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I guess most of us have been staying up late here in China to watch the World Cup soccer games over this past week or so .. it's not like you can escape the event. The images of players kicking goals are everywhere; from TV commercials to bus stops to Internet banner ads... absolutely everywhere. Moreover, it's not just the official World Cup sponsors but it seems every Brand....

So I start to wonder. Why do these ads aim to align Brands to the World Cup? Are they trying to leverage some of the interest being sparked by this World Cup and become associated to a team or event? Is there some real/perceived value for a Brand to be in the World Cup action?

There is no Brand immune to a negative event... it happens, that's life and most companies plan for this to happen by developing action plans and the like. However, it is possible to think BP forgot to let their PR team into this idea.... they are getting beaten up in a very visible and very public backlash that is occurring online.

It was not too long ago we had the case of Dell catching all the negative press when the Sony batteries in its laptops overheated and caught fire. And more recently, the Toyota brake issues...

But in terms of bad online sentiment, it doesn't get much worse than BP's continuing disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. It started with an explosion that killed 11 employees, getting worse with the company's complacency regarding the possibility of a spill, now reaching new lows with harsh criticism of the company's response -- and about to head even lower with a huge environmental disaster that is predicted to devastate prime commercial fisheries.  So with this backdrop unfolding around us... just how bad can this negative PR be?

It may surprise you that many companies don't have a strategy for responding to comments (positive or negative ones). Take the travel sector for example, TripAdvisor states that only 4% of negative reviews on get a response. There has been a growing number of online sites that prompt for consumer feedback then aggregate it to provide a service to potential buyers. The early review sites included Epinions.com and Amazon.com but now there seems a new one springing up every day.

A lot of companies are not necessarily set up then to address these issues in terms of responding, and if something comes to light that they needed to address from a product perspective, the organization dynamics were really not in place. And they’re still challenged in this way today with social media. Some organizations have made more progress than others, but the implementation remains a challenge. Others have yet to even consider social media commenting as an issue.... Maybe it is because they believe that no one is even paying attention? Consumers certainly are. Just look a the results for our negative comment survey.

Imagine you are an online trader, with a virtual store on Taobao or eBay.  Then one day you find a negative comment posted about your goods or services. Even wonder what the general impact of this negative comment would be to your potential customers purchase intent who saw this?

Well, I decided to run a poll to gain a better understanding on just who would take a negative comment into consideration and what the impact was likely to be... I was kind of surprised at the result.