Survey Ranks Corporate Reputations
December 13 2005
Corporate America's reputation has declined slightly over the last year, according to the latest National Corporate Reputation Survey from Harris Interactive. Of the USA's 60 most visible companies, the study places Johnson & Johnson top, followed by Coca Cola and Google.
A majority of adults (71%) say the reputation of corporate America as a whole is 'not good' or 'terrible', compared with 68% a year ago. 13% of adults (vs 16% in 2004) say the reputation of corporate America has 'improved a little', and 2% (2% in 2004) say it has improved a lot.
Six companies showed notable declines in reputation this year, while nine achieved notable improvements, including Allstate (up by 3.36 points) and MCI (formerly Worldcom) (up 3.27 points).
The study evaluates six key dimensions of a company's corporate reputation:
- vision and leadership
- social responsibility
- emotional appeal
- products and services
- workplace environment
- financial performance.
The top twenty companies, listed with their scores, are as follows (2004 scores in brackets).
- Johnson & Johnson 80.56 (79.10)
- Coca-Cola 79.69 (78.90)
- Google 79.52 (n/a)
- United Parcel Service (UPS) 79.37 (78.24)
- 3M Company 78.78 (79.07)
- Sony 78.75 (77.95)
- Microsoft 78.11 (78)
- General Mills 78.03 (77.42)
- FedEx 77.79 77.49
- Intel 77.27 (76.10)
- Toyota 77.27 (75.59)
- Home Depot 76.50 (74.77)
- Procter & Gamble 75.91 (78.26)
- Walt Disney 75.88 (74.03)
- Dell 75.73 (76.00)
- Honda 75.60 (76.00)
- Pepsico 75.26 (72.54)
- Costco 74.03 (n/a)
- BM 73.42 (71.77)
- 20. General Electric Company 73.39 (72.66)
The bottom ten includes Martha Stewart Living, Exxon, United Airlines and Enron.
Robert Fronk, Senior VP for the Brand and Strategy Consulting Group at Harris Interactive, points out that the top of the list is not dominated by companies with everyday product brands. 'This reinforces our belief that a strong, well managed reputation can and should be an asset for any organization.'
To identify the most visible companies, Harris Interactive conducted 6,977 interviews throughout the US via the telephone and Internet. Respondents were asked to nominate two companies that they feel have the best reputations overall and two companies that they feel have the worst reputations overall.
In the next phase, which took place in August and September, 19,564 respondents were randomly selected to rate one or two companies with which they were 'very or somewhat familiar'. All interviews were conducted online. Respondents rated companies on 20 attributes in the six key dimensions. These ratings fed into the overall scores. Each of the 60 companies was rated by at least 253 people.
Harris Interactive is online at.
www.harrisinteractive.com.
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
