Everyone has more than one reputation these days. There is the reputation that you maintain in public with your friends, family and co-workers. And now there is another reputation that businesses and even individuals are looking to manage in today’s world of e-commerce. And that is their online reputation.

Online reputation management is becoming a more popular business and there are businesses out there that specialize in the practice.

Most firms offer this along with traditional PR and marketing practices, along with search engine optimization services. With more social media and blogs out there in the internet space, it’s easy to have a bad reputation online if people are putting your name on the internet with unfavorable search terms.

For example, if a Chicago web design firm does not maintain their online reputation and someone decided to take a personal vendetta against them and start blogging solely about them, they could rank high with search terms in search engines like Google or yahoo with terms that may associate them with bad business, even if they do not conduct bad business.

What online reputation management does is that it gives you more hits on Google or other search engines so that your official sites rank higher than ones that are unofficial. That way, you control your own business image on the internet, instead of the other way around.

So why is this kind of brand recognition important? Because consumers are now more able than ever to do some backgrounds research on any business that they are looking to patronize. Whether it is Wal-Mart or Apple. The internet has created a space where anyone can knock you down on a search engine and your company’s image is controlled by others and not by the company.

It’s just like old fashioned PR, except it’s online and something every company should think about.

OK, This has nothing to do with the bad experience I had in Starbucks yesterday – or indeed should I say things I have observed pretty regularly lately.  I have noticed a definate decline in their customer service levels.  Yesterday I had to wait 10 minutes for a drink – after having to remind them.  I was then offered a free coupon – and after the staff searched high and low they could not find them. It reminded me of how Starbucks staff would bend over backwards for you 10 years ago.

Well this personal experience aside I read today that they are closing 61 of 87 stores in Australia.  This came after the news that they are closing 600 stores in the US.

Perhaps this is an effort to get their affairs in order after a period of expansion that seemed excessive.  Time will tell as to how successful they will be.

Russ Blaesing’s online personal and family menu planning business is growing, but not as fast as he would like. So the CEO of More Thyme turned to Ingenex Digital Marketing to draw more customers to his mealmixer.com Web site.

Read More at Detroit News…

Adweek had an interesting piece a few days ago regarding American companies that have to tweak their branding strategies when advertising abroad. Las Vegas’ branding campaign is a good example (“what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’).

“Based on the success of our ‘What happens here’ marketing in the U.S., we shifted our global strategy from a purely product-education philosophy to a focus on emotional brand building,” says Rossi Ralenkotter, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Global travel is expanding even as foreign travel to the U.S. is decreasing, he adds, “so we must have our brand out there to attract international travelers who are going elsewhere.”

Read more

How Saturn has fallen. Laura Ries has an interesting post about the rise and fall of Saturn from the automobile ranks. Read more about it here.

I’ve been using sportsline consistently in the past for fantasy leagues and as an alternative to ESPN, and have always wondered why CBS never properly utilized this asset. It is clearly the #2 online sports property (still miles behind ESPN though) and CBS seemed reluctant to take any credit for ownership. That is until now. Read more about how Sportsline.com has been rebranded cbssports.com.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally has stated that he wants to revive the ‘Have you driven a ford lately’ tag line as part of a new branding and marketing campaign. He believes that car names are changing too often and right when consumers begin to connect with a certain type of car they change the name and lose any brand equity that had been established. You can read more about it here.

Intel announced yesterday that they are rebranding a portion of their product offering. As of January 1st, 2008, Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad will be no longer. Check out the full story here.

According to Santa Monica, Calif.-based Mediadefender, P2P file sharing networks have been successfully utilitzed for branding purposes. Read more about it here.

Wal-mart marketing to the more affluent population? Samsonite making a play in the high-end luxury goods market? What the heck is going on here?

Jennifer Rice has an interesting post today on her blog asking how far can a brand stretch and still be effective. It will be interesting to see how successful Samsonite competes with the likes of Burberry and Coach. Good luck!

Came across an interesting Powerpoint presentation this afternoon which was a brief history of branding. Oddly enough, the title of the presentation was ‘brief history of branding.’ Plenty of information regarding when branding really took off and some of the first recognizable brands. The wikipedia article also has plenty of quality information about the topic.

Quite a few good posts recently (last week and a half or so) I found worthwhile that I thought I’d mention:

Laura Ries wrote about Tiger Woods and his shrinking endorsement portfolio due to Tiger not being able to relate to brand’s target markets. Poor Tiger. Somebody get that man some food stamps!

Rob Frankel had an interesting post about how CEO’s get paid to fail and it’s happening right now at Chrysler.

Martin Lindstrom over at Branding Strategy Insider had an interesting experience at the supermarket where he was persuaded to buy a certain brand of toothpaste.

John Bell from Digital Influence Mapping Project found it interesting that brands are creating their own social networks.

That’s all folks. We’ll be back Monday with some more news, thoughts, and insights. Have a good weekend.

Everything you wanted to know about brands but were afraid to ask!! Check out the sixteen things that you must do to create a winning brand in this article from Branding Strategy Insider. They guarantee that if you follow these sixteen concepts your brand will succeed in the marketplace!

Investment information

Investments sites for venture capital includes Berkeley International Capital Corporation.

Private investors can find investing information here

Product branding rather than taste influences kids eating behavior! This is the finding of new research by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Thomas Robinson, MD, director of the Center for Healthy Weight at Packard Children’s Hospital and associate professor of pediatrics and of medicine at the School of Medicine stated that the findings show that kids actually believe that a branded product such as McDonald’s chicken nugget tastes better than an identical unbranded one.

Robinson highlighted the fact that manufacturers play on the fact that young children are unable to decipher marketing strategies, and do not have the know-how to understand that advertising, product placement and co-branding with popular toys is designed to get them to choose one product over another.

The research goes on to draw a correlation between affected children and the number of TVs in a home. And although there has been a decrease in TV food advertisements (McDonalds spends $1B per year), these are now being more directly targeted to children’s television programming. However McDonald’s and nine other top food companies announced the ‘Children’s Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative’ where they have pledged their loyalty to devoting half their advertising towards the promotion of healthy foods for kids.

Hmm I read this after reading another interesting article on Jason Calacanis’s blog relating to weight control. He states:

Finally, you have to realize that society has stacked the deck against you. It’s helpful to look at the issue as if you’re at war with the world. Everything in our society is designed to make you fat–that’s the truth. Major companies don’t care about you or your health, they care about your money. When I walk through the airport I look at the stores in the terminal as a bunch of drug dealers trying to get your hooked, because that’s the truth. Fast food companies are trying to screw you, entertainment companies want you sitting in your chair consuming their entertainment for hours while you eat their sponsors food. It’s a war and you are out-gunned–big time. You have to walk like the master in Kung Fu and not let these folks impact you. Our whole society is designed to get you fat and you have to optout of it. You have to leave that world behind and create your own world. You have to bring your own food with you, you have to create your own pace, and you have to get off your fat butt and walk. They want you to take the people mover and the escalator, you have to take the stairs. They want you to supersize you have downsize. They want you watching the Law & Order marathon and ordering PizzaHut, you have to get on the treadmill.

For those of us with kids it looks like we are faced with an ever increasing, uphill battle to help develop healthy eating habits and proper nutrition.

The 2007 Business week brand rankings came out today and to little surprise Coca-Cola was still at the top for the 7^th year in a row.  There was very little movement in the top ten as the same ten companies at the top in 2006 are once again at the top in 2007, only in a slightly different order.  There were only two changes: Nokia fell two spots from 5 to 7, and McDonalds leapfrogged Disney to go from 9 to 8.  Nintendo was one of the big winners this year with an 18% increase in brand value, mainly due to their ultra-successful launch of the Wii console.  Not only was this gaming system a hit with their younger target market, but it was also unexpectedly a hit amongst the older folks as well.  Nintendo was able to add retirement communities to their customer base, something that hadn’t been seen with any previous video game console.  Although Wii was a resounding success this year and outsold Microsoft’s X-Box 360 console, they still have a long way to go to pass up the software giant.  Microsoft increased their brand value by 3%, due to the debut of the aforementioned X-Box 360, but more importantly the arrival of their long awaited (and long delayed) Windows Vista operating system.

Two (Not very bold) 2008 Predictions

Google will finally crack the top ten in 2008.  They increased their brand value by an astronomical 44%, almost twice as much as anybody else in the top 100 (Zara had the 2^nd highest growth margin at 22% growth).  I also think that Apple (21% year over year growth) will be joining them, or possibly slightly behind.  Taking into consideration the recent release of their iPhone and continued success of the iPod, it will be tough to keep them from rising.  What do you think 2008 will look like? 

You can see more information and analysis about the 2007 rankings here.

The wedding of the worlds tallest man and his bride took place on Thursday in a traditional Mongolian ceremony. 56 year old Bao Xishun, a 2.36-metre (7-ft, 9-inch) herdsman from China’s vast Inner Mongolia region, married saleswoman Xia Shujuan, a mere 1.68 metres (5 ft 6 inches) tall and just 29 years old.

The event meant a lot to Inner Mongolia and they plan to use Bao for marketing purposes.

“He has a very good image among us in Inner Mongolia,” said Bao’s agent, Xin Xing. “We plan to use his name as a brand to develop tourism. We want to better help and serve our hometown.”

Bao’s wedding was sponsored by at least 15 companies hoping to cash in on his fame including the liquor drunk at the wedding, blankets and the groom’s shoes. (I wonder what size they are!)  Read more

Pepsi’s website turns away visitors rather than embracing them.  This is branding with a difference, branding with attitude!  Will branding with attitude and personality be the way forward for marketers or will they carry on with their pursuits of blandness?

The  article Brand Building: Resisting ‘Sameness’ explores the topic of blandness V’s personality.

Are blogs useful for online branding?  Is your marketing message getting altered by bloggers.  This nice piece from Branding Strategy Insider explores the topic.

The growth of consumer generated influence means that power has moved from away from marketers to consumers.   Marketers can now reach their audience easier than ever before but they also have never has so little control in this process.

Because we live in a connected world the influence of consumers on other consumers is great.  The power of social networking, buzz marketing, blogs and online communities are all things that we as marketers should be aware of and be involved with.  Marketers can leverage these platforms by listening to and participating in the conversation with the ultimate goal of developing brand advocacy.

To do this you will need to monitor and listen to what is being said about your brand.  Look for trends and try to keep in contact with engaged consumers who are interested in your brand. 

As well as listening you need to participate in the conversation.  You can create a blog or be active in other industry blogs and forums.   This participation leads to credibility – and credibility to trust.

The ultimate consumer relationship is the brand advocate.  Brand advocates are happy consumers spreading the word.  These types of relationships are a major marketing asset and they can attract and influence a great many people.  The brand advocate relationship should be nurtured.  They should be given access to the latest news, to product samples and to new products.  Consumers will turn to the brand advocates for their reviews and recommendations.

Google is a major fixture in the $250 million Australian search market. They have just announced that they plan to compete with traditional media companies for a share of the $10 billion local brand advertising market.   Their goal is to replace traditional television, radio and print advertising and attract brand advertising using a range of new formats.  This is an extension of what is currently being tested in the US.   Read article.

There is a lot of hoo-ha about the logo design for the 2012 Olympic Games in London including reports that it is causing epileptic fits. The Independent newspaper have reacted to this with an article on ‘The Story of Unpopular Branding.’

The graffiti-like logo for the 2012 London Olympics appeared yesterday to have seen off all competitors and claimed a medal for being the most unpopular logo in British marketing history.

All the early signs were that the year-long research and consumer testing behind the stark, jagged image was wasted. Less than two days after the logo was unveiled, more than 26,000 people had signed an online petition for it to be scrapped. Petitions defending it found only a handful of supporters. Read more

Also check out Seth Godin riffing on logos.