Vanno tracks the reputations of 5,500 companies by asking users to submit articles and rate them, based on how favorable the coverage is to the subject. One of those brands is Kellogg's, and the data says that dumping Micheal Phelps after his bong exploit made the brand tank.
In Vanno's ranking's, Kellogg's spiraled downward, from 9th best to 83rd, during the course of the Phelps hubbub. Granted, this data might be messy: The data is user generated, and the statistical methods used to tabulate them don't necessarily reflect an absolute reality, but rather a statistically probable trend. But on the other hand, it is true that many of the largest bloggers on the Web, such as Andrew Sullivan, have skewered Phelps for their perceived priggishness; SNL even railed against the company:
If you were looking for a case study on the effect of new media and how it changes PR rules, the Phelps case is a prime example. In particular, the online influence of views that might have once been marginalized on the nightly news, makes figuring out what PR moves are "safe" nowadays. A brand's constituency is no longer some generalized, archetypal family with a (hypothetically) strong moral fiber, but it also includes all of the people who could destroy a brand on the Web, with influential opinion. Could Kellogg's even repair the damage by taking Phelps back? Unlikely.
[Via Silicon Alley Insider]
Related Stories: | Topics:Management, Design, Innovation, Michael Phelps, Technology, branding, Kellogg's, Micheal Phelps, Kellogg Company, Andrew Sullivan |
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Recent Comments | 7 Total
February 24, 2009 at 6:43pm by Sally Lane
Everyone should give Michael Phelps a break.
February 24, 2009 at 6:43pm by Michael S
i love pop tarts
February 24, 2009 at 6:45pm by Sally Lane
I need to try this again.
February 24, 2009 at 8:17pm by Nick DiGiacomo
What's most shocking is that the deadly salmonella-laced peanut butter crackers that Kellogg was selling (prior to the Phelps bong affair) only hurt their reputation a little (9th to 16th). Dropping Phelps, however, caused a nosedive to 83rd!
You can find the details here if you're interested: http://blog.vanno.com/index.php/2009/02/22/the-mathematics-of-reputation...
Nick DiGiacomo, Co-founder, Vanno
February 24, 2009 at 8:20pm by Cliff Kuang
Hey Nick---Thanks for reading. I definitely took note of the salmonella connection with Kellogg—but left it out of the main story because it seemed to me that it actually makes sense from a branding standpoint: I would guess that most people connect Kellogg's brand more closely with cereal than they do with peanut butter. Thus, it makes a certain sense that the Phelps affair would have been more harmful. More over, for Kellogg, the salmonella issue is a supply chain matter that could easily be pinned on another company, rather than something that reflects their "brand values"
February 24, 2009 at 8:47pm by Nick DiGiacomo
@Cliff - You hit it on the head - our users seemed to blame the peanut producers and regulatory agencies more than Kellogg. Kellogg also has a legacy of good will relative to how it deals with product issues. So - in our Bayesian language - it had a strong belief base, which takes a lot of new "evidence" to significantly change it. The Phelps issue elicited much more user passion, and impacted a more vulnerable aspect of Kellogg's reputation (corporate governance).
February 26, 2009 at 10:42am by Gary Levens