Saturday, March 6, 2010

The oooo of Google & Bell hell



The Olympics have wrapped up, Canada's on a high and Brand Mojo has tens of thousands of ratings from hundreds of individuals. It's a good time to take stock and check out the world's most loved and hated brands- and Canada's most loved and hated brands. Below is some commentary on the data provided in the graph above.

1. Google is the run-away favorite for the most loved brand. It seems that the fun-sounding name "Google", exciting personality of the brand, and WOW factor of the products have found the right mix. (Think back to the "ohhhs and awwwwwes" the first time you checked out Google Earth.) To date it seems no one hates or even dislikes the brand (with the exception of Steve Balmer). How long will Google's magic work? It has set expectations very high.

2. Halliburton is the most hated brand. My assumption here is that the brand continues to be linked to allegations of corruption, unpopular Iraq war, and former President Bush. Incidentally, Bush takes the least loved spot in the "celebrity" category of Brand Mojo. Perhaps Halliburton's saving grace is the fact that it is not a consumer brand. If so many consumers hate the brand- and no consumer loves the brand- there simply wouldn't be any sales in the future.

3. Cirque du Soleil is the most loved Canadian brand. It edged out Tim Horton's by a hair. What is interesting here is that Tim Horton's is heavily endowed with "Canadian heritage" while Cirque does not carry a strong Canadian endowment world-wide. I'd be curious to know what percentage of people attending the world-wide shows think that Cirque is from Canada.

4. Bell is the most hated Canadian brand. What surprises me here is not that there is animosity towards the brand, but rather how closely Bell's distribution of lovers and haters follows that of Halliburton's. (See chart above.) Here is a company ripe for a brand audit and brand recovery strategy. There is good news for Bell- its numbers have moved up slightly since its sponsorship of the Olympics.

Of course, you can rate brands and check out the complete leaderboard at brandmojo.org..

8 comments:

  1. Enron is lower than Halliburton on the leadboard...

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  2. your student from brand classMarch 10, 2010 at 6:26 PM

    I never thought Google would be so popular like that... I always thought it would be a luxury brand that would be so popular- not something so available to the masses. There is not as much "aspiration" in a brand like Google as something like Ferrari - which I thought would be higher.

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  3. Why don't you put out a press release on this?

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  4. You know I hate Bell so much that when they offered me what amounted to a $20 per month savings on my current phone/internet/television package, I said no. The reason was two-fold: 1) my previously experience with the company was really awful - they wasted so much of my time and 2) the salesperson on the phone was representative of all that is wrong with Bell - he would not answer simple questions and it took about 20 minutes before he could tell me about my "savings". it was another example of why Bell just does not understand "customer service".

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  5. The other things that bothers me about Bell is that they keep sending me letters. The envelopes do not identify Bell on the outside and when I receive one I think it may be a bill or something important. When I open it, it's a plee for me to return to Bell - fat chance. Another waste of my time though trickery!!!

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  6. I put in a request to have a phone jack so I could have dsl and I was told that the guy would come between 8-5 one Saturday. He NEVER SHOWED UP!!! I wasted an entire day waiting. Little wonder people hate it.

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  7. Quite nice post Bob. Results are not that much surprising to me. However, it is still interesting to see how Bell's reputation still sucks even though there puting countless efforts to save the brand reputation. I am wondering if you Bell's reputation is getting better over the last few months even thought it is still bad.

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  8. Alexandre Graham Bell would roll in his grave to have his name associated with such an inept company.

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