We want that person to feel that they have the car under control and that it will do exactly what they desire it to do." The reputation of German know-how led Volkswagen to top Toyota as the world's most profitable car manufacturer in 2015, listing its 2014 net profit at €2.5 billion in its annual report. The researchers note that, since vehicles by other German makes are substitutes for Volkswagen vehicles, substitution away from Volkswagen should have increased demand for the other German makes. However, they find that it did not do so sufficiently to overcome the negative reputation effect of the scandal. BMW and Mercedes, for example, were not implicated in the emissions scandal, yet their revenue took a hit. Bachmann and his co-authors found that collective reputation matters. In order to document changes in sentiment toward non-VW German automakers that indicate harm to their collective reputation, Bachmann and his co-authors reviewed Twitter data from before and after the scandal broke.