Dotcom Doom or Brand Bonanza
It's been a bad year to be a dotcom. Nonetheless, a new study proves that good branding can be a powerful weapon, even in the explosive online environment. The top Web brands
are going strong, according to the latest e-Branding Index from Corporate Branding. The company defines a CoreBrand Power score for e-brands based on drivers like investment
potential and corporate reputation. Corporate Branding conducted 300 interviews during 1999 with execs at the top 20% of U.S. corporations. Following the dotcom bust, the
company conducted an additional 300 interviews during the second quarter of 2000. Although investment potential in e-ventures was a concern for many execs interviewed, other
factors like familiarity and overall reputation remained strong. Top brands like AOL, Yahoo! and Amazon saw minimal drops in CoreBrand Power:
|
1999
|
Q2
|
2000
|
Change
|
| AOL |
69.8
|
63.7
|
-6.1
|
| Yahoo! |
68.2
|
65.5
|
-2.7
|
| Amazon |
56.6
|
54.2
|
-2.4
|
(Corporate Branding: Stefanie Kubanka, 203/327-6333 ext. 455)
Mixed Messages, Muddle Internal Relations
If your employee relations have become a little bi-polar recently, you're not alone. "Please Go/Please Stay" has become a communications paradigm for an economy in which
companies are desperate to retain their best talent, but often forced to eliminate staff due to downsizing and reorganization. It's also the title of a new report from Lee Hecht
Harrison, based on survey data from 450 senior American HR professionals and interviews with 20 top international HR execs. The report identifies five approaches to effectively
communicating with employees and retaining your key staff members ... not to mention increasing company morale:
1. Tailor retention efforts to individual employee needs;
2. Focus on key people and be willing to pull out all the stops;
3. Create a positive environment that gives employees flexibility;
4. Integrate career development efforts with business goals; and
5. Bring employees into the decision-making process.
Tis the Season
General Motors is revving up a new Web site sans its usual auto fare. The company is making the most of the season of giving with a strategic philanthropy initiative
reminiscent of AOL's Helping.org, which assists donors and volunteers online in findings charities they wish to support. Like Helping, GM's new site, WebHands.org, allows
visitors to research charitable organizations and search for local philanthropies by city and ZIP code. The only obvious difference between the two lightly-branded sites is scope
- while GM visitors can skim a tidy 2,000 charities, AOL "Helps" do-gooders to a hefty 640,000 choices in nonprofit causes.
(GM: Mike Gardner, 313/974-1133)
-30-
The PR industry's commitment to research has grown exponentially - to the point that the Council of PR Firms and the Institute for Public Relations have formed a commission to
identify common threads and "best practices" in the measurement of PR campaigns with hopes of establishing standard models (PRN, Nov. 13). A noble endeavor, indeed....but
here's one metric we don't expect to see replicated in a whole lotta research projects: Johns Hopkins Medical Center gauged the success of its "Hopkins 24/7" television series
last summer - the result of an ABC camera crew spending three months inside the hospital - by logging an increase in the number of cadavers donated to its medical school. Need we
spell out the fact that having a bunch of bodies lying around usually is not evidence of success?
Open Mike
"It's either a statement about how far we've come, or how far we haven't that poor public relations isn't listed as one of the main reasons for dotcom failures."
-Comment from Jerry Schwartz, president, G.S. Schwartz & Co., in response to a Boston Consulting Group report listing the most common causes of dotcom failures. Among the
causes cited: poor revenue models (59%), lack of competitive advantage (55%), lack of consumer benefit (34%), organizational/executional problems (15%), ineffective warehouse
management/fulfillment (8%), and conflicts with the Web sites of existing business partners, distributors and resellers (6%). The chart referenced appeared in USA Today on
Dec. 4.