report resulting in a drop in stock value for GSK. NYT reported the following:

A Congressional investigation released Saturday concluded that GlaxoSmithKline had threatened scientists who tried to point out Avandia’s risks, and internal memorandums from the Food and Drug Administration show that some government health officials want Avandia withdrawn. The drug is still being taken by hundreds of thousands of patients, and sales last year were $1.19 billion.

GlaxoSmithKline has today fired a rebuttal and has in its 30-page “white paper” response made it very clear that:

It has been “proactive in investigating the safety data” of rosiglitazone and has kept all regulatory agencies, including the FDA, aware of its investigations.

They have even gone on to say that they rumours of them trying to silence people were simply efforts made to ensure the right information goes out about their product.

Avandia is a very popular drug for Diabetes and for the hundreds of thousands using it everywhere nothing couldn’t be scarier than this. The best advice we can give is to contact your doctor and not decide things yourselves.

As for GSK, trying to arm-wrestle out of this with a 30-page rebuttal may not be enough. Coming clean on research results funded by them and allowing this to be evaluated or going back to the lab to improve the medicine maybe the way to go.

Finally the word from FDA : The FDA warns that patients who are taking Avandia should be monitored for signs and symptoms of heart failure, including excessive and rapid weight gain, difficulty breathing and/or swelling. “This work is ongoing and no new conclusions or recommendations about the use of rosiglitazone in the treatment of type 2 diabetes have been made at this time,” the agency announced.

While GSK handles this reputation management problem, what transpires next should be interesting indeed! Watch this space for updates!

Joining the race of car recall is Maruti Suzuki (Suzuki Motor Corp has 54.2 percent stake). The biggest carmaker in India is heading to call back 100,000 cars of hatchback model A-Star from the Indian market. The reason cited is to replace a faulty fuel pump gasket, which could potentially lead to fuel leaks. The company in a statement said,

The car recall belongs to Aug 2009 lots. In November 2009, we came across an anomaly reported in the fuel tank in some of the vehicles and by December 2009, we started contacting the customers through letters

The company further says the recall actually began in November, but did not disclose the move until late February. This latest development comes at a time when quality related concerns is already gripping the auto industry with recall from Toyota and Honda already in the bandwagon.

A-Star being a popular model in Europe, Maruti had made it a point to apprise the European regulatory authorities about the recall, but the question remains! Why Maruti did not make this disclosure in India. Maruti says the recall will have very little effect on the company, but the impact was felt elsewhere. The investors packed Maruti’s stock to an all time low at 3 percent after the recall announcement.

Maruti being a leader in car market in India have never bullied on their stand, but from the Reputation management point of view had they disclosed the recall earlier, the investor would not have panicked as it reflected on the share market. Secondly there will be doubts about the way company handle information and  disclose them to investors. Finally will this affect Maruti’s reputation or are they going to put up a better show than Honda and Toyota, have to wait and see how it takes shape.

Related Posts:

• Honda- Recall for faulty airbags
• Toyota- Problems deepening
• Toyota, Honda- Industry Jinxed?
• Toyota- Damage control mode

No.10 Downing Street has been abuzz with speculations of the alleged bullying tactics of  the  British PM Gordon Brown. Meanwhile the founder of the National Bullying Charity helpline has told the media that they are receiving fresh calls for help from Downing Street Staff. Though the  Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell came up with a quick denial and brushed aside the concerns with Brown as mere media speculation, a book  has come up with the news that the cabinet secretary had in fact asked Brown to curb his “volcanic temper”. Amidst all the allegations and counter allegations, the public is left wondering.

Well, going by the signs, all is not well at the No.10 Downing Street and it is only a matter of time before these bickering might snowball into a major controversy. Prima facie, the whole episode  appears as a PR mishandling issue and these internal issues might prove a major embarrassment to the Prime Minister’s office if more 10 Downing Street employees choose to take the matter to the media. Mr. Brown has to gather his acts smartly and make sure that the PR practices are in place in the highest office.

What is more worrying about the Gordon Brown revelations is not just the vile temper of the PM but the fact that the National  Bullying Helpline having felt the need to intervene. For many, the alleged outbursts of Mr. Brown might appear childish but the fact that these have come out into the open from within the iron walls of the Downing street in itself is a warning call for the Prime minister’s office  to set out on an urgent damage control and reputation management exercise to stall his rating from plummeting in the public eye.

A possible strike is in waiting for British Airways as the second ballot results of its 13,000 cabin crew members is to be announced shortly. After the first strike called by the cabin crew members was luckily overruled by the High Court due to the busy Christmas season, seems this time a sure strike is in the offing from March 1.

With the BA cabin crew strike still looming on the UK travelers, things even got worse when the pilots union of Lufthansa started a strike today over worries of pay and job security. BA which lost over £400m is planning for a layoff for its present staff and a salary freeze this year in order to save £140m a year. It’s crunch time for BA with nothing less than an acid test ahead.

Things can’t get any worse for BA with the ongoing unrest among the cabin crew and the airline, at the same time comes the threatened walkout, seems like nothing is going well for BA. All this unrest is also damaging the reputation of the airline. Well, the extent of damage on BA is widely seen with the internal bickering proving out to be a PR disaster for the airline specially when BA is really struggling to survive. This is not the first time this inner conflicts is proving fatal for the airlines online reputation, in the past also few disgruntled employees of London Heathrow airport Terminal 5 aired their anger on Facebook,with rude comments about passengers.

Being a top airline company BA seems failing to make both the ends meet, the airline should give a thought on repairing its reputation and getting back the lost faith of its customers by putting into act the effective tools of reputation management. As the adage goes, A stitch in time saves nine!

The real question is how many people won’t be booking a flight with BA over the summer period with fear of the staff threatening about going on strike again. The staff have 2 choices, either get over it and realise in order for a business to survive then they need to streamline  or watch BA come to a disastrous end.  BA is a global company and needs to be able to compete on a global scale, it can’t if there is a lot of wastage, might be unfair but unfortunately a fact of life for open global market.

Related BA Posts

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