THE DIGITAL BRAND RISK INDEX A NETNAMES REPORT

Transcription

1 THE DIGITAL BRAND RISK IN A NETNAMES REPORT JULY 2015

2 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 04 CEO GARY MCILRAITH What others say about your brand speaks volumes 05 NETNAMES TOP 5 TIPS TO 06 MINIMIZE DIGITAL RISK TECHNOLOGY, COMPUTING AND 08 ELECTRONICS BRANDS RULE THE WEB Does you online reputation measure up? 08 FINANCIAL SERVICES FIRMS NEED 10 TO BALANCE PROMINENCE WITH SENTIMENT LUXURY BRANDS FAIL TO 11 EMBRACE ONLINE CHANNELS BRAND WARS 12 Keep your digital assets under control 12 2 The Digital Brand Risk Index

3 CONCLUSION 14 THE DIGITAL BRAND RISK 15 IN METHODOLOGY FINDINGS 16 APPENDIX: METHODOLOGY 28 ABOUT NETNAMES 30 REFERENCES 30 The Digital Brand Risk Index 3

4 INTRODUCTION CEO GARY MCILRAITH The world has changed. Today, the average person spends 169 hours online every month, devoting more time to surfing the web than watching television, and browsing Facebook for longer than they read a daily newspaper. 1 For brands, this digital revolution has had a dramatic impact. Businesses have rapidly exploited the online opportunity to reach vast audiences, more effectively engage followers and harness the lucrative world of digital commerce, but the same environment also brings new risks. Where traditional brand channels such as advertising or the in-store experience can be carefully controlled, the online world presents a new frontier that s fundamentally open, democratic and unregulated. Online, brands have the opportunity to build two-way conversations that harness stakeholder communities, and user-generated content to increase awareness and consumer reach dramatically. However, in this liberal internet ecosystem anyone can register a website, social channel or domain name, offering an unrestricted platform to counterfeiters, disgruntled ex-employees and unauthorized third parties. The speed, ease and anonymity with which fake websites can now be created means brand reputations can be tarnished in front of a global audience at little risk to the malicious actors willing to infringe on trademarks. From cybersquatting, typosquatting and SEO manipulation that diverts genuine traffic to illicit websites, to harnessing the rise of social media and mobile apps as new avenues for illegal sales, fraudsters remain ready to exploit the next online opportunity. They care nothing for the harm inflicted to brand revenues, reputations and customers. Meanwhile, the online world also means that bad news travels everywhere fast, with consumers sharing their experiences via social media or peer reviews in real time. NetNames own research has discovered that almost four in five people would shun a brand if they found themselves on a bogus website and nearly half will share bad brand experiences on social media. 4 The Digital Brand Risk Index

5 It is often said that a brand cannot be owned; rather it exists in the minds of its stakeholders. Nowhere is this truer than in the online environment, where the wider community will ultimately determine whether a brand succeeds or fails. This makes it essential to understand how your brand is perceived and what is being said about it, where and by whom. As the internet ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly, understanding your brand s online presence is an essential first step towards protecting your brand equity, reputation and customers with a holistic and focused strategy. This report examines the Interbrand Top 100 the list of the world s leading brands across nine crucial industry sectors, applying NetNames proprietary Discovery Engine () methodology to measure their online prominence and the sentiment of references. Read on to discover which brands are striding ahead and which have fallen into online pitfalls, as we pick out the key findings to help you tread the right path in your own digital journey. We welcome your views, thoughts and feedback to garymcilraith@netnames.com. Gary McIlraith, CEO NetNames. It is often said that a brand cannot be owned; rather it exists in the minds of its stakeholders. Nowhere is this truer than in the online environment. WHAT OTHERS SAY ABOUT YOUR BRAND SPEAKS VOLUMES. Consumers will avoid a brand for two years after a bad experience, 45% will share negative experiences on social media and 78% trust peer reviews. Brands cannot be owned; they exist in the minds of their stakeholders. This is especially true online, where ongoing conversations have a huge influence on the ultimate value of modern brands. Without visibility into those using your brand online, you have no control. The internet presents an open and unrestricted environment where anyone can exploit your reputation at little risk or expense. If you cannot manage online perception, others will spreading damaging messages, selling fraudulent goods, or cashing in on brand equity at the expense of loyal customers. Our market-leading monitoring technology and expert people empower brands with the ability to measure and control online perception as part of a holistic protection strategy putting brand owners back in charge of today s digital opportunity. Sources: NetNames, Dimensional Research, Pew Research. The Digital Brand Risk Index 5

6 NETNAMES TOP 5 TIPS TO MINIMIZE DIGITAL RISK Take centralized control over brand domain names to rapidly respond to cybersquatters, typosquatters and rogue e-tailers. Actively monitor online reseller prices. If prices are significantly lower than the brand RRP, it is a strong indicator of illicit activity. Engage consumers by developing a proactive gtld strategy to ensure that your legitimate brand channels are easy to find. The Discovery Engine () Prominence score is a measure of a brand s visibility on the internet. is a measure of the positivity of the comments made about the brand on the internet Audit online threats and profile key infringers to make an informed choice about how best to protect your brand and measure the success of your efforts. Then take action using tried and trusted enforcement methodologies. Consider bringing in outside experts with the experience and advanced technologies to proactively monitor for threats and rapidly enforce against brand infringements across all your online channels, worldwide. 6 The Digital Brand Risk Index

7 OUR ANALYSIS NetNames used its Discovery Engine () technology to identify and classify sector-specific mentions of the top brands, and has provided measures of the online prominence of these brands and the sentiment of the references made. The Prominence score is a measure of a brand s visibility on the internet, and is a measure of the positivity of the comments made about the brand on the internet. The accompanying analysis allows the production of two distinct measures: The Prominence score is a custom metric unique to NetNames that measures the relative extent of the leading brands coverage across the internet by calculating the number of web pages that feature each brand in relation to a number of industry-related keywords, as well as the prominence of the brand in each occurrence. The score is calculated by detecting each appearance of the brand on the page in conjunction with a keyword or key phrase deemed to be positive scores +1; proximity to a negative keyword scores -1, giving a cumulative total score for the page (with score of 0 being neutral ). For each brand, an average score is then calculated across all relevant pages, to give a score, which can be separated into positive and negative components (where the overall score is the difference between the positive and negative scores). For full details see page 28 The Prominence score is a custom metric unique to NetNames that measures the relative extent of the leading brands coverage across the internet The score is calculated by detecting each appearance of the brand on the page in conjunction with a keyword or key phrase deemed to be positive The Digital Brand Risk Index 7

8 TECHNOLOGY, COMPUTING AND ELECTRONICS BRANDS RULE THE WEB DOES YOUR ONLINE REPUTATION MEASURE UP? Fake Twitter users now number more than 20 million, and 31% of tweets containing company names don t include the corporate Twitter handle. Measurement is critical to whatever you do online, ensuring you can assess the impact of campaigns and protect your brand and customers from unauthorized content. How you measure your online reputation very much depends on what you are trying to achieve. For instance, a retailer might want to track how brand perception relates to sales during a social media marketing campaign to evaluate its success. With robust monitoring and measurement tools in place, you can understand which individuals and communities are talking about your brand, and how this interplays with your wider strategic goals to make more informed and impactful decisions. Sources: NetNames, Econsultancy. As early adopters of the internet, it s unsurprising that technology, computing and electronics brands dominate in terms of both online prominence and sentiment. Amongst technology brands, the most prominent are those that we might term digital natives : Google (36.10) and Facebook s (27.24) business models were only made possible by the internet, and they still focus almost all of their efforts and expertise online. Additionally, both of these brands enable platforms for social sharing, making Like and Google+ buttons ubiquitous across a great deal of web content. Indeed, Google s online prominence is almost four times greater than that of Apple, the third most mentioned technology brand. Across all industry sectors, technology brands also lead the pack, with Google, Facebook and Apple once again dominating the top three for (normalized) prominence. Meanwhile, seven of the top ten most positively referenced brands are also in the technology, computing and electronics sector with Sony (15.00), Facebook (12.39), HP (9.78) and Samsung (9.15) accounting for four of the top five. The brand with the most positive online sentiment overall was Amazon (18.18). It s notable that Amazon is completely focused on online channels and has recently expanded into the technology space with offerings such as Amazon Web Services and the Kindle e-reader. 8 The Digital Brand Risk Index

9 With expertise and business models that depend on harnessing new innovations, the internet is a natural environment for technology, computing and electronics brands. This is supported by the fact that automotive and aerospace companies, working in an equally technical arena, also see strong online performance with Ford (7.39), Nissan (6.71) and Audi (6.59) all placing in the top 20 for sentiment. In addition, criminals will seize any opportunity to cash in on the brand reputation, loyalty and trust established by these high-profile companies online for example, by luring customers into revealing sensitive information or selling counterfeit products via bogus websites. Indeed, the higher level of online prominence seen by technology brands may be due, in part, to this kind of nefarious activity. Online infringement can seriously impact brand reputations and it s notable that Facebook has the greatest total volume of negative mentions of all brands online (-5.63), closely followed by Google (-4.87). If technology brands are to remain the rulers of the web, monitoring online channels for infringing content on a global basis is essential. Only by proactively defending digital assets can technology brand owners safeguard their reputations and customers, ultimately protecting overall brand equity. If technology brands are to remain the rulers of the web, monitoring online channels for infringing content on a global basis is essential Fake Twitter users now number more than 20 million The Digital Brand Risk Index 9

10 FINANCIAL SERVICES FIRMS NEED TO BALANCE PROMINENCE WITH SENTIMENT It is interesting to note that the top two financial brands for sentiment and prominence were both payment facilitators Visa and MasterCard. Clearly, these companies have managed to avoid being negatively affected by the bad publicity following the Libor scandal, PPI and so on. It seems that a strong online presence has helped both companies from being linked with the wrongdoings that consumers have seen in offline banking. By comparison, high street brands such as HSBC and Santander scored highly for prominence in our sample (1.26 and 1.08 respectively), but were not as positively referenced. Although this may sound like good news for Visa and MasterCard, companies like these still face an extreme risk from fraudsters given their dominance in the financial services and banking industries. More than a fifth (22.2%) of all cyber-attacks against financial institutions now involve fake websites, and 40% of business managers in finance are highly concerned about keeping trademarks protected in the evolving web landscape. Despite these risks, only 55% of financial services organizations are able to monitor their brand s assets online, according to our research. The long-term fallout from brand reputation damage is aptly illustrated by the negative sentiment that still surrounds another financial brand, Goldman Sachs (-1.89), many years after the 2008 banking crisis. Even today, Goldman Sachs remains in the bottom ten brands by overall online sentiment (0.41). The online channel has proven extremely lucrative for the financial services market, since access to customers and understanding consumer behavior has never been so easy for brands. However, this unprecedented access also provides a gilt-edged opportunity for criminals to target genuine customers. Modern financial services firms are well aware of the potential threats that cybercriminals like cybersquatters and typosquatters can pose. The firms that scored highly in terms of sentiment are likely to be those that promote the fact that their brand and digital assets are well protected, and that their customers exposure to such threats are minimized. Of course, the firm s reputation must also be upheld across affiliate sites, since partner businesses can often misuse a company s name and/or corporate logo, which can also damage the perception of the brand. 22.2% of all cyber-attacks against financial institutions now involve fake websites 10 The Digital Brand Risk Index

11 LUXURY BRANDS FAIL TO EMBRACE ONLINE CHANNELS The luxury industry performs poorly in terms of online sentiment. Of the luxury brands surveyed, Cartier (3.47) has the highest overall sentiment score, but barely stays within the top half of all the brands analyzed in this report. Meanwhile Tiffany & Co (-0.65) has the lowest online sentiment not just among luxury brands, but also among them all with both Prada (0.33) and Ralph Lauren (0.74) appearing in the bottom 15 too. 40% of business managers in finance are highly concerned about keeping trademarks protected in the evolving web landscape Interestingly, our analysis reveals that luxury brands that have both higher online prominence and more positive sentiment tend to suffer from more negative mentions as well. As a traditional industry with well-established target markets, luxury brands have been reluctant to engage with the online ecosystem. Generally low levels of online prominence suggest that luxury brands are still not utilizing these channels enough, while the relatively high levels of negative sentiment for those that are more prominent suggests that they are not protecting their digital domains effectively. As such, luxury retailers are right to approach online channels with caution. As some of the most sought-after brands in the world, fraudsters will exploit consumer demand wherever possible as the fake goods now flooding auction sites and rogue websites demonstrate. Customers who unknowingly buy fake goods often attribute the product s lack of quality and durability to the brand itself, damaging reputations and creating negative sentiment online. However, the online world also offers huge business advantages, such as global reach and the ability to build stronger relationships with stakeholders. Therefore, luxury brands must look to develop and deploy an effective online strategy that not only boosts their prominence, but also ensures that they are being mentioned online only by legitimate sources. The Digital Brand Risk Index 11

12 BRAND WARS KEEP YOUR DIGITAL ASSETS UNDER CONTROL A dropped domain name costs over 50 times more to re-register from a cybersquatter than to renew normally. The importance of having a clear strategy for the management of digital brand assets has never been more crucial to success. From controlling appearances of your brand s logo to mapping out an effective domain name strategy, digital assets are a vital, valuable and extremely visible part of every brand s online life. NetNames advises organizations of all sizes on the right strategies to protect critical digital assets, while keeping online spending under control. Sources: NetNames, Econsultancy. The most competitive industries for online brands today are automotive and aerospace, financial services and banking and food and drink. In all of these industries, there is little separation in terms of either online prominence or sentiment between the leading players. For instance, five automotive and aerospace brands appear inside the top 25 for overall online sentiment, while the difference between the five most prominent brands also covers a relatively narrow spectrum ( ). A strong reputation could not be more crucial for brands in these industries. While vast sums are often invested in driving greater online prominence and boosting SEO, customer trust and loyalty is harder to earn. Brands in these hyper- competitive industries must carefully monitor their online presence to ensure that any negative mentions are legitimate and that fraudulent activity or IP infringements are rapidly removed. By proactively defending their online reputations, these brands have an opportunity to steal a march on the competition. Meanwhile, other industries are dominated by one or two brands alone. Disney (1.75) reigns supreme in the media and entertainment industry, with more than four times the prominence of the next most mentioned brand, MTV (0.42). Similarly, Colgate (0.60) stands out against other FMCG brands online, its closest rivals being Gillette (0.02) and Johnson & Johnson (0.02). Meanwhile, Amazon (15.90) has unquestionable online prominence in the fashion and retail industry, with Adidas (2.51) and Nike (1.82) being its closest peers. 12 The Digital Brand Risk Index

13 Unfortunately, the brands in these sectors can become victims of their own success. Having invested in establishing a strong online reputation, these brands are now the clear choice for fraudsters looking to exploit lucrative brand equity for their own purposes. It s even more crucial, then, for these brands to pay careful attention to risks in the unregulated online world. The dangers are many and varied, from trademark abuse to fake social media profiles and domain name hijacking. Brands often find it difficult to assess their exposure to these problems accurately, making a proactive and effective brand protection strategy essential to safeguarding digital success. A dropped domain name costs 50 times more to re-register from a cybersquatter than to renew normally The Digital Brand Risk Index 13

14 CONCLUSION Today s digital brands must work harder than ever before to remain present, protected and prosperous online. The insightful and often surprising results of our Digital Brand Risk Index reveal just how difficult it can be to gain a clear understanding of online exposure in today s open and unregulated ecosystem. As the web continues to evolve and fragment with the rise of mobile, social and new gtld addresses, brands face both huge opportunities and serious risks. Now is the time to develop and deploy a proactive and effective digital strategy to safeguard customer confidence, brand equity, sales and revenues online. First, brands must work to understand their digital presence: where they re being seen, how large their digital footprint is, how much online activity is authorized and how much is from third-parties such as customers, partners and resellers. Next, they must go further: understand what s being said, by whom and why. Only with this insight can brands take the necessary actions to protect their reputations from illegal and illicit activity. This will ultimately enable brands to remain prosperous, squeezing the best possible results from lucrative online channels, as well as informing new digital strategies that can drive growth and outwit competitors. With market-leading monitoring technology and specialized analysis and enforcement teams, NetNames has the expert, global capabilities to help brands take control of their online presence, from the fundamental things such as domain management and acquisition services to more damaging issues such as brand protection, anti-piracy, anti-counterfeiting and online security. To learn more about how NetNames can help, please contact marketing@netnames.com. As the web continues to evolve and fragment with the rise of mobile, social and new gtld addresses, brands face both huge opportunities and serious risks. 14 The Digital Brand Risk Index

15 THE DIGITAL BRAND RISK IN METHODOLOGY This document presents the results of an analysis by NetNames into the online appearances of 100 major brands, taken from the list of 100 top brands compiled by Interbrand. The analysis uses NetNames Discovery Engine ( ) methodology to provide measures of the online prominence of, and the sentiment of the references to, these brands. Before the analysis, the brands were divided into a set of nine industry sectors ( automotive and aerospace, fashion and retail, etc). NetNames used its technology to identify and classify mentions of the 100 brands. The system crawled the internet over a period from 26 February to 6 March 2015, during which time the system analyzed a sample of over 57,000 of the most highly search-engine-ranked web pages featuring keywords related to the industry sectors of the brands in question (and identifying mentions of at least one of the brands of interest on over 19,000 pages). A reference to a particular brand was deemed to have been identified on a webpage if a mention of the brand name was found near to any of a number of relevance keywords relating to the industry sector of that brand. DISCOVERY ENGINE () PROMINENCE SCORE The Prominence score is a custom metric unique to NetNames that accurately measures the relative extent of total brand coverage across the internet by calculating the number of webpages that feature each brand, as well as the prominence of the brand on each page. This statistic provides a measure of the relative likelihood of the brands being indexed in a set of search-engine results. The Prominence score is a far more representative comparison of online prominence than a simple count of webpage appearances. It combines the following statistics within a unique algorithm (see Appendix A.1): The number of webpages and distinct websites ( hosts ) that feature references to each brand. The prominence of the mention of the brand within the page (eg higher prominence is granted to brand appearance in a domain name; lower prominence for a brief mention in page content). Brand concentration on each host (ie the average number of relevant webpages per host). Total internet coverage of all brands under consideration. Because the Prominence score is a function of the total numbers of pages classified, it is also sometimes desirable to normalize the final scores (by the multiplication of a constant scaling factor), so that (for example) the mean score across all brands is the same for consecutive studies, to allow comparison of relative prominences between the studies. DISCOVERY ENGINE () SENTIMENT SCORE The score provides a measure of the average sentiment (positive or negative) of the context in which the brands are mentioned online. This is calculated by measuring the prevalence (reflecting both volume and strength) of positive references against negative references across the internet for each brand, based on appearances of the brand near to any of a library of positive or negative keywords and key phrases (see Appendix A.2). The Digital Brand Risk Index 15

16 FINDINGS The Prominence and scores across all 100 brands are shown in the table below. Table 1: Prominence and scores across all 100 brands Brand Industry Prominence (overall) (+ve) (-ve) 3M Technology, Computing & Electronics Accenture Financial Services & Banking Adidas Fashion & Retail Adobe Technology, Computing & Electronics Allianz Financial Services & Banking Amazon Fashion & Retail American Express Financial Services & Banking Apple Technology, Computing & Electronics Audi Automotive & Aerospace AXA Financial Services & Banking BMW Automotive & Aerospace Budweiser Food & Drink Burberry Luxury Canon Technology, Computing & Electronics Cartier Luxury Caterpillar Automotive & Aerospace Chevrolet Automotive & Aerospace Cisco Technology, Computing & Electronics Citi Financial Services & Banking Coca-Cola Food & Drink Colgate FMCG Corona Food & Drink Danone Food & Drink DHL Other Discovery Communications Media & Entertainment Disney Media & Entertainment Duracell FMCG The Digital Brand Risk Index

17 Brand Industry Prominence (overall) (+ve) (-ve) ebay Technology, Computing & Electronics Facebook Technology, Computing & Electronics Fedex Other Ford Automotive & Aerospace Gap Fashion & Retail General Electric Other 0 N/A N/A N/A Gillette FMCG Goldman Sachs Financial Services & Banking Google Technology, Computing & Electronics Gucci Luxury H&M Fashion & Retail Harley Davidson Automotive & Aerospace Heineken Food & Drink Hermès Luxury Honda Automotive & Aerospace HP Technology, Computing & Electronics HSBC Financial Services & Banking Huawei Technology, Computing & Electronics Hugo Boss Luxury Hyundai Automotive & Aerospace IBM Technology, Computing & Electronics IKEA Fashion & Retail Intel Technology, Computing & Electronics Jack Daniels Food & Drink John Deere Automotive & Aerospace Johnnie Walker Food & Drink Johnson & Johnson FMCG JP Morgan Financial Services & Banking Kellogg s Food & Drink KFC Food & Drink The Digital Brand Risk Index 17

18 Brand Industry Prominence (overall) (+ve) (-ve) Kia Automotive & Aerospace Kleenex FMCG Land Rover Automotive & Aerospace L Oréal Fashion & Retail Louis Vuitton Luxury MasterCard Financial Services & Banking McDonald s Food & Drink Mercedes-Benz Automotive & Aerospace Microsoft Technology, Computing & Electronics Morgan Stanley Financial Services & Banking MTV Media & Entertainment Nescafé Food & Drink Nestlé Food & Drink Nike Fashion & Retail Nintendo Technology, Computing & Electronics Nissan Automotive & Aerospace Nokia Technology, Computing & Electronics Oracle Technology, Computing & Electronics Pampers FMCG Panasonic Technology, Computing & Electronics Pepsi Food & Drink Philips Technology, Computing & Electronics Pizza Hut Food & Drink Porsche Automotive & Aerospace Prada Luxury Ralph Lauren Luxury Samsung Technology, Computing & Electronics Santander Financial Services & Banking SAP Technology, Computing & Electronics Shell Oil Siemens Technology, Computing & Electronics Smirnoff Food & Drink Sony Technology, Computing & Electronics Sprite Food & Drink The Digital Brand Risk Index

19 Brand Industry Prominence (overall) (+ve) (-ve) Starbucks Food & Drink Thomson Reuters Media & Entertainment Tiffany & Co Luxury Toyota Automotive & Aerospace UPS Other Visa Financial Services & Banking Volkswagen Automotive & Aerospace Xerox Technology, Computing & Electronics Zara Fashion & Retail PROMINENCE SCORES The Prominence scores for the groups of brands within each industry are shown in the graphs below. Figure 1: Prominence scores for brands within the Automotive & Aerospace industries Ford Audi BMW Honda Volkswagen Toyota Nissan Kia Porsche Hyundai Chevrolet Land Rover Mercedes-Benz Caterpillar Harley Davidson John Deere The Digital Brand Risk Index 19

20 Figure 2: Prominence scores for brands within the Fashion & Retail industry Amazon Adidas Nike Gap H&M L Oréal Zara IKEA Figure 3: Prominence scores for brands within the Financial Services & Banking industry Visa MasterCard HSBC Santander American Express AXA Citi Allianz Accenture Morgan Stanley Goldman Sachs JP Morgan 20 The Digital Brand Risk Index

21 Figure 4: Prominence scores for brands within the FMCG industry Colgate Gillette Johnson & Johnson Duracell Pampers Kleenex Figure 5: Prominence scores for brands within the Food & Drink industry Starbucks Coca-Cola McDonalds Sprite Pepsi KFC Nestlé Heineken Budweiser Pizza Hut Corona Kelloggs Danone Smirnoff Johnnie Walker Jack Daniels Nescafé The Digital Brand Risk Index 21

22 Figure 6: Prominence scores for brands within the Luxury industry Gucci Burberry Ralph Lauren Prada Cartier Louis Vuitton Hermès Tiffany & Co Figure 7: Prominence scores for brands within the Media & Entertainment industry Disney MTV Thomson Reuters Discovery Communications 22 The Digital Brand Risk Index

23 Figure 8: Prominence scores for brands within the Technology, Computing & Electronics industries Google Facebook Apple Samsung Microsoft Sony HP Intel ebay Panasonic Nokia Adobe Canon IBM Nintendo Cisco Huawei Oracle SAP 3M Siemens Philips Xerox The Digital Brand Risk Index 23

24 SENTIMENT SCORES The tables and graphs below show the scores (including the individual positive and negative components) for the 30 most positively referenced brands and the 30 least positively referenced brands overall. Table 2: scores for the 30 most positively referenced brands overall Brand Industry (overall) (+ve) (-ve) Amazon Fashion & Retail Sony Technology, Computing & Electronics Facebook Technology, Computing & Electronics HP Technology, Computing & Electronics Samsung Technology, Computing & Electronics Panasonic Technology, Computing & Electronics Adidas Fashion & Retail Google Technology, Computing & Electronics Intel Technology, Computing & Electronics Ford Automotive & Aerospace ebay Technology, Computing & Electronics Canon Technology, Computing & Electronics Huawei Technology, Computing & Electronics Nintendo Technology, Computing & Electronics Nissan Automotive & Aerospace Audi Automotive & Aerospace Nokia Technology, Computing & Electronics MasterCard Financial Services & Banking Microsoft Technology, Computing & Electronics Gap Fashion & Retail UPS Other Kia Automotive & Aerospace Porsche Automotive & Aerospace Disney Media & Entertainment BMW Automotive & Aerospace Adobe Technology, Computing & Electronics Volkswagen Automotive & Aerospace Chevrolet Automotive & Aerospace Nike Fashion & Retail Visa Financial Services & Banking The Digital Brand Risk Index

25 Figure 9: scores for the 30 most positively referenced brands overall Amazon Sony Facebook HP Samsung Panasonic Adidas Google Intel Ford ebay Canon Huawei Nintendo Nissan Audi Nokia MasterCard Microsoft Gap UPS Kia Porsche Disney BMW Adobe Volkswagen Chevrolet Nike Visa (+ve) (-ve) (overall) The Digital Brand Risk Index 25

26 Table 3: scores for the 30 least positively referenced brands overall Brand Industry (overall) (+ve) (-ve) Gucci Luxury Corona Food & Drink Harley Davidson Automotive & Aerospace Shell Oil IKEA Fashion & Retail KFC Food & Drink Mercedes-Benz Automotive & Aerospace American Express Financial Services & Banking Nescafé Food & Drink Zara Fashion & Retail Budweiser Food & Drink Hermès Luxury Pampers FMCG Smirnoff Food & Drink Allianz Financial Services & Banking JP Morgan Financial Services & Banking Thomson Reuters Media & Entertainment Land Rover Automotive & Aerospace Ralph Lauren Luxury Jack Daniels Food & Drink Nestlé Food & Drink L'Oréal Fashion & Retail Johnnie Walker Food & Drink FedEx Other Goldman Sachs Financial Services & Banking Kellogg s Food & Drink Prada Luxury AXA Financial Services & Banking Discovery Communications Media & Entertainment Tiffany & Co Luxury The Digital Brand Risk Index

27 Figure 10: scores for the 30 least positively referenced brands overall Gucci Corona Harley Davidson Shell IKEA KFC Mercedes-Benz American Express Nescafé Zara Budweiser Hermès Pampers Smirnoff Allianz JP Morgan Thomson Reuters Land Rover Ralph Lauren Jack Daniels Nestlé L Oréal Johnnie Walker FedEx Goldman Sachs Kelloggs Prada AXA Discovery Communications Tiffany & Co (+ve) (-ve) (overall) The Digital Brand Risk Index 27

28 APPENDIX: METHODOLOGY A.1 DISCOVERY ENGINE () PROMINENCE SCORE From the total sample of identified webpages, a simple measure of prominence (the Simple Prominence score ), S, for each brand B can be determined using the P B following data: The number of webpages, N l, on which the brand is mentioned in location l (where a location on the page can be the URL, page title, link text, etc). A weighting, A l, for each location, for which the value is greater for those locations on the page deemed to have greater prominence. P S B = A l N l l From this, the overall Discovery Engine () Prominence score for brand B, P D B, is calculated using the expression below, in which N c is the number of identified pages featuring any mention of the brand (anywhere in the page content), H c is the number of distinct websites ( hosts ) on which the mentions were identified and R is a scaling/normalization factor that is constant across all brands. A.2 DISCOVERY ENGINE () SENTIMENT SCORE For each page on which a mention of a brand is identified, a sentiment score for that brand is calculated. Each appearance on the page of the brand in conjunction with a keyword or key phrase deemed to be positive scores +1; proximity to a negative keyword scores -1, giving a cumulative total score for the page (with score of 0 being neutral ). For each brand, an average score is then calculated across all relevant pages, after first taking the cube root of the raw page scores (to remove the effect of outliers). This average score is then multiplied by the square root of the number of relevant pages; this gives a measure of significance, by upweighting the score for brands where the mentions are consistently positive or negative, and downweighting the score for brands whose results would otherwise be skewed due to the fact that only a few pages have been identified. The score can be separated into positive and negative components; the overall score is the difference between the positive and negative scores. D P B = R N S c P B H c B P S B 28 The Digital Brand Risk Index

29 Formally, the score for brand B, S D B, (and its constituent positive and negative components, denoted by a + and a -, respectively) is given by the expressions below, in which i is the sentiment score and N i is the number of pages achieving the sentiment score i. + The Digital Brand Risk Index 29

30 ABOUT NETNAMES NetNames is one of the world s leading online brand protection and domain name management specialists, helping organizations be present, protected and prosperous on the internet. Through its industry-leading brand protection, domain name management, online security, anti-piracy and domain acquisition services, the company is responsible for keeping organizations and brands one step ahead of online threats across the globe. The company is headquartered in London (UK), with offices in Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA. NetNames can be found at and on REFERENCES 1. emarketer, US Adults Spend 5.5 Hours with Video Content Each Day, 2015: Hours-with-Video-Content-Each-Day/ NetNames, Internet 2020: an analysis of how new gtlds will transform the internet, Dimensional Research, Customer Service And Business Results, 2013: whitepapers/zendesk_wp_customer_service_and_business_ Results.pdf 4. NetNames, Internet 2020: an analysis of how new gtlds will transform the internet, Background research, The Digital Brand Risk Index

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