My boss Alexia Tsotsis is going to love this one.
With a name like Reputation Changer, you can imagine that an online reputation management company would be stuck in the shadow of Reputation.com (which itself was formerly known as Reputation Defender). The solution? It’s changing its name, and purchasing a memorable URL of its own — Brand.com.
The URL supposedly cost six figures, and you can see that the company has already taken it over to promote a product called “Brand.com by Reputation Changer.” President Michael Zammuto said the plan, ultimately, is to completely switch over to the Brand.com name. It will become the highest trafficked website in the reputation industry, he said, based on an analysis of Google search volumes: “Brand.com and the term ‘brand’ have much greater recognition with potential clients and with the general public than the term ‘Reputation’ or ‘Reputation.com’.”
And as much as people like Alexia might complain that the word “brand” doesn’t mean anything, the company says the URL captures the idea that “online reputation is a critical component” of the brands of Fortune 500 companies, governments, and celebrities. And hey, there’s already another startup in the industry that calls itself BrandYourself.
Reputation Changer/Brand.com says that even prior to the name change, revenue has grown 1,500 percent in the past two years. Now it has revenue growth and a sweet, sweet URL.