Reputation Changer: Toyota Highlights Importance of Brand Management for Fortune 500 Companies

April 6, 2012 - PRLog -- Reputation management has grown into a thriving industry on the back of a largely small business-oriented clientele. More recently, however, major corporations have illustrated the crucial services that reputation management can offer even for Fortune 500 brands. A new Forbes profile on the Toyota brand serves as a good example. The article notes that Toyota has experienced many setbacks in recent years, among them recalls of more than 10 million vehicles. These well-publicized recalls have even led to media speculation that Toyota’s vehicles are unsafe. Despite this, Toyota has maintained some of the highest consumer-approval ratings in its industry, something that can be attributed to savvy reputation management campaigning. And according to companies like Reputation Changer, Toyota is just one example among many of reputation management in action, on a large scale.

“The instance of Toyota shows just how potent a good reputation management campaign can be in terms of shaping consumer perception,” confirms Justin Singletary, who serves as Reputation Changer’s Chief Executive Officer. “A company without good reputation management strategies in place may have been crippled by a negative public perception, but Toyota overcame its setbacks and maintained its status as a brand of choice.”

The Forbes article discusses the various ways in which Toyota labored to shape public opinion. For example, the company, following rumors of lax safety standards, essentially shifted its marketing focus away from safety altogether, reminding consumers of the brand’s relevance to their lives and enforcing “personal narratives” as a way of suppressing unwanted publicity.

The Toyota model serves as a good example, but Singletary says no two reputation management campaigns are ever the same. “One thing that Reputation Changer emphasizes is individualization,” he notes. “While some companies may essentially work from a template, we believe in building every campaign from scratch, addressing each client’s particular reputation management needs.”

And this is true for companies both large and small. Many reputation management companies work with a variety of lower-end clients, including not just small businesses but even public figures. Singletary says that his firm has worked to enhance the public images of doctors, lawyers, and even low-profile community members. But as the reputation management industry takes off, it attracts bigger and bigger clients. “More and more, we’re hearing from political candidates and Fortune 500 companies,” says Singletary.

As the clients have grown larger, the reputation management strategies themselves have grown more elaborate. According to Singletary, the industry has come a long way from its roots. “Initially, it was largely a matter of kicking negative listings off the first page of a search engine, but now many of our clients expect something on a much grander scale,” he observes.

Indeed, reputation management companies still practice cutting-edge SEO tactics to regulate online search listings, but they also implement national newswires as part of what Singletary calls a “media blitz” strategy. In fact, some of the larger reputation management agencies, including Reputation Changer, manage their own influential blogs and even national media outlets. They syndicate content through these networks at a rapid rate—“all day everyday, as often as is necessary,” Singletary says.

The goal of these campaigns is to portray a given brand in a positive light, but, for a Fortune 500-level brand, that goal is anything but simple or straightforward. It involves not only the suppression of negative online reviews and bad publicity, but also the shaping of the national media narrative. As a result, companies in the reputation management industry offer 24/7 monitoring and rapid response to PR issues as they arise.

ABOUT:

Founded in 2009 by a team of online marketing and sales professionals, Reputation Changer is one of the premier providers of online reputation management. The company works 24/7 to provide comprehensive reputation management strategies to its clients, which have included politicians, public figures, Fortune 500 companies, and more. Reputation Changer owns several media outlets, and is known for its innovation in positive SEO techniques, social media implementation, and more. The company is also unique for the custom, individualized process it takes for every client and every campaign. For more information, visit http://www.ReputationChanger.com.