Tag Archives: scandal

‘KFC Malaysia Food Tampering Scandal, Youtube and Facebook’, and other recent contributions in our ‘About Media & Reputation’

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We open a new series of posts by sharing with you a selection of the contributions published in our daily ‘About Media & Reputation’.

‘About Media & Reputation’ is created by a selection of contributions coming from people I follow at Twitter. Those are mainly experts in brands, reputation and crisis communication. My own Twitter account is @NewsReputation. This publication is powered by paper.li.

We present here a selection of the contributions. We do not necessarily endorse the content in their approach or quality.

Main article is about a reputation crisis propelled and controlled afterwards by social media channel. It was published in our edition of 20 October 2011, “Crisis Communication: KFC Malaysia Food Tampering Scandal and How Facebook Saved the Day”, from cwfong.blogspot.com.

In Jun 11, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) Malaysia was faced with a potential social media crisis when videos of food tampering by their kitchen staff started circulating on the Internet. As part of its crisis response strategy, KFC Malaysia established a page on its Facebook wall to tell its side of the story and restore consumer confidence.

You can check here the two disgusting videos showing food tampering.

As explained in the article, KFC management reacted using the same tools, and launched a video explaining their views and decisions.

They also opened a new section in Facebook KFC Malaysia, ‘KFC Responds’

We show an example of a TV news covering the affaire. Thanks to KFC response, the core of the news is not focused on the food health scandal, but on KFC management reaction, and on the corrective measures taken by the company.

CW Fong & Associates praise Kentucky Fried Chicken reaction, as an example of well managed reputation crisis:

Like many other crisis communication experts, I attribute KFC Malaysia’s success in avoiding a crisis to its timely, open, truthful, Internet present and broadly communicated crisis communication plan – what I have termed the 5 essential elements of a crisis communication plan

There may be eventually a source of concern with this communication crisis success story. And this is not a CW Fong statement but my own feeling: becoming a reference in how to deal a with social media rooted crisis using social media tools, puts you as a crisis management reference (look, KFC is in my blog, and in CF Fong & Associates site, and in the TV news  presented in this post). This may be new reputation problem for KFC. This crisis was mainly local Malaysian issue, even if it went viral. Now I know about the story through reputation experts. But the bad news is that I discovered the ugly video at the source of the scandal (and I am increasing its visibility, BTW), as it is an essential part of the story. And for me, not as an expert, but as a potential fast food consumer, my perception about KFC quality standards has not really increased. Sorry for Kentucky Fried Chicken.

As for the measures taken by the company to avoid future scandals and restore reputation, we find that they are mainly oriented to a ‘this will never happen again’ strategy (cameras in the kitchens, additional supervising kitchen staff). These measures are urgently needed to restore trust. But this episode hits KFC not only on product quality issues. It also reinforces the bad reputation of fast food companies on labor conditions. Even if this working misbehavior was an exception, it clearly reflects an attitude of lack of professionalism, commitment with the company and absence of passion for work. This attitude is probably in line with the job and salary conditions in this sector. KFC management announces also a ‘process of reviewing our recruitment and training’. It is really hard to imagine that much can change in workers’ motivation and commitment if basic job conditions offered by KFC are not substantially revised. Even if this crisis is considered a success story by many experts in terms of crisis communication and mitigation, it is far from being solved and it is not a zero cost crisis.

PS: I further develop my thoughts on this case thanks to the dialogue with readers in the ‘comments’ section of this post.

Annex 1. See also another case of fast food company crisis
Ratatouille’s friends loving fast food Quick Belleville Paris. An astonishing ‘c’est la vie’ response to a serious reputation scandal.

Annex 2. Other articles in paper.li (not related with food scandal)

Other contributions from 20 October edition:

  • ‘Four Tactics to Use Reverse SEO to Mitigate a Corporate Crisis’, by Julie Ann Rose, what-is-business.com
  • ‘Anticipate, Manage and Resolve a Crisis With PR News’ Just-Published Crisis Management Guidebook’, digitaljournal.com
  • ‘How to Handle a Crisis’ by Aileen Pincus, Business Week
  • European Crisis Competence Barometer
  • ‘How to build your personal brand within a company’ by Jessica Kleiman, The Globe and Mail
Selected contributions in 19 October edition:
  • ‘Crisis Communication: The Role of Employees’, Associatedcontent.com, from CW Fong & Associates
  • ’5 case studies — Social technology impacting management’, Businessesgrow.com
  • ‘Limited use of sharing buttons shows people’s desire to share links privately’ by Jeff Sonderman, Poynter.org
  • ‘The worst-ever advice about social media’ by Russell Working, Ragan.com

(…)

7. Automatically incorporate blog posts onto Twitter.

Jenny Leonard, editor of Futurity, notes a push to automatically link blog or newsletter posts to Twitter and Facebook. “As a colleague once told me, ‘Automation is not social; it’s the opposite of social,’” she says

(…)

2. Put the intern in charge of social media.

Stephanie Johnson, director of public affairs at Advocate Health Care, says social media is essential, so “you need a team that is invested in staying on top of these changes and adapting new elements that may benefit your audience.”

Don’t pawn it off on the kids.

Selected contributions in our 18 October edition:

  • ‘BlackBerry Brand Damaged – What’s Next in Crisis PR?’ by Ronn Torossian, Business Insider
  • ‘Service restored, but BlackBerry may never repair its reputation’ by Juliette Garside, The Observer
  • ‘Tell us: Does the death of Dan Wheldon change your mind about race setups?’, USA Today
  • ‘The Worst Thing to Put on Your Company Website’ by Michael Hess, Bnet.com (about captcha use)
  • ‘From a single hashtag, a protest circled the world’, by Ben Berkowitz, Reuters
  • ‘Twitter Will Beat Google+ And Facebook With Simplicity, Says CEO’ by Matt Lynley, Business Insider

The Image of FHFA Lawsuit Against 17 Banks

Posted on by • Posted in Companies, Corp - Bank of America, Rep Issue - Newspapers • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 5 Comments

(Note: as Bank of America is in the news for additional mortgage related lawsuits, we put in the frontline this analysis posted before)

The precedent post showed which banks are more present in the media in relation with the multibillion lawsuit of the US Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) against 17 major American and international banks.

Now we show results about the images portrayed by the media when covering the FHFA lawsuit.

This is a new tool of analysis that we present in this blog. It has been developped at our research center MRI Universidad de Navarra, and it has been applied to other studies.

Image analysis show striking results for media reputation analysis. All analysis presented in this reputation crisis blog is entirely based in news content analysis from newspapers. Image analysis is also based in newspapers articles. What we do here is to identify all photos used by the journalists to illustrate the news published about any kind of issue or event.

We collect all available photos used, and we regroup them into relevant categories. The final step is to present the results. We can show the numerical results or a graphical representation of it. The reputation collage is the resulting image emerging from all photos chosen by journalists.

This tool is probably very relevant in terms of reputation analysis. Appearing in the news in a reputation crisis may damage the media perception of the affected people, company or institution. This damage increases substantially if the news appearence is not recluded into the body of the article, but appears in the headlines. But it is probably even more damaging if the indicted actor appears in the photo illustrating the news article.

News photos are many times the result of a hard work of media professionals, as they are picked as means to show the “soul of the article”. In many cases, especially when dealing with reputation crisis or scandals, the image chosen come as a result of a journal editorial decision. The impact of a photo is many times stronger than the impact of the content of the text.

We present the result concerning images showed to explain the FHFA lawsuit. As explained in the precedent post, the case we analyze here is ver nice in terms of reputation analysis, as it concerns as much as 17 different companies. The journalist or the editor needs to take a choice if she wants to show the image of a particular bank. As explained, the bank appearing in the photo of news about the FHFA pays a hard price in terms of loss of media reputation, as it creates an association with misleading business behavior, linked to the present economic crisis suffered by many right now.

First reputation collage refers to photos used in news from US newspapers about FHFA lawsuit, published between September 1 and 7.

Main image reference is a picture of a bank. We have shown a unspecified bank image, but they refer all to specific companies. The next collage will show the details of which banks are chosen as examples in the news. Second image reference in importance are photos about the stock markets, normally showing distress and images of falling stock indexes. They are concentrated in news from Monday September 5, when sued banks suffered substantial losses in European markets (Labor Day in the United States). Third and fourth images used to explain the core of the news are images about housing foreclosures and about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We find also image references to experts/analysts, money, the justice and President Obama.

As announced, we show in the following reputation collage the images concerning the names of banks used in the photo news. This result is the key element concerning the measurement of the reputational impact of the current legal crisis experienced by sued banks. It also answers to the question of which among all banks is paying the reputation bill.

Our empirical answer is quite clear: the crisis is up to now being strongly associated to Bank of America, as it is by far the reference picked by journalists or newspaper’s editor to illustrate the lawsuit. Second bank in terms of presence in news photos is JPMorgan Chase. We find also a significative presence of images about Goldman Sachs. There are only marginal appearences of other banks: Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and First Horizon. Other banks do not even appear as photo news.

This clear result suggest a kind of Winner-take-all rule, that in the field of reputation crises becomes a curse: in a set of several affected companies by an scandal or a crisis, media tend to concentrate image attention to the one appearing as the most exposed to the scandal, in a disproportionate way compared to all other affected companies.

It is true that Bank of America has been sued by the largest amount of sellings to Fannie and Freddie. But while they support less than a third of all eventual sanctions linked to selling mortgage securities, it completely controls media choices as image to be shown to present the FHFA lawsuit news.

News Corp Scandal Media Coverage in US Newspapers

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In our previous post we showed some results about the reputation impact of News of the World scandal in News Corporation media reputation.

Now we analyze how main newspapers in the United States are covering the scandal.

News of the World phone hacking scandal has had up to now direct consequences for Rupert Murdoch’s media group in Britain: the Chairman has decided to close the 168 year old British newspaper; two people have been arrested in England: Andy Coulson, former Director of NoW, and Neil Wallis, NoW executive editor; News Corp renounced to withdraw the bid for controlling British BSkyB cable broadcaster and, finally, Rebekah Brooks’ resignation.

All these events could be viewed merely as distant obververs by US journalists and readers. But News Corporation even if created in Australia is now based in the United States and listed in Nasdaq. News Corporation controls many reference media assets in the US, among them:

  • The Wall Street Journal
  • Dow Jones
  • Fox News
  • New York Post
  • 20th Centruty Fox
  • National Geographic
  • Barron’s

It is thus clear that News Corp scandal can be followed as an issue with direct implications in the United States. It is natural to question wether the journalistic misbehaviour (and probably delictive) inside News of the World was a closed-British practice or rather are means accepted or permitted in other news providers inside News Corporation. For instance, New York Post shares a similar sensationalistic profile with News of the World.

We provide in this post some insights about how newspapers in the United States are following the scandal and to which extent this follows a naive and random path or reflects local partisan or commercial interests.

First table shows the results concerning top 100 US newspapers by circulation. We have included only those providing a relevant number of articles about the scandal.

For each newspaper we show

(1), Together/NoW: the share of news mentioning News of the World and News Corp in the same article, against total number of articles published about News of the World.

(2), Together/News Corp: the share of news mentioning News of the World and News Corp in the same article, against total number of articles published about News Corporation.

We are checking with (1) to which extent each newspaper refers to the media group owner (News Corporation) when they publish an article about News of the World scandal, as this is an open decision by the journalist. Our understanding is that if a newspaper establishes the relationship between NoW and N Corp in a higher degree than average, this would reflect in some cases an unfriendly attitude against News Corp and its american newspapers.

The average value for measure (1) is 70%.

Measure (2) follows a similar dymanics: if News Corp is in the news in a newspaper only in relation with News of the World scandal and not for other unrelated issues (value near to 100), this would also reflect a negative position towards News Corp interests.

The average value for measure (2) is 55%.

The reader can check the individual results for each newspaper in the figure.

Democrat Vs Republican Oriented US Newspapers Media Coverage

Can we gather some additional information from the results shown in the table above?

Our proposal is to regroup the results by types of newspapers. We are not experts in US newspapers and this is not an aim that we are looking for. Expert readers can surely find relevant results based in their own knowledge about the nature of each newspaper.

We propose a cluster of US newspapers based in empirical results obtained in one of our precedent researches.

We implemented a systematic analysis of US media coverage of 2008 US Presidential elections. Some of our results are presented in a web site from MRI Universidad de Navarra: The Politics and Media Value Project.

One of the findings that we presented is a partisan classification so newspapers based on the quantity of news published about the Republican and Democrat precandidates. We present below the results.

We use these empirical results to create two groups of newspapers: Democrat oriented and Republican oriented. We include in the list those with a partisan bias higher than 2 points. We do not pretend with this clustering based in factual data to provide an undisputed classification of newspapers ideology. Please consider it just as an analysis tool helping us to address the issue that we are considering here.

First figure shows quantitative information about the relative presence of articles about News of the World in each group of newspapers, and its evolution since July 13 2011.

According to our data, there is no clear different behavior in this point between both kind of newspapers. Scandal related news increase in coverage, but the degree of meda attention is roughly equal in both groups (a value of 0.56-0.58).

Next figure shows the same result, but applied to all news about News Corporation.

We find here the first separated behavior linked to newspaper ideology. At initial stages (July 13) the level of media attention is quite similar in both groups, around 0.45. Already at that moment, Democrat Oriented newspapers deserved more media attention to the media group, even is it is considered to represent conservative approaches, and might then in normal times receive more media attention by Republican Oriented newspapers.

In the following days, when the scandal start to appear as a potential local US scandal affecting News Corp interests in the United States, we observe that Democrat Oriented journals refer much more than Republican Oriented newspapers to News Corporation. Right now, the relative presence of news about News Corp reaches a value 0.72 in Democrat Oriented newspapers, while it reachs a value 0.59 for Republican Oriented newspapers.

The next piece of analysis inquires about the share of news about News of the World than explicitly describe it as an scandal and that mention the phone hacking practice.

We find interesting and intriguind results here. Against intutition, Republican Oriented newspapers relate to the NoW case as an scandal in a similar and even higher proportion than Democrat Oriented newspapers. A similar result is obtained when analysing ther references to phone hacking, reaching even almost the 100% level.

This result indicates that when covering the News of the World issue, it receives non partisan treatment: both sides show it clearly as it is, as an scandal.

This means that if we want to identify ideology driven trends in covering the NoW scandal by US newspapers, we need to look for non direct and more subtle measures.

A new check is to measure to which extent US newspapers refer to elements of NoW scandal with a higher controversial profile. As we have found out in the precedent post, one of the issues that has produced a public opinion reaction and a very negative media treatment is the phone hacking linked to girl Milly Dowler, kidnapped and assassinated.

Our results show that, against our odds, Republican Oriented US newspapers mention this outraging case in a higher relative extent than Democrat ones. Republican Oriented newspapers mention Milly’s case in 37% articles about News of the World, while Democrat Oriented use the case only in 21% of all articles about the scandal.

We have again a result in line with the precedent ones. There is no partisan use of the News of the World scandal when presenting it to the readers. All newspapers present it clearly as an scandal and do not hide the worst elements of it, whatever their ideological position. No thraces of partisan media bias yet.

After this series of figures linked to the basic analysis of how the scandal is presented, we explore new options.

The idea that we propose now consists in measuring the ratio of news where both News of the World scandal and News Corp appear together in a news article, against total articles about News of the World or about News Corp.

This is simply to sum up the values presented in our first table in this post, according to the regrouping that we have proposed.

Here we find a clear different trend between Democrat and Republican Oriented journals. Democrat Oriented journals tend to state that News of the World newspaper is part of News Corporation media group in a substantially wider extent (74% of all cases) than Republican Oriented newspapers (just in 47% of all cases).

A similar divergent trend for the ratio (NoW+NCorp)/NCorp, being higher for Democrat Oriented newspapers. This result means that Democrat Oriented newspapers provide coverage to News Corp in 57% in relation with the scandal, and only 43% refer to issues not related with News of the World scandal. The share decreases to 46% in Republican Oriented newspapers.

The gap in this field for Democrat and Republican Oriented journals is to wideto consider that is a pure matter of randomness. To our understanding, this result underscores the existence of a partisan use of the News of the World reputation crisis pursuing local interests. This is not to say that this different behavior corresponds to a conscious design by each camp. It is in fact extremely difficult to estimate the other camp tactics and publishing decisions. Only a macro analysis like ours allow to identify this strategy. This may be an unconscious practice by both parties, but it clearly denotes that the Britain born reputation crisis is viewed by both Democrat and Republican Oriented American newspapers an issue with national implications.

to be continued)

Other posts

How Harmful Is News of the World Scandal for News Corp Reputation?

Movimiento 15-M, Democracia Real Ya: Perception by Local Newspapers El Mundo, El País, Intereconomía, Público

Bin Laden Killing News Storyline 1. Pakistan Media Coverage versus International Media (Ex USA)

New York Times and Wall Street Journal Coverage of Japan Earthquake and Fukushima Nuclear Crisis (II) About The Nuclear Debate

How Harmful Is News of the World Scandal for News Corp Reputation?

Posted on by • Posted in Companies, Rep Issue - Newspapers • Tagged , , , , , , , • 1 Comment

We are experiencing a massive media coverage of the phone hacking scandal by News of the World practices. In an unprecedented decision, Rupert Murdoch has decided to close the 168 years old British newspaper.

News of the World was part of News Corporation media group. News Corporation includes Fox News.

In this post we present some results concerning media coverage of the crisis and its impact on News Corporation.

First graph shows a raw information of how serious is the ongoing crisis for News Corp. The figure shows the evolution of worldwide media attention received by the group since the last 4 years. We monitor at MRI Universidad de Navarra media impact of all Dow Stoxx 600 America and Europe since 2007.

Our results show that News Corp is reaching a value 500, while precedent historical peaks attained merely a value of 190 points. Global media attention is directed not only to News of the World as source of the scandal, but also to its consequences to the group, News Corporation.

We show below some additional data concerning the geographical source of news about the scandal.

We apply the media reputation analysis using brand diamond vector analysis, like in many precedent posts.

First we show how media coverage about News of the World increase the association of the newpaper to vecto “Scandal”. We compare situation with news up to July 8 2011 and since mid June 2011, against situation five days after, by July 12.

By July 8, the association to “Scandal” is strong, as main phone hacking scandal were already in the media. Five days later it is increased, mainly in the vector components scandalous, embarrassing, mistake, harm and corruption. News of the World affaire is viewed by international media as a pure scandal issue. Corruption concerns start to emerge also from the news coverage.

The impact of Milly Dowler and London bombigs cases

Of course, the association of News of the World to “Scandal” is due to specific revelations of shocking cases of unduly phone hacking. We show in the following figures how media has portrayed news about some cases that have been considered outraging by many people.

We have selected the cases of Milly Dowler’s phone hacking. She was a 13 years old girls kidnapped. Apparently, while the police investigations were still open, journalists from MoW hacked Milly’s phone. This movement made the police think that Milly was still alive, while in fact she was already killed, and created investigation obstacles. The other case refers to phone hacking to relatives of people killed by June 7 terrorist London bombings.

We find that in both cases the association to “Scandal” is stronger than for all news about News of the World. These shocking cases pushes higher the relationship of NoW with components embarrassing, worrying, mistake, harm and corruption.

Looking at vector “Tragedy” we find that the shocking cases increase NoW relationship with “Tragedy” components catastrophic, horrible (for Milly’s case), failure and worst.

Another case that has received wide media attention if the phone hacking of relatives of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan. We compare it to the media coverage given to news about London bombings.

We find that as for “Scandal”, the degree of association is lower when referring to the killed in afghanistan relatives: according to our results, the use of the Milly Dowler and London bombings cases are viewed by far more shocking than revelation about hacking Afghanistan soldiers’ relatives phones. News profile concerning vector “Tragedy” (not showed here) is roughly similar.

First two cases were highly damaging for News of the World worldwide reputation.

Reputation of News of the World has been completely battered by recent revelations. It does not only affect bad reputation, but it also tend to tarnish previous association to positive brand vectors. As a way to show the impact of the reputation crisis, we compare current News of the World media reputation versus the combined reputation of New York Times and Washington Post, for some selected brand vectors. We can consider NYTimes and WPost as benchmark references in the media sector.

As it could be expected, News of the World is reaching poorer marks in all comparisons when referring to vectors “Acclaimed”, “Respected, Coherent” and “Talented, Smart”.

As we have mentioned in precedent posts, the fact that the results provided using MRI Universidad de Navarra show results in line with common sense expectations do not make them superfluous at all: they are telling us that our approach is able to generate new intellingence about the content profile of all news covering any issue. This result provides us legitimacy and credibility when we show other results where intution about the results is unclear.

News of the World impact on News Corporation reputation

Now we come to the analysis of the main question of this post: to which extent the NoW scandal is reaching News Corporation reputation, a media group that owns many leading newspapers and news providers.

Before showing the reputation analysis, we provide first data about media coverage received by the scandal. The degree of international media attention of a local issue is an excellent indicator on how serious a reputation crisis is.

According to our results, just 29.7% of all news about News of the World come from Britain. International media generate the other 70% of all news. News from United States count for 26%, while media from Europe publishes another 31%. Australian media, country origin from newspaper’s owner produces 5% of all news.

Results about the newspaper media coverage can be compared to media attention to the media group News Corp. We find that main source of news is now US media, with 44.1% of all news. News Corp is listed in NYSE, and News Corp controls also several leading newspapers and broadcasters in the United States. Our results indicate that News of the World scandal is followed in the United States mainly linked to the economic and financial implications for the media group.

Share of British media drops from 29.7% to 14.5%. The weight of media from Europe slighly decreases from 31.4% to 25.7%. Media attention in Australia is higher for News Corp (a share of 5.9%) than for NoW (5.0%).

In order to deal with this issue, we compare News Corp media reputation based in news about the media company during year 2010, against news in the midst of the current scandal, between mid-June and mid-July 2011.

We show first the evolution of the association with negative brand vectors “Scandal” and “Tragedy”.

According to our results, the current reputation crisis is basically affecting components scandal and scandalous of reputation vector “Scandal”, while the other components keep stable.

As for vector “Tragedy”, the ongoing crisis is increasing the association with components tragedy and horrible.

Based in our results, it seems that globally speaking, the damages suffered by the whole group are not that strong, at least in comparison with 2010 values.

A complementary check is needed in order to measure the impact of the News of the World scandal on News Corp. It is wise to compare also the status of brand vectors linked to positive values, as those showed to compare NoW with NYTimes and WPost.

Now we find that current brand value of News Corp tends to be lower than in 2010 in all selected vectors: “Acclaimed”, “Excellence”, “Leadership, Commitment” and “Respected, Coherent”.

We can thus conclude that present brand value of News Corp has substantially decreases when compared to 2010 values, not only because ob observe a sligh increase of association to bad reputation vectors, but mainly because it loses ground in all key positive brand vectors directly linked to reputation and brand equity.

We derive from our empirical analysis and conclude that the News of the World scandal was tarnishing the brand value of News Corp. In terms of reputation crisis management, serious measures were needed in order to show that all News of the World misbehaviour was clearly against the culture of News Corp. The decision by Rupert Murdoch was radical and unprecedented: simply to close the source of the scandal as news provider, even if it was the leading newspaper in Britain in terms of sales.

New scandalous revelations appear day after day. Time and investigation will show us to which extent all bad (and probably delictive) practices where part of the group culture or just individual decisions. This element plus Rupert Murdoch attitude towards British justice and legal investigations will probably influence long term impact of this current reputation crisis in News Corp reputation and brand value. Future measurements of all affected people and companies will help us to answer this question.

Other posts

News Corp Scandal Media Coverage in US Newspapers

How Harmful Is News of the World Scandal for News Corp Reputation?

Movimiento 15-M, Democracia Real Ya: Perception by Local Newspapers El Mundo, El País, Intereconomía, Público

Bin Laden Killing News Storyline 1. Pakistan Media Coverage versus International Media (Ex USA)

New York Times and Wall Street Journal Coverage of Japan Earthquake and Fukushima Nuclear Crisis (II) About The Nuclear Debate

FIFA Bribery Case: Media Reputation Analysis

Posted on by • Posted in Companies, Corruption, Football - FIFA, Political Leaders, Rep Issue - Communication Crisis, Sport • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , • 6 Comments

FIFA, the International Federation of Association Football is currently facing a major reputation crisis.

FIFA top representatives have been accused of bribery and favours in order to influence the decision on the FIFA Football World Cup bids for 2018 and 2022, finally awarded to Russia and Qatar.

The case is receiving massive media attention, as the case is formally open in the british Parliament. The impact of the events are magnified as the accusations are colluding with the Presidential elections process. Today, June 1st is the election day. There is only one candidate, Joseph Blatter, asking for reelection. A second candidate, Bin Hamman from Qatar renounce last week. There are current allegations against Bin Hamman for bribery in the bid process. Joseph Blatter was included in the FIFA internal list of investigated persons for a couple of days.

Joseph Blatter aknowledged that the current crisis is ternishing FIFA image and reputation, but that he considers that the best way to react is to solve the problems inside the “family of football”. Consequently, Blatter discards a dimission or renouncing to reelection.

Officials from Adidas and Coca-Cola, showed in a formal statement their concerns about the current situation, as they are main sponsors of FIFA World Cup.

In this post we check to which extent the current crisis is really damaging FIFA image and reputation.

Reputation profile of news about the bribery case

The first piece of the analysis is to measure the profile of news directly related to the bribrey case. As in precedent posts, we base our analysis in the “diamond reputation vectors” analysis, using news content analysis from newspapers in English.

We show the results concerning the negative reputation vectors. In order to see the impact of the case, we compare reputation profile of news by 14 may with news up to 31 May.

Results are clear: all news about the FIFA bribery case are strongly associated to “Scandal” vector and also, but to a minor extent, to “Tragedy”. The “Scandal” vector components more sensitive to the FIFA case are corruption, scandal, embarrassing, mistake and harm.

Our results show also that media coverage about the case has evolved in tome to a much more severe judgement. Mid-May coverage referred mainly to allegation by Triesman, the English FA representative that he was approached by FIFA executive members during the bidding process asking for financial compensations. Current media coverage of the case expands to allegations against top officials, and revelations about e-mail communications by FIFA vice-president implicitly aknowledging irregularities in Qatar bidding process.

We include the analysis of the reputation vector “Respected, Coherent”. As explained in other posts, this vector is sensitive to news with values and ethical issues, both in a positive and in a negative way.

We find that the FIFA bribery case is also seen as a ethics-related issue. We find increasing and high degree of association with components trust, coherent, ethical, fairness and respected.

All these results show us clearly that media is really perceiveing the bribrey case as a serious issue with substantial reputational implications for FIFA perception.

The impact of the bribery case in FIFA reputation

We have analyzed the media profile of news directly related to the bribery case. It is perceived as a highly negative event.

The next questions that we need to address is to check to which extent the news about the bribery case is actually damaging FIFA reputation. This is the crucial issue in order to fix the actual size and risk of any reputation crisis. We have conducted similar analysis in this post in order to test how singular events affect global firm reputation, in cases like AFLAC jokes about Japaneses tsunami, the impact of Royal Wedding parody video on T-Mobile or the impact of UEFA sanctions to Mourinho on Real Madrid image.

The first step required to measure the impact of the bribrey case on FIFA media reputation is to show FIFA media reputation in “normal times”. We count with this information, as we monitored the impact of the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa in terms of media coverage and media reputation. Results about media reputation for country brand Spain or players’ reputation and impact on sponsorship like David Villa case are presented in our Report about Media Impact and Reputation of FIFA World Cup 2010 (in Spanish).

Brand Spain (p 3 to 39); Brand David Villa (p. 68 to 105); Brand FIFA and Sponsors (p. 106 to 121)

We show in the next figures the degree of association of brand “FIFA” to negative image vectors, during 2010. We show two measures: first one refers to media treatment during the first half of year 2010; the secong one shows values for July-December 2010. First half year measures reflect more the intrinsic media reputation of FIFA, while secong half of the year measures reflect the impact of the football competition.

The degree of association of FIFA to vectors “Scandal” and “Tragedy” are relatively mild, and are absically unaffected by the football competition. There is no specific vector component highly associated strongly to FIFA.

FIFA business model is largely based in the selling of TV rights but also because it attracts multimillion sponsoring deals. Sponsoring firms look for partners ensuring massive media coverage linked to events distilling positive media reputation and no negative media reputation. We have shown that in normal times FIFA is not linked to negative reputation values. We show below that our results confirm that FIFA is an excellent sponsoring partner, as it is highly associated to positive image vectors. We select a couple of them as example: “Spectacular” and “Impressive”.

Our results show that in normal times (pre World Cup media coverage) FIFA is quite positively related to vectors “Spectacular” and “Impressive”. And this positive relationship dramatically increases as a result of the sport competition (post WC measures), where the massive media coverage is concentrated. So, FIFA is a perfect companion for sponsoring brands presenting an emotional-oriented brand profile.

With all these results, we can already show the impact of the current reputation crisis in the overall reputation quality of the brand “FIFA.

We show first how the association of FIFA to “Scandal” and “Tragedy” has been affected at the initial stage of the bribery scandal media explosion with Triesman allegations, a couple of weeks ago.

Our findings show a substantial increase of negative media perception. Concerning “Scandal”, the vector components more sensitive have been scandal, mistake, harm and corruption. Those from vector “Tragedy” are harm, tragedy and failure.

We show now the current situation, with news about FIFA up to May 31, one day before the expected reelection of President and candidate Joseph Blatter for a fourth term.

We compare present media reputation values to those two weeks ago, and against 2010 values.

We find an additional massive increse of association to negative reputation values, compared to both 2010 and mid May situation. Association to “Scandal” increases in all vector components, and it is more pronounced with components scandalous, embarrassing, worrying, mistake and harm.

Association to “Tragedy” also increases, but to a minor path. It increases more on horrible, worst and harm.

We add the results concerning the vector “Coherent, Respected”. As explained befeore, if it increases, it means that the news are also considering ethical issues.

Results show a notable increase of association to components trust, ethical, fairness, respected.

Our conclusion is direct: the impact of the bribery case has a devastaging reputational impact on the quality of brand FIFA. Please remember that in last figures we are not showing just news related to the bribery case, but we show instead ALL news about FIFA.

Present crisis harms FIFA by increasing its association to “Scandal” and “Tragedy”, but also because it  reduces dramatically the association with positive reputation vectors. We show below the example of the vector “Impressive”. Results are self speaking.

Is Sepp Blatter The Solution, or The Problem?

Yesterday Sepp Blatter was reelected as President of FIFA, serving in his fourth term. He got some 90% of the votes of FIFA representatives.

Blatter assumes the mission to solve the problems FIFA is facing: ” ‘Together we can tackle the problems that football faces today and show that our game remains very solid and strong’. The FIFA President spoke about the need for transparency and “zero tolerance” in the fight against the dangers that threaten football” (FIFA Press Release, June 1 2011).

Right now, Sepp Blatter image and credibility in the media is directly linked by the media by the ongoing bribery case.

We have shown in this post that the news about the bribery case have completely contaminated all FIFA news, and both present the same profile in terms of negative media reputation.

With this results, it is not surprising to find using our technique that actual news about Sepp Blatter show a tarnished image, similar to FIFA profile, and FIFA bribery news profile.

In the following figures we shoe how the current crisis has completely modified the media perception about Sepp Blatter. We show the reputation profile of news about Sepp Blatter by September 2010, in the aftermath of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and we compare it with his profile by the end of may, just before his reelection.

As in the precedent cases, we find a dramatical increase of the association to “Scandal” and “Tragedy” right now on news about Blatter. His media reputation in “normal times” was not linked to these reputation vectors a year ago.

Joseph Blatter profile is now also strongly linked to “Respected, Coherent” vector, as the current crisis is linked to ethics.

We show finally the example of how the crisis does affect positive reputation vectors. We have choosen “Excellence”. Sepp Blatter loses the association to this reputation vector that he has one year ago.

How serious and damaging is the present association of Sepp Blatter to “Scandal”?

Media Profile: Sepp Blatter Vs Bernie Madoff

Thanks to our technique and to our database we can provide elements of answer that we consider relevant and useful. We can compare his media profile to the media profile of other past cases of scandals. The readers and analysis can judge if the personages can be compared or not, but what we provide is the results concerning how media portray the different cases and people.

The case we propose is Bernie Madoff media reputation to be compared to Sepp Blatter.

 

Madoff’s case is probably an epitome of a investiment fraud and financial scandal. We check how media is covering right now news about Sepp Blatter in comparison with news about Bernie Madoff.

We show Madoff’s media reputation profile on news by mid 2010 and at the beginning of 2011.

Critical reputation vector in this crisis is “Scandal”. Our results show that both Blatter and Madoff are strongly associated to scandal. Madoff is more associated to components scandalous and worrying. But news about Blatter are even more related to “Scandal” than Madoff in components like corruption, harm, mistake and embarrassing. The results show probably impact the institutional implications of the bribery case.

Concerning “Tragedy”, both people share a very similar profile. Blatter negative reputation is stronger concerning harm and tragedy.

The vector “Coherent, Respected” linked to ethical issues show also that Madoff and Blatter share a similar media profile. Madoff profile is somehow instable between 2010 and 2011. Blatter profile is stronger associated to trust, ethical and fairness.

All our empirical evidence tend to the same conclusions: the bribery case linked to the 2018 and 2022 bidding process is an extraordinarily serious reputation crisis, at least as how international media is covering it. This crisis is not isolated to people directly affected by the corruption allegations, but it has completely flooded the reputation of FIFA as institution, and its President Joseph Blatter.

This is really problematic, as there are risks that the brands FIFA and Sepp Blatte remain contaminated by the scandal and their media reputation is permanently associated to “Scandal” (as brand Madoff is). This scenario would certainly mean a withdrawal of present FIFA main sponsors, as all of them are leading brands where brand equity is essentila to their business (Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa, Fly Emirates). Of course, sponsorship income would not disappear, as FIFA football competitions produce extraordinary media impact attractive to firms. But probably new sponsoring firms would be low quality brands looking for media exposure more than a co-branding alliance, like is currently happening with cycling competitions.

Crisis management recommentations are clear: reputation problems will remain as far as only compromise disciplinary measures are taken. Exemplary sanctions and the assumption of political responsibilities are needed. These are the initial steps to allow media to speak about other things than corruption when covering FIFA news.

These measures will not be enough probably in order to move present FIFA media reputation no normal pre-crisis waters. Only a structural reform-reborn of FIFA will ensure that media considers FIFA under new perspectives.

Right now, FIFA and Sepp Blatter share exactly the same negative media reputation. If radical reforms are undertaken by FIFA, we will see in the near future if President Blatter is part of the problem or the solution: in the next months we will monitor and compare media reputation of both FIFA and its President. Techniques developped by MRI Universidad de Navarra will tell us in which direction this reputation crisis is evolving.

Other posts

Mourinho Reputation. The Impact of UEFA Disciplinary Case in Real Madrid Image

The Reputational Curse of Political Sex Scandals: The Impact of Schwarzenegger and Strauss-Kahn Scandals on Bill Clinton (and Monica Lewinsky) Reputation

Strauss-Kahn Arrest (2). Impact on IMF Reputation. Comparison with World Bank, United Nations and Other International Organizations

AFLAC Media Reputation: Impact of Jokes About Tsunami in Japan

Risky Business: When T-Mobile Dances with the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton

Companies Reputation and Wikileaks: Bank of America Case

Mourinho Reputation. The Impact of UEFA Disciplinary Case in Real Madrid Image

Bin Laden Killing News Storyline 1. Pakistan Media Coverage versus International Media (Ex USA)

The Reputational Curse of Political Sex Scandals: The Impact of Schwarzenegger and Strauss-Kahn Scandals on Bill Clinton (and Monica Lewinsky) Reputation

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We are covering the media impact and perception of Strauss-Kahn sex assault accusation. We also learn that former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger commited adultery. This second case is receiving also substantial media coverage mainly in US newspapers.

In precedent posts we analyzed the impact of Strauss-Kahn scandal in the institution managed by him, the International Monetary Fund.

Now we turn our attention to a personality which has no conection at all with any of these two sex scandal cases, but who is nevertheless directly affected: former US President Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton was faced to a major scandal during his Presidency as it was confirmed that he had intimate relationship with sexual content with the President, while the President denied having had “a sexual”, “sexual relations,” or “a sexual relationship” with Lewinsky (Starr Report, from Wikipedia). Clinton was called before a grand jury.

This was 1998. It created a massive media storm that tarnished his last term. It was expected that the scandal stigma followed Bill Clinton’s public opinion and media perception in the aftermath of his Presidency.

Now, thirteen years later, new prominent sex scandal emerge. They receive a sustanined global media coverage. We can check and answer to which extent current sex scandal act as a boomerang putting on the front line the Lewinsky case and by this still tarnishing today Bill Clinton’s reputation.

The results that we show below are quite conclusive: Bill Clinton reputation is marked by the sex scandal and it will re-emerge each time that a new relevant political scandal appear.

We show in the following figures the news about Bill Clinton published these las 15 days. We compare news mentioning Bill Clinton but not Monica Lewinsky against news where both appear in the body of the article.

We check first negative reputation vectors.

References to Lewnisky notably increase Bill Clinton’s media association to “Scandal”. This affect mainly component vectors scandal, scandalous, harm and corruption.

Association to “Tragedy” is also increased in news about Lewinsky affaire. It affect all vector components, and especially componentys tragedy, harm and failure.

Mentions to Lewinsky scandal do not only increases Bill Clinton negative reputation vectors. It also tarnishes positive image vectors. We show as examples how association to “Excellence” and “Talented” are seriously lowered when references to Lewinsky appear.

Being a public personality affected by a public personal scandal is in terms of reputation somehow burdening a chronical disease like malaria. In normal times Bill Clinton is judged and perceived by present actions and performance. But when a political scandal erupts somewhere, it directly affects Bill Clinton’s present reputation, even if it is a case completely unrelated with the former President.

Is Lewinsky scandal still relevant for present Bill Clinton’s image?

We have shown that references to Monica Lewinsky references seriously damage former President media reputation. But it is also required to measure to which extent this kind of news are really relevant in the sense that they become a strong component of Bill Clinton’s present stoyline. In the other extreme, they could be just anecdotical references used marginally by some media. So, it is important not only to measure the reputational impact of Lewinsky news in quality, but also in quantity.

We show some results cocnerning this issue (data collected by Enric Gallemí).

First figure shows the number of media references to Lewinsky scandal (also with an explicit mention to Bill Clinton) since the beginning of May 2011, by group of five days.  Number of references to the scandal were basically marginal at the beginning of May: some 4 references per day. They experience a sharp increase in the next ten days, jumping to some 50 references per day. These last five days the number of media references to Lewinsky scandal moves around 125 per day.

The origin of the increase of mentions to the scandal was the announcement by Newt Gringrich to run for 2012 US Presidential nominations. References to the scandal where connected to the fact that Gringrich politically attacked Bill Clinton behavior while later it was learnt that Gringrich had an extramarital affaire that ended in a divorce. Later on references moved to linkages with Strauss-Kahn assault, and right now they are part of the storyline of Schwarzenegger’s adultery.

We have the evidence of the sharp increase of mentions to Lewinsky scandal, and that they are originated by other politicians’ sexual scandals. Now we need to show to which extent these references are relevant in Bill Clinton’s media reputation.

Next figure provides the answer. It shows the percentage of all news about Bill Clinton that refer to Monica Lewinsky scandal. We show here the series for news since the beginning of May 2011. In “normal times”, some 5% of Bill Clinton’s media impact is linked to the scandal. This prevalence jumps dramatically to represent 30% of all news referring to Bill Clinton in the junction of the Presidential nomination anuncement by Newt Gringich (May 9), the accusation of sexual assault by Strauss-Kahn (May 14) and the announcement that the cause of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver separation was that the former Governor commited adultery and fathered with Mildred Baena, the family housekeeper (May 17).

The conclusion is that when relevant political sex scandals emerge, it affects substantially Bill Clinton’s present media reputation, even if his affaire took place and was strutinized more than 10 years ago.

Other posts

Strauss-Kahn Arrest (2). Impact on IMF Reputation. Comparison with World Bank, United Nations and Other International Organizations

AFLAC Media Reputation: Impact of Jokes About Tsunami in Japan

Risky Business: When T-Mobile Dances with the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton

Companies Reputation and Wikileaks: Bank of America Case

Mourinho Reputation. The Impact of UEFA Disciplinary Case in Real Madrid Image

Bin Laden Killing News Storyline 1. Pakistan Media Coverage versus International Media (Ex USA)

Strauss-Kahn Arrest (2). Impact on IMF Reputation. Comparison with World Bank, United Nations and Other International Organizations

Posted on by • Posted in Companies, Org - IMF, Political Leaders • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • 3 Comments

In the precedent post about media coverage of Dominique Strauss-Kahn assault and arrest we showed the profile of initial media reaction. We found out a strong association of both Strauss-Kahn and IMF to negative brand reputations vectors, in terms of “Scandal” and “Tragedy”.

We show here the specific contribution of Strauss-Kahn current scandal to IMF negative reputation. We check the media perception of news in English about IMF during May 2011. We monitor the content of some 8,000 diferent news articles about IMF. We compare it will news about IMF, but excluding all that mention its managing director, Strauss-Kahn.

The differences between both variables will show us the negative impact of the personal scandal in the media reputation of the institution, and its evolution in time.

Results reflect the impact of Strauss-Kahn in IMF reputation. At this point, the impact is not only linked to the assault scandal, as we cover news from the beginning of May 2011. They reflect also the impact of Strauss-Kahn presence and leadership in the ongoing crisis where IFM is intervening and attracting media coverage: Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Ivory Coast interventions.

The results concerning vector “Scandal” show that Strauss-Kahn is harming IFM reputation concerning the vector components scandal, embarrassing and harm. In the other side, news without DSK are more associated to worrying, which reflect the economic and financial crisis tasks where IMF is involved.

As for the vector “Tragedy”, we find that the presence of Strauss-Kahn in IMF news is increasing the association of IMF to components tragedy and horrible.

Coming days will show us to which extent the individual scandal is tarnishing IFM reputation in the vector components idetifyed in the graph. The longer the police and judicial case it takes, the more it will affect negatively to the institutional reputation. pleading not guilty will represent a problem for IMF.

Our results show that IMF news related to Strauss-Kahn increase the association to negative reputation. But the impact is right now just marginal. To which extent the intrinsic media reputation of IMF is positive or negative? Reputation crisis are critical to companies and organizations with excellent reputation and where reputation is a key intangible asset ascompetitive tool. Reputation is a key issue for international organizations.

We can provide some elements of answer concerning IFM media reputation. As always, the answer is a  matter of comparison.

IMF media reputation compared to other international organizations

By comparison to the reputation of other brands showed in precedent posts in this blog, we can observe a relative high degree of association of IMF to vectors “Scandal” and “Tragedy”. Is this a common feature of international organizations dealing with economic and financial problems?

In order to answer this question, we shoe the comparative media percpetion of some international organizations concerning these negative reputation vectors, and we pick also some selected positive brand vectors as example.

We compare first IMF to other international organization also dealing directly to economic and financial issues. First case is World Bank.

 

Our results indicate that World Bank presents a slighly better reputation in terms of “Excellence”

As for negative reputation, we find that IFM presents a worse reputation, both concerning association to “Scandal” and “Tragedy”.

Second international organization tested is World Trade Organization (WTO).

 

Very similar results, like World Bank: WTO presents a lower degree of association to “Scandal” and “Tragedy” in terms of international media reputation.

We complete the analysis of IFM reputation by comparison with other international organizations showing the example of another four international organizations in the United Nations family delivering specific services not primarily linked to financial or commercial issues.

 

First we compare IMF to UNDP and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) media reputation. As example of positive brand vector we have chosen “Leadership, Commitment”. We find that UNDP presents a much better mark than IMF in terms of relationship to commitment values in all areas. FAO is better perceived than IMF in some vector components like awareness, inspiring and recognition.

Concerning negative reputation brand vectors we find that IMF is doing worse than FAO and UNDP in some components like scandal, mistake and corruption linked to vector “Scandal”. As for the vector “Tragedy”, IMF related news are again more associated to this vector than FAO and UNDP, except for component awful and harm, which is equivalent to all.

Now we compare IMF reputation to UNICEF and World Health Organization (WHO)

Association to positive brand value “Leadership, Commitment” is substantially higher for Unicef than for IMF. WHO presents an even poor result than IMF.

Negative reputation vector “Scandal” is once again more prominent with IMF than with the other international organizations UNICEF and WHO. IMF presents a poor profile especially in terms of scandal, worrying, mistake and corruption.

For the vector “Tragedy”, we find that negative reputation is higher for IMF when referring to failure and worst. Unicef is more associated than others to harm and tragedy. WHO, is more associated to awful.

Deriving a comment and conclusion from an overall analysis of all results presented in this post, we consider that International Monetary Found loses the media reputation battle against all other international organizations. It presents lower degree of association than others to positive brand values like Commitment, Leadership or Excellence. And it is much more associated to negative reputation vectors “Scandal” and “Tragedy” than almost all other international organizations. Remember that this negative reputation should not be assigned to Strauss-Kahn current scandal, as we are performing this analysis with news about IMF where there is no mention at all to its Managing Director.

This post raises a logical additional question: This current negative media reputation of IMF is due to misconduct and poor institutional peformance by IMF? Or this bad perception is mainly driven by the events and issues that IMF has to deal with, that deserve a critical media attention by themselves?

We will study this crucial question for reputation management and crisis management in a future post.

Other posts:

The Reputational Curse of Political Sex Scandals: The Impact of Schwarzenegger and Strauss-Kahn Scandals on Bill Clinton (and Monica Lewinsky) Reputation

Strauss-Kahn Assault Allegations (1). Initial Media Perception and Reputation Impact

AFLAC Media Reputation: Impact of Jokes About Tsunami in Japan

Risky Business: When T-Mobile Dances with the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton

Companies Reputation and Wikileaks: Bank of America Case

Mourinho Reputation. The Impact of UEFA Disciplinary Case in Real Madrid Image

Bin Laden Killing News Storyline 1. Pakistan Media Coverage versus International Media (Ex USA)