Critical Conditions - Storm Warning for Brand Reputation

The study used Grayling's proprietary analysis method "GCore" to determine the current reputational risk of companies on the Internet. The companies analyzed come from the Forbes Global 500 list and represent five sectors that are particularly at risk of crisis: Tourism, Finance, Pharmaceuticals, Consumer Goods and Technology. The results speak for themselves. Almost half of the Forbes Global 500 companies fail the "brand resilience test".

This in turn means a loss of reputation of several million dollars for the companies concerned.

Further results in detail:

• Although the large companies must have enormous communication resources at their disposal, almost half of the content on the first page of their Google search profiles was negative.
• Much of this negative content was old; the oldest post identified by "GCore" within a search profile was from June 2013.
• While the world's largest technology companies are far from immune to negative topics, they do the best job of keeping negative content off the first page of their Google search results. This suggests that there is still a lot to learn for companies in other industries.

A movie quote says: "The internet is not written in pencil, it's written in ink". This is very apt, as search engine algorithms today ensure that critical topics that are frequently clicked on or shared remain visible in companies' search results in the long term. In addition, NGOs, online activists, citizen journalists and traditional media are constantly providing new, critical content faster and faster. "This combination has unprecedented consequences for the reputation and value of companies and makes active management of the search profile essential for companies," says Birte Schnellen, Director Grayling Switzerland, emphasizing the importance of the research results.

In the "Critical Conditions" series, the global experts of the international communications network comment on the industry-specific results of the study and provide information on how the brand resilience of companies can be strengthened. The "Critical Conditions" study is part of Grayling's "Advantage Series", which aims to provide insights into current, major challenges for brands and companies in the areas of reputation, communication and legal frameworks. "Critical Conditions" can be downloaded at Grayling.com/ch can be viewed.