Our blog archives are growing full with descriptions of evolve24’s underlying perspectives on reputation, risk and stakeholder management, and we’ll certainly be back to visit these topics we love some more very soon, but this is also a place to share some of the insights we gain through these methods. Here’s a quick analysis of the effect that the last 30 days of coverage mentioning the stimulus bill or stimulus legislation have had on some major tech firms.

Taking a quick look at Apple, Dell and Sony over the last 30 days on this topic within Twitter, blogs and web, and online video shows that coverage of the stimulus bill has afforded none of these brands with a reputation boost, and that association with the topic has actually adversely impacted Apple and Sony, and been just neutral for Dell.

A quick glance at this coverage reveals that the problem for these brands lies in nature of the association between them and the stimulus bill; most joint references mention the stimulus bill in the context of the economy, then bridge to the firms’ financial performance also in that context. This is a natural pairing of topics, macro-economic conditions and firm performance, but it is not the best topic of coverage for most firms right now, and it is certainly not the only association that could be made between technology companies and economic stimulus.

We know that Financial Performance is one of the key components of corporate reputation, but there are five other drivers of reputation, a couple of which are strongly aligned with economic stimulus. Firms that are actively managing their reputations during a period of economic turmoil and in a context of increased attention on an issue like the stimulus bill should be seeking ways to associate mention of their brand in the context of stimulus with reflections on the firm’s strengths in Innovation, Vision and Leadership.

There is plenty of coverage within the last 30 days around the topics of innovation, vision and leadership in technology endeavors linked to the stimulus package; but most of it just has nothing to do with these established brands. Google and IBM managed to link their innovative sides to this coverage, and faired well in terms of reputation on the topic (even while Apple’s stock outperformed IBM’s for the 30 day period). The coverage of innovation and vision with regard to technology’s role in stimulus has also been focused on small entrepreneurial firms.

As has been said here before, knowing what’s being said about you is a good start, but it’s just a start. This case shows that what’s NOT being said about you can also have an impact.