Shell’s ‘Buzz’ and ‘Reputation’ scores have taken a hit over the past month in BrandIndex, falling 5.2 and 4.5 percentage points respectively. Scores have been dropping since petrol prices increased and scores also saw a drastic decline on the same date that oil company Shell made two major announcements regarding job cuts and executive pay packages.
Rising petrol prices have been particularly unpopular, with oil costs reaching a high of $87 a barrel in the past two weeks. It has been suggested that prices at UK petrol pumps are set to rise even further than the £119.9p per litre record high seen this month, which has sparked considerable discontent with consumers – as recorded on TellYouGov. Users, or ‘tyggers’, have been accusing Shell of ‘overcharging and profiteering’, while others have claimed that ‘30% of my salary is spent on travelling to work’.
In addition to this, on the 16th March, the oil giant’s chief executive Peter Voser announced that Shell would be cutting 2,000 jobs by the end next year, taking the total number of job losses since Voser took over the post to 7,000. That same day it was reported that the oil company was confronted by shareholders in a protest against an executive’s pay package following the news that Linda Cook, a former executive, received a pension of almost $25 million, even after accepting a ‘golden goodbye’ of $7.6 million. The last month has seen the brand’s ‘buzz’ and ‘reputation’ scores plummet to their lowest level this year in response.
BrandIndex provides a quantitative measure of public sentiment towards a brand by amalgamating several different measures of public perception, including ‘value’ and ‘quality’. Specifically, ‘buzz’ measures how much a brand is being talked about and provides a net score – the result of subtracting any negative sentiments from positive ones. ‘Reputation’ gives a numeric measurement of the public’s opinion on the brand’s reputation, asking people if they would be proud or embarrassed to work for the given company.
And in light of the series of negative stories regarding Shell and oil, it would be no surprise if the company’s ‘buzz’ and ‘reputation’ scores plunged even further in their struggle to justify rewarding executives with ‘excessive’ pay and high prices at the same time at cutting thousands of jobs.
