Dropping Phelps May Have Hurt Kellogg Image

Ad Age reports that cereal company Kellogg may have taken a hit for its decision to drop Michael Phelps after the bong photo fiasco.

Vanno, a website that follows 5,500 companies, compiles its reputation index by capturing "gossip, news, opinion and personal insight about companies and their reputations" submitted by users that it converts into numerical scores and rankings. Its figures shows Kellogg, which was ranked an impressive No. 9 in January, fell to No. 16 after announcing its peanut-butter-related recalls. But the company fell to No. 68 after letting Mr. Phelps go…According to Vanno, Kellogg has since fallen to 83.

I don't know how valid Vanno's reputation tracking formula is, but it's at least encouraging to see the company's rank go down rather than up.

Prior Reason coverage of Phelps here.