Posts Tagged ‘reputation’

The race has begun between the Conservatives and the Labour party, with 5 months until the next general, what will be interesting is how much the Internet will play in the two parties campaigns.  As social network sites allow people to find like minded individuals easier than ever before, it can gain momentum and sabotage the message of a politician very easily.

In the past the parties were very focused on spin, nowadays people have had enough of such tactics and will fight back using sites like facebook.  It is very easy now for a party’s manifesto to be hijacked if one or two minor points really trigger a fury of people reacting to them and the bigger picture being lost.

So how it starts is very simple, someone creates a group or page on facebook and starts to invite friends to join, who in turn invite their friends.  Shortly people start bookmarking the page through sites like Digg and attracting even more traffic.  It doesn’t take long for journalists to pick up on the action through things like Google alerts and BINGO you also have the story appearing in the papers etc.

At the moment the Labour and Conservatives seem more determined to pick each others manifesto apart, I wonder how long it will be before more politicians reputations will be tested and what will come out of the closet over the next 5 months.

Unfortunately in today’s world it is often not what you are saying but how you are saying it which counts.

The 12-day strike called by Unite union looms large this holiday season putting hundreds of thousands of people and their travel plans in jeopardy. As British Airways fears the backlash, forums are swamped by passengers venting their anger against the insensitive approach of more than 13000 cabin crew who have voted for the strike.

The strike is planned in protest to the proposed pay and job cuts that BA has planned to ease its pension deficit of £3.7 billion which is likely to more than double to £8 billion this year. Unite union’s 13000 cabin crew are expected to join the strike even though they are paid double that of other airlines like Virgin.

In a bid to get the union to call off the strike and save its reputation, British Airways have resorted to legal action. “The airline called on Unite to call off the industrial action by 2pm today. The union has not done so and BA is now seeking an injunction to prevent the strike from going ahead,” the flag carrier’s chief executive Willie Walsh said in a statement last night. The legal action is taken on the grounds that there were irregularities in the strike ballot.

The papers are full of articles citing passenger anger at the strike which is to begin on December 22nd to Jan 2nd 2010.  Would you plan your holiday booking with British Airways after this fiasco? Chances are you will not, if this issue does not resolve well.

It would almost be impossible to recover from this bad reputation for BA. The service industry is constantly dogged by bad reviews, bad press, and negative forums and an internal crisis like this will be nothing short of a disaster for BA’s reputation.

Damage limitation is what is being resorted to and BA plans last-ditch talks to solve the issue.

Like all public figures who decide to re-invent themselves to stay in the spotlight, Sarah Palin is out with her new book ‘Going Rogue.’

She is clearly taking on her party and trying to give her side of things and no one’s buying any of it. From what we can analyse here, it looks like a step towards becoming a celebrity and from then on probably even onto the White House!

However, if she has indeed set her sights upon the White House, she is in serious need of some excellent reputation management.

For one, though the book has succeeded in generating an initial buzz (as it was bound to), the critics  have panned it and derided it,  calling it her version of ‘being wronged.’

We feel she has begun her long road to recovery in reputation re-building and with her grandchild’s dad now a Playgirl model, Palin has not had it easy for long time now.

The book has stayed clear of personal issues like dissing on Levi Johnson and is more focussed on  explaining her wardrobe budget and problems with the McCain campaign mangers. Sarah Palin is back and everywhere – on Oprah and even the Martha Stewart show and book signing sprees.

If there’s anyone who has seen the highs and lows of public life it is this former Vice President candidate. From a well-loved Governor who made great reforms by taking on the oil lobby to being the Republican poster girl who seriously stole some of Obama’s thunder she has come a long way. The highs were really high and the falls were really low.

The lows began with the Katie Couric interview where she was caught with her foot in her mouth several times to the point of looking uncomfortable and even naïve in the big bad world of politics.  She had it all a great husband good looking kids and she herself looked the part. The Republican party splurging on her wardrobe and the repercussions of that and her 16-year-old daughter getting pregnant all came at the wrong time.

Damage control came in the form of coming clean about the teen pregnancy while grappling once more with the effects of her views on abortion. She suddenly seemed regressive despite her ’soccer mom’ persona that once endeared her to the masses. Modern women turned against her and even as the world were charmed by her including the Pakistan President Sardari praising her looks did not help – Sarah Palin was on the back-foot on home turf. The rest is history – Barack Obama became the President and the McCain camp revealed the rift within the party and before you know there was Palin back in Alaska with a new grandchild.

While we can all assume that she is headed to the White House or trying to get back into politics or attain celebrity status. We suggest that Palin continues on reputation rebuilding with her Tweets, Facebook posts and blogs; and if time is a constraint, why not employ experts like us on Reputation Management.

This is my 2nd post on the online reputation of the worlds top 100 brands, in this post I am looking at number 11 on the list HP brand.

• HP – They have a pretty good presence on the first page of the Search Engine Result Page (SERP), they have their main site, sub domains and also smaller sites they run.  The wikipedia page is quite negative about them, it word be worth seeing if they can push that down the rankings.
• Mercedes-Benz one of the few brands I have come across who seem to have a good handle with on and off line reputation management, maybe the car industry is so used to being scrutinized by motor journalists that they have got good at protecting their brand.  One bad article at the top of a SERP could effect sales dramatically.  What is interesting is if you search one of their products eg Mercedes-Benz c class then Mercedez does not dominate the SERPs as much.  I would focus my efforts as people will tend to search by product rather than just brand.
• Gillette – Have done a great job on their overall brand name, with no negative results on the first page of Google. they have built sites for their products like Gillette fusion, so a big thumbs up, good job.  One thing I spotted though on a quick search there are about 70 user-names still available on social media sites.
• Cisco – have got quite a few websites on the first page but the Wiki page is quite negative in parts.  There are also about 50 user names for Cisco available on the top 120 social sites
• BMW – SERPs show BMW owned sites for most of the results and fan clubs which are positive, and  the wiki page is positive.  The specific products could do with some extra reputation management work as there is scope for negatives to creep up the SERPs.  Also BMW is only 3 characters which causes issue for the social network sites that normally need a minimum of 6 digits.  Suggest using their product names for user names.

Will continue down the list of top 100 brands in forth coming posts and make quick suggestions for brand protection.