Case: BrandIndex: SJ

“BrandIndex takes the temperature on Swedish Rails”

The daily brand tracking tool, BrandIndex provides an overall view of brands and is a very valuable tool in specifically four areas: crisis handling, campaign follow-up, estimation of the value of the brand and analysis of sectors and industries.

A number of crises are caused by the media. It can be everything from an un-thought through utterance to the meat scandal at ICA in Sweden, which was blown up in the media.

An example of a media crisis is the one Swedish Rails went through this summer. Since Swedish Rails is a well known brand that everyone in Sweden has some kind of relation to the perception of the brand is quickly affected when something happens. In the middle of July Swedish Rails suddenly began to have a negative reputation and the BrandIndex curves duck. See graph above.

– BrandIndex is a good temperature measurement tool, says Sven Andersson, Manager of Customer analysis at Swedish Rails. We can see the extremely sharp drop in the general impression of Swedish Rails in the end of July. At the same time we can see that the perception of the quality of Swedish Rails remains stabile. And in the middle of August BrandIndex shows that we have turned and are on our way up again. It was unfortunate that the battue against us in the media happened just when we have many holiday travelers. It has been criticized that we have a complicated ticket system, that it is too expensive and above all our delays.

And that this summer’s delays several times were caused by fires on the rails, which Swedish Rails impossibly can impact, is of no interest to the media. As a company you can feel powerless. But there is a lot you can do to ease the effects on the brand.

– Swedish Rails has worked a lot with giving their side of the story and in order to work against the devaluations of the media, says Sven.

– We are trying to state our view of what happened through a continuous and pro-active contact with various newspapers and journalists, says Sven Andersson. In connection with our semiannual report, Expressen published an open letter from our board spokesman Ulf Adelsohn, where he answered to the criticism about our high prices and bad quality. When it comes to the delays we have now also implemented closing the doors 30 seconds before departure. It is incredibly important to leave on time. One minute’s delay at departure can cause that we e.g. end up behind a commute train that cannot be removed. If our train is going to Västerås this entails a delay of about 10 minutes at the end station.

Source: Understanding People, Issue 30, September 2008