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It can be tough to turn an exact match domain (EMD) into a branded domain sometimes. I would be careful of labeling this as any certain algorithmic filter / penalty. Back when EMDs were being devalued I'm sure there were a lot of false positives. This could be one example. It could also have to do with anchor-text over-optimization that isn't specially "penguin" related. I guess my first question would be: Why do you think this is related to the use of the client's brand name? Is it just those keyword/s that have lost rankings? Is it limited to certain landing pages, keyword phrases, etc... ? What is the domain / keyword? And if you can't provide that, how about a close example? For instance, is it something like: buy-blue-widgets.com Or more like: bluewidgets.com Or like: bluewidgetsincorporated.com or ??? The first example is difficult to turn into a brand. The second one is doable. The third shouldn't be seen as an EMD at all.

If you've been affected by Penguin or Panda then unfortunately a reconsideration request won't help.  Penguin and Panda are algorithmic changes and you can only recover once the algorithms refresh. Reconsideration requests are to be used when you have a manual warning in your webmaster tools.  If you don't have a manual warning, then you will get a message back saying that there have been no manual actions taken against your site. I have found that it usually takes about 3 weeks to get a reply from a reconsideration request.  Lately I've had some replies within just a few days.  When the disavow tool first came out it was taking up to 2 months to get a reply because so many people were using it and sending in reconsideration requests.