Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

With Citigroup (C) posting their largest losses in the 196-year history of the company this quarter, it is worth looking at to see what we can do to manage our brands in the midst of this type of market turmoil.

First, the losses of the company reached almost $10 billion for the quarter, and the subprime writedowns came to an astounding $18 billion. In other words they're in deep trouble.

How should they handle this? Or more importantly, when brand-related issues impact our businesses, how should we take care of it? It's a mistake to attempt to ignore it, because it will come out in the open even if we're a smaller company.

To me the best way to handle it is with complete and total honesty and transparency. To attempt to cover some aspects of whatever caused the problem would be an error in judgement, as people and the media will dig out the cause. Whether locally, regionally or nationally, it will come out into the open.

Another important part of the equation to me is to not make excuses or pass the blame. Regardless of who was at fault, there is now an issue or issues to deal with. That, more than anything else, is what needs to be known as far as it relates to what you're now going to do about it.

In the case of all the financial companies with subprime mortgage problems, every one of them made bad decisions. They all jumped on the bandwagon and followed one another down the cliff. There's no way they can get around or hide that: it's what happened!

As with all cases like this, they believed something different was happening in the market than it has in the past, which would bring them extraordinary profits. As in the past, they were wrong. This happened before in the financial industry when many Savings & Loan companies faced similar problems when they borrowed to oil companies years ago.

Now they simply need to acknowledge they blew it. At least that's what we need to do if we face something that may tarnish our brand, whether they do or not.

Our customers absolutely will respect someone who comes right out and says they made mistakes, and immediately take steps to ensure those same mistakes won't happen again. Taking care of those mistakes as they apply to the customer are also important.

It could mean offering future discounts, price cuts, added bonus, etc. The point is people or companies care about how it impact their lives or businesses. Acknowledging the problem is a necessary first step, then taking care of the consequences for our customers is the next one.

Do this in times of tarnishment to our brands, and we should take care of the vast majority of problems connected to it. Taking this into consideration, we also must not wait too long to take steps. The longer something lingers the more frustrated and negative people can become. Don't wait for it to become a mountain in their experience and minds. Move quickly!