Reputation Management is known under many alias': brand management, crisis management, and more. Whatever your title for this topic, Joseph Cowan, Sr. Strategist from Outrider, made it very clear this is important! The presentation was full of "real-life examples" of companies in dire need of reputation management or companies who have successfully implemented such a campaign.
A reputation management campaign should be treated like life insurance. It's there and running, but hopefully you wont have to use it very often! One great example Joseph gave was Mattel. As you'll recall Mattel voluntarily recalled a large number of their toys as a result of lead paint. To any brand, a recall such as this can be detrimental, however Mattel was smart about it and immediately launched a campaign explaining the recall and sending concerned parents to their website to learn more. They took over a portion of the Yahoo homepage with a video from the Chairman & CEO of Mattel explaining what was going on. They drove users via paid search to http://www.mattel.com/safety/us/ where more details were available. Mattel immediately jumped to their feet and took action!
Many companies and brands have come under fire in recent years including JetBlue, Cadbury Schweppes, and Wendy's. Each of these circumstances presented a great opportunity for a reputation management campaign to aid brand perception. To quote Joseph, "Consumers that have an open mind, that are willing to research an issue and get the most information, will use search engines to do so. Appropriate use of paid search, search engine optimization, and trademark registration can be effective means of getting your point of view to the consumer in a controlled format."
In closing, there was a great quote shared from Warren Buffet that said, "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to destroy it."
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