In Reputationz News each month I highlight what I consider to be recent reputation winners and losers. They can be people, companies or even abstract ideas. Some are fairly obvious. Others are off-beat or quirky. You may or may not agree! The lists are purely my opinion.

Check out the lists below for my pick of recent reputation winners and losers and feel free to leave a comment with nominations for the next issue if you think someone or something should be included.

Reputation Winners:

John Lewis department store’s Christmas ad. for challenging viewers’ perceptions and judgements in a heartwarming way whilst brilliantly underscoring the ad’s key message. Enjoy!

‘This Is Why I’m Broke‘ website for providing a seemingly endless range of innovative, quirky and just plain ‘out-there’ products designed to part rational, reasonable people from their money! (more…)

This year’s Christmas advert from UK high-street retailer John Lewis is an out and out reputation winner, which is more than can be said for Littlewoods – another UK retailer.

Both are cute, featuring children under 5 and a focus on presents, but where the Lewis ad hits the nail on the head in terms of positive emotion, and has received more than 3 million views, the Littlewoods’ ad does quite the reverse.

International speaker and confidence coach Eilidh Milnes says “I’d offer that John Lewis truly knows and understands it’s clients, matches the company ethics and ethos to its target market then dares to be different. The company holds its ground and maintains its standards – no questionable implications dubious morals or poor taste; with the advert … focusing on generosity not greed.” Here, here!

Littlewoods’ blatant commercialism and insensitivity won’t have won it many fans – adult or child. The obvious message is unnecessary and the ad’s ability to dispel the supposed myth that Mum, rather than Santa, provides gifts at Christmas will, no doubt, be the cause of tears before bedtime for many a littlie enraptured with Santa and his helpers. (more…)

Photo: uk.ibtimes.com

The overwhelming mood of the nation – or at least those that followed the Rugby World Cup over the last week or so – was that the All Blacks would ace the final.

They were the team on form, hadn’t lost a game during the tournament and were on home turf. The smart money was definitely on the boys in black to make the Webb Ellis Cup theirs for the next four years.

The ‘real final’ had been played the week before, apparently, when the All Blacks beat the Wallabies, our Ozzie foes from across The Ditch.

Hmmm … well, Les Bleus held a completely different view and very nearly caused the upset of the tournament when time ran out and they were just one point behind in Sunday night’s final.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m an all-out All Black supporter – well, as much ‘all out’ as someone who’s lived in New Zealand for 16 years, is a naturalised citizen and who’s never seen the All Blacks perform the haka can be! Anyway, I was rooting for the team in the black strip but well aware that nothing was a given. (more…)

One of the attributes many successful people often have is their ability to look for and seize trends, concepts and opportunities before other people do. They seem to have a knack of spotting the next ‘big thing’ and positioning themselves to take advantage of it before the masses even knows it exists.

We’re encouraged to keep our eyes and ears open and hone our antennae so that we won’t miss any opportunities and can be in a position to capitalise on them when they do come up. We’re told ‘the early bird catches the worm’ and ‘you snooze, you lose’. The emphasis is most certainly on being as ‘sharp’ as possible with an eye to the future and a nose for success.

But does chasing the future guarantee success? Perhaps success may be equally, or even more assured if we focus on the present instead.

Nothing is more off-putting than knowing the person you’re dealing with in the moment is thinking about something else rather than focusing on you. They might outwardly seem present and correct but you can tell from their body language and facial expressions that you’re not the focus of their attention. (more…)

Research indicates it’s 6-7 times more expensive to gain one new customer than it is to retain an existing one and that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profits by between 25% and 95%!

It therefore makes sense to hang on to the clients and customers you already have, and create a legion of raving fans willing to recommend you, by genuinely and sincerely thanking your existing clients on an ongoing basis.

However, remember details are important. Even the simplest ‘Thank You’ will be met with suspicion and disbelief if the person’s name is spelt wrongly, or some detail about the transaction referred to is incorrect, or someone with a non gender-specific name such as Chris is referred to as ‘he’ when in fact he’s a ‘she’.

Instead of making the person feel valued and respected, administrative errors can generate quite the opposite effect. They can also raise doubts about your sincerity and systems and processes which may never have been thought about had you got it right in the first place.

So how can you minimise these types of errors and enhance your reputation for being great with the details? (more…)

A moment of madness can be all it takes to damage an otherwise unblemished reputation. Just how easy it can be to find yourself having to try and recover a damaged reputation is outlined in Angelique Jurd’s ‘Don’t Let Stress Beat You’ post on www.undergroundmainstream.com.

Tired, stressed and focusing on her client’s needs, lawyer Janet Xuccoa forgot to focus on her responsiblities as a driver and found herself having to explain her actions to a police officer who pulled her over as part of his job. The outcome wasn’t pretty and Xuccoa found herself facing a dangerous driving charge. Fortunately no-one was injured, but the consequences, especially in terms of damage to her reputation, have added even more stress to her, her family and her colleagues.

The temptation to keep things quiet can be tremendous in cases like this, but my advice is always front up and accept responsiblity. Ignoring it, or trying to brush it under the carpet won’t solve anything. In fact, it’s extremely likely it will make things worse.

When incidents like this happen the natural reaction for many is to feel embarassed or ashamed. The person may not be proud of their actions but blaming others or trying to hide it is a recipe for disaster.

(more…)

Reputation is a double-edged sword. UK tabloid The News Of The World has scored a coup with its video coverage of the Duchess of York, Sarah Ferguson, discussing access to Prince Andrew in return for more than half a million pounds.

The story is an absolute reputation-winner from the newspaper’s perspective. It’s certainly captured twitterers and bloggers all over the planet and will no doubt drive millions of eye-balls to the video footage on the News Of The World’s website.

From the Duchess’s perspective it’s a reputation loser, and it will be interesting to see how she or her PR-handlers respond to the reports and coverage.

If she tries to bluff her way out of it and cast herself as the victim in a vicious sting designed to humiliate her and the Royal family as deeply as possible I doubt she’ll find many sympathisers.

If she fronts-up and brushes it off as nothing to get excited she’ll probably discover quite a few people are excited about it and will continue to be for some time.

Either way, calls for her to become the ‘celebrity endorser’ of products or services in the future are likely to be fewer and farther between, and that’s been a significant source of income for her in recent years. 

Digital cameras and audio recorders come in micro sizes these days. If you don’t want to be filmed or recorded doing, or saying, something that may come back and haunt you, don’t do or say it at all.

Today, more than ever, the camera is always rolling, the microphone is always on and there’s no such thing as ‘off the record’. Assume everything you do and say could be recorded by anyone at any time.

If you’re happy for that to be plastered all over the internet, great! If not, tread with care.