Posts Tagged ‘negative comments’

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!

Have the public lost faith in MPs? The expenses file shows MPs more than half the entire House of Commons are involved in the controversial expenses scandal. They exploited the system of parliamentary allowances to promote their lifestyles and homes. The revelation has angered many voters and the reputation of the MPs has taken a beating.

People at large knew nothing until the scandal was out in the open and how MPs claimed for items far beyond what was allowed. Change in the system was voiced, but unfortunately there weren’t many takers. The after effect of not heeding that advise is all out in black & white.

It’s not easy to get this scandal off the mind of the taxpayers. While some MPs are guilty for the wrongdoing it has tarnished everyone in the house of Commons with the same brush.

So what does this mean? Is there a need for an urgent damage control to restore public faith?

A need for a strategic reputation management to get back the lost glory. There is no quick-fix method to fix the problem, but MPs need to realize that they are  the representatives of their constituency and are not traders.

Politics and politicians are definitely not immune to bad press or negative comments, the above scandal shows how a politicians online reputation can go for a ride even if you are not at fault. You need to apprise the public your accomplishments, and what you are planning to do. This will allow people to respond positively and garner faith in the system.

David Cameron, when said ‘all MPs who do not repay will be sacked and be termed not eligible for election. This is a welcome statement and will infuse confidence in public, and also minimize the resentment in public for those in the House of Commons.

Politician’s reputation holds greater significance as electorate comprising of different age and group will have a common thinking about their representative, which makes sense to them. Let your positive image be known to the public, after all that is all you need to face the polls.

We have been approached by many tourism companies both agents and hotels alike requestiong help with negative comments appearing about them on the search results.  More often than n0t they come from sites like tripadvisor whose business model is based on customer feedback.

There are 2 big issues with this:

1. You tend to get more genuine feedback from customers who have had a negative experience rather than a positive one.
2. Competitors write negative things about another company which are false.

So quite often Tripadvisor will not give a overall balanced feedback from customers because the same old saying is true “a customer who has had a bad experience will tell a 100 people where a customer who has a good experience will tell 10″.  Customers will normally only give feedback to a site like Tripadvisor if they have had a negative experience rather than a positive one.

We are also now seeing what we believe to be competitors writing bogus negative feedback about competing companies in order to trash their reputation.  It’s very bad practice and something we frown on and will certainly not get involved in.

What can you do about negative comments on Tripadvisor?

1. Make sure there is genuinely not an issue that needs addressing if  many customers are complaining about the same thing.
2. Offer customers a gift if they write something positive about their stay at your hotel on Tripadvisor
3. Hire a company to help protect your reputation online and bury negative results in the search results.

The outcome, although you can’t get rid of negative comments totally is you can show a much more balanced view, in many ways this is much better than just positive or negative views.