Johnson & Johnson takes the top spot for the second consecutive year as the most reputable U.S. company on Reputation Institute's 2010 U.S. Reputation Pulse. Kraft Foods, Kellogg, The Walt Disney Company, PepsiCo and Sara Lee rounded out the top tier of U.S. companies in 2010, all with excellent reputations. AIG, the beleaguered financial services firm, continued to dwell at the bottom of the list, finishing 150th out of the 150 companies included in the survey. PepsiCo and Microsoft moved into the top 10 from last year along with newcomers to the study Kellogg, Dean Foods, and Sara Lee. The Reputation Pulse measures the corporate reputations of the largest U.S. companies based on consumers' trust, esteem, admiration, and good feeling about a company while also gauging perceptions across seven rational dimensions of reputation.
Strong Reputations Lead to Lucrative Bottom-Line Results
According to the U.S. Reputation Pulse findings, Corporate Reputation has an increased impact on business results -- a company's reputation score has a positive and direct link to consumer attitudes and behaviors. Having a strong reputation in 2010 yields more recommendation, more benefit of the doubt and more purchase behavior than ever before. In comparing the Top 10 to the Bottom 10 measured companies, the general public is:
300% more likely to verbally support or give the benefit of the doubt;
200% more likely to consider products; and
350% more likely to purchase products of highly regarded companies.
"In today's tough economic climate, corporate reputation is critical to sustaining and growing business," said Anthony Johndrow, partner and managing director, Reputation Institute North America. "This year's results illustrate a direct correlation between how well a company manages its reputation and how likely consumers are to recommend or reject the company. A good reputation is not just a nice-to-have; it's a bottom-line business imperative."
It Pays to Communicate
Respondents who indicate they have bought a company's products or utilized a customer support service tend to rate those companies higher, indicating that direct experience has the greatest impact on corporate reputation. Third party messages, from the media, online or other people, tend to have a negative effect. Reputation Institute's findings show that respondents who were reached by companies' corporate actions and/or communications initiatives scored them three points above the U.S. mean.
In fact, a consumer who has encountered a company's marketing, branding, public relations or social responsibility efforts on average rates the company higher regardless of their reputation ranking--even companies with weak reputations can gain from telling their side of the story.
How to Tell Your Corporate Story
The Reputation Pulse study proves that excellent reputations are built across seven dimensions: Products/Services, Innovation, Governance, Workplace, Citizenship, Leadership and Performance. In the U.S., statistical analysis shows that each dimension accounts for more than 12 percent of reputation.
Johndrow sums up the key insight from this reputation driver analysis: "We all know that people care and talk more than ever about the companies behind the products and services they use and they are talking about them. Join this conversation and tell your corporate story to create the support needed in tough times. Corporations can create deeper connections than products can alone, essentially deploying who they are as a company to drive business results."
Drivers differ by industry, country and stakeholder group. In 2010, across all U.S. companies, Products/Services, followed by Governance, then Citizenship are the most influential dimensions.
Additional Highlights from 2010
-- 10 companies (Chubb, McDonald's, Archer Daniels Midland, SunTrust
Banks, ExxonMobil, AutoNation, Humana, Marathon Oil, CITGO and
Staples) increased their reputation scores by seven points or more
from 2009
-- U.S. consumers feel the most respected and reputable industries, as
measured by the reputations of the biggest companies are: 1) Food
Manufacturing, 2) Consumer Products, 3) Transportation & Logistics, 3)
Computers, 4) Industrial Products, and 5) General Retail.
-- With mergers, bankruptcies and bail-outs, financial industries
suffered the most with the greatest negative individual company
changes in reputation. Paradoxically, utilities and communications
companies improved as a whole.
Global Reputation Pulse - U.S. Top 25
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Rank Company Global Pulse Score
---- ------- ------------------
1 Johnson & Johnson 85.82
2 Kraft Foods Inc. 84.84
3 Kellogg 82.78
4 The Walt Disney Company 82.11
5 PepsiCo 81.20
6 Sara Lee 80.04
7 Google 79.31
8 Microsoft 79.28
9 UPS 78.93
10 Dean Foods 78.79
11 General Mills 78.46
12 Apple 78.36
13 Publix Super Markets Inc. 78.27
14 Caterpillar 78.07
15 Colgate-Palmolive 77.99
16 Eastman Kodak 77.73
17 Staples 77.70
18 FedEx 77.59
19 HJ Heinz 77.46
20 3M 77.15
21 Amazon.com 76.94
22 Hewlett-Packard 76.92
23 Intel 76.88
24 The Coca-Cola Company 76.86
25 Whirlpool 76.81