Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

From Good Morning Silicon Valley today: "This is a pretty big miscue for a company that's had some trouble communicating in recent weeks," RBC Capital Markets analyst Jordan Rohan told the Wall Street Journal. "[Google's] communication policy was cute when the company went public and had a $35 billion market cap. Now it's frustrating to the point of being counterproductive. At $100 billion in market cap, it's time to grow up and issue guidance." Time, indeed. Back in the day, I ran investor relations at Apple, which was sort of the Google of its era -- the early Reagan years. Some would opine that "I ran" it right into the ground, but this isn't my point. Point is, sometimes it seems that a company has a bi-polar brand: the reputation it enjoys in the product marketplace, and the one it has within the investment community. Apple was exhibit A throughout much of its history. Adored by its cult on Main Street, we could drive the suits nuts on Wall Street. But not for lack of guidance that we tried, with mixed success, to issue to our analysts and shareholders. In the case of Google, the feel-good era is screeching to a halt. That the screeching is loud and awkward is a direct result of rapid growth, life in the fishbowl, and a self-absorbed attitude when it came to the realities of being a public entity. Watch for the Google suits to launch new intiatives aimed at shoring up the "brand" in the investment community. They're overdue.