Each month in ‘Reputationz’ I highlight what I consider to be 3 reputation winners and 3 reputation losers for the month.

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 for June 2010 below and feel free to leave a comment or email me with nominations for the July issue.

Reputation Winners June 2010:

• The creative genius responsible for bringing to life the most compelling, and simply beautiful, ‘always wear your seatbelt’ ad ever. An absolute ‘must-see’.
• DNZ evidence for proving the world’s longest serving prisoner for a rape conviction had been wrongly convicted almost 30 years ago. 
• Tauranga Perspex for developing a removable perspex shield to enhance the safety of both cab-drivers and their passengers exposed to theft, attack and abuse.

Reputation Losers June 2010:

• TV2 for running an advert during the semi-final show of American Idol that clearly showed which contestants got through to the final before the semi-final had concluded.
• Australia’s ‘Big Four’ banks for allegedly overcharging millions of customers around A$5 billion worth of penalty fees.
• Oil giant BP for the billion dollar disaster continuing in the Gulf of Mexico and business-threatening loss of shareholder confidence.

To view Reputationz online click here and to receive your own copy each month, opt-in here.

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.

In terms of acting ethically, employers who say one thing, but do another, will find it increasingly difficult to attract and retain loyal employees according to new international and New Zealand-based research.

Even though the tables have been turned somewhat as a result of the recession, and employers may have an apparently wider choice of candidates for vacant positions, the issue facing many workplaces today is whether they are shortlisted by candidates at all.

An article in the New Zealand Herald today notes a survey of 100,000 people across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific by Kelly Services found almost 90% of respondents said they were more likely to work for an organisation they believed was ethically and socially responsible.

The article’s author, Brad Stewart, also notes 80% said they would like to work for an environmentally responsible employer, and the willingness to accept lower pay to work for an employer with a good reputation was high across the generations. Fifty-three percent of Baby Boomers, 48% of Gen X and 46% of Gen Y respondents said they’d go for a good reputation ahead of higher pay. Read the rest of this entry »

When a company decides to have an official presence on Facebook, or other online social media network, they open themselves up to two huge opportunities:

• They can connect and communicate with potential and existing clients and customers keen to engage in a dialogue with that company and build trust in the process.

• They also run the risk of getting offside with ‘fans’, friends’ and ‘followers’ big-time if they fail to understand the ‘rules of engagement’ and try and use what are perceived as ‘big-brother’ tactics in the process.

The fall-out that’s occurred, which is neatly summarised in Bernard Warner’s blog post at SocialMediaToday.com, demonstrates how the internet can become a bitter battlefield where wars are won or lost based not on words, but on behaviour.

No matter how much a company or organisation may want to control their image and reputation online, it’s almost impossible to do – especially via Social Networking sites such as Facebook.

Attacking its commentators is unlikely to have endeared Nestle to the 90,000 or so ‘friends’ it has (had?) on Facebook as Rick Broida points out at bnet.com.

I’d hazard a guess it would have earned more respect, and perhaps even enhanced its reputation, if it had responded in a way that said ‘we hear you, we welcome your feedback, and we’re actually quite pleased you’re taking the time to let us know how you feel’.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over-promising and under-delivering is one of the biggest reputation-damagers there is.

If the breach of promise is relatively minor, most of us will forgive an organisation and give it a second, or even third, chance to deliver and meet our expectations.

However, when promises continue to be broken, and serious doubts are raised about a company’s ability to deliver – in any way – our willingness to trust that company plummets.

New Zealand’s largest telco company, Telecom, is in serious trouble in terms of reputation branding.

Its much-vaunted ‘available (almost) anywhere’ television ads used to launch the XT Network has come back to haunt them with significant network outages that have affected hundreds of thousands of customers.

This isn’t a minor blip. The fourth major outage this week has resulted in the resignation of Telecom’s most senior executive responsible for the network’s design and implementation. Read the rest of this entry »

Much like the Kryptonite bike lock debacle back in 2005, the Sons of Maxwell ‘United breaks guitars’ video  continues to be picked up on the web and damage United’s reputation.

When the airline damaged a $3,500 Taylor guitar and refused to accept liability, or provide any kind of compensation, Dave Carroll hit back where it hurt – right at their reputation.

According to a Mashable blog post written just after the video was posted in August last year, the video accrued around 3.2 million views and 14,000 comments less than 10 days after it was uploaded.

Today the clip’s been viewed more than 7.5 million times and continues to circulate on the internet in a practical demonstration of word-of-mouth becoming word-of-mouse.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s no wonder politicians regularly feature in the bottom 5 of the ‘Most Trusted’ occupations list produced by Reader’s Digest each year.

This week the papers have been dominated again by the international travel MPs and their partners have taken, largely at taxpayer expense – in some cases without even attending the meeting’s they went overseas for! Read the rest of this entry »

“… and the award for biggest Jackass goes to …. Kanye West!”

I know award ceremonies are designed to celebrate achievements, or other notable acts, but the arguments about who should have won, rather than who did win, invariably steal the limelight after the winners are named.

Kanye West’s outrageous, arrogant, outburst during Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV video awards was a disgrace. Grabbing the microphone from Swift’s hand and humiliating and belittling her as she enjoyed her moment in sun, made sure he was in the headlines alright. Read the rest of this entry »