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AOL keeps its brand afloat

Posted in Digital March 13th, 2007 by Branwell Johnson

In our latest analysis in conjunction with YouGov’s Brand Index we look at whether AOL’s brand has managed to weather an exit stampede of senior management and the sell off of its ISP offering to Carphone Warehouse.

Internet portal brand AOL has managed to retain a consistent level of customer approval and brand perception despite a raft of departures at senior level and a revolving door around the European CEO position.

The Time Warner company, which sold its broadband network to Carphone Warehouse in October last year for £370 million, has seen a steady stream of departures  with recently appointed managing director Andy Jonesco jumping ship at the beginning of this month for BSkyB.

Head of commercial development Phil Guest has just quit and chief marketing officer Tobin Ireland left last month.

But this kind of business news does not really leak in to the consciousness of consumers and AOL is still registering a “Buzz” of around -4, as measured by YouGov’s BrandIndex ranking. This is actually a laudable achievement given the upheavals at the company.

The Buzz, which is the measure of whether people have heard positive or negative things about a brand, was -3.9 a year ago. This was before AOL revealed its plans to transform itself into a portal business dedicated to providing engaging content and services and dependent on online advertising revenues.

Throughout the spring, as speculation mounted over the sale of the broadband operation, the number dropped to -7 and reached its nadir at -9.6 in June when AOL announced officially it was putting the internet access business up for sale.

The Buzz recovered but in August Time Warner announced that it would be slashing a quarter of its workforce worldwide with most of the jobs being lost in Europe and that may have been the catalyst for its sinking once again as low as -8.7.

However, the rating rose in February to -3.7, despite the upheaval behind board room doors and last Friday (9 March), the rating was still at -4.3.

The company’s Recommend rating is not so credible. It has dropepd as low as -8 in May and as high as 13.9 but usually hovered between -10 and -12 and as of last week was at -12.2.

AOL is determined to stay in business in this fast-changing world of online services and recently launched offerings to its users such as AOL Show Me and an interactive TV guide to allow them to search for TV programmes and video clips. It is battling for share of traffic with MSN, Yahoo! and other online brands.

The company has deep pockets for marketing and the recently redundant Ireland would have been part of the team that put together the deal to be a founding partner of the O2 dome, once the Millennium Dome. The sponsorship deal was made in November and sees AOL become Official Online and Broadband partner of The O2.