BMW - brand hurt by bad behaviour?

The BMW brand has become less visible on the internet, as the web's leading search engine, Google, has accused BMW of trying to "manipulate search results" for its German websites and reduced its visibility through the seach engine.

So what? I hear you say. BMW is one of the best known brands in the world, and exceptionally well-known and well regarded in Germany. Brand awareness is hardly likely to drop as a result of people not finding a BMW site through an internet search. And few loyal BMW drivers who enjoy the driving experience are likely to change marques just because they can't find a BMW website.

It is possible that, at the margain, a few people who don't feel strongly about car brands might look at an Audi or Lexus or Mercedes site if they can't easily find the BMW site, and could finish up being charmed by a model they hadn't previously considered. But probably only a few.

More important is the dent to the corporate brand image of BMW. A business that is generally considered highly professional, and so very trustworthy, looks less trustworthy if it is implicitly accused of being manipulative. If BMW has violated the guideline: “Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users” as reported in today's FT, then they might be thought guilty of deceipt. I personally doubt that any deceipt was intended - more likely just some inappropriate behaviour by over zealous web-marketers - but it is the element of doubt that has been put into people's minds that is the real hurt to the brand. If BMW's levels of trust and credibility has fallen amongst some segments - e.g. internet savvy news followers (who are often Opinion Leaders) - then this is a destruction of brand value, something that managers and shareholders should be concerned about.

Corporate Governance is a popular topic these days. Off-brand behaviours that damage trust and corporate reputations are failures of corporate governance. Perhaps more organisations need to ensure that tight brand discipline is a part of their governance just as much as ethics and the environment.