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Corporate Reputations: The Building, Collapse, and Long Road to the Top
By: John Gilfeather, Executive Advisor to Vision Critical
Has there ever been a better time to talk about corporate reputation?
Financial collapses. Venerable old firms being swallowed up or disappearing. Unsafe products being sold and deaths resulting. Major corporations being bailed out by the government. Bonuses being paid to executives who presided over colossal failures. Is there any wonder that corporations are being battered by the American Public?
Vision Critical just completed a study of the reputations of 54 companies. Each company was evaluated by 800 American using the Springboard America panel to conduct a total of 10,800 interviews. These evaluations are extremely rigorous – there are 38 data points for each company. Not only can the companies know where they stand, but what they need to do now to improve their reputations on an absolute basis and against their competitors.
Too often reputation is measured as something very separate from the key metrics of the business. By looking at different segmentations, ties can be made between reputation and business, marketing, social and political dynamics. For the latest study, the segmentations include: social and traditional media use, financial/investment confidence, technology adoption, eco-sensitivity, shopping behavior and citizen activism.
So what are we finding?
In my 40 years of experience measuring corporate reputation, I have never seen the extent of negativity we’re finding today. We used to tell clients that if their negative scores (bottom 2 box on a 6-point scale) were at 10% they needed to worry, if they were at 15% trouble was brewing and if they were above 20% they were in bad shape. Of the 54 companies measured, seven have negative scores ranging from 26% to 49%. This level of vitriol is new and dangerous.
Reputation studies probe into the negative issues that are on people’s mind, but are usually not asked about. On average – across the 54 companies studied – 30% of Americans say these companies put their profits ahead of what is good for the American public.
Is all this negativism viral – an outcome of the rising use of blogs and social media?
Surprisingly, no. On average across the 54 companies, 30% of Americans recall seeing news about the companies in traditional media and 9% recall seeing news about the companies on social media. For BP, the company most in the news lately, 86% of Americans recall seeing news about the companies in traditional media and 33% recall seeing news about the companies on social media. We are going to be exploring this issue of social media reach more in future studies, Our findings confirm that BP is on the right track by using more expensive traditional media in tandem with social media to get its message out. Right now, over 90% who recall news about BP say the news is negative and most of these say it makes them view the company less favorably.
Knowing where a company stands in the public psyche is the first step to fine-tuning reputation. Through online research solutions, companies are now able to get relevant, of the moment feedback and the key insight as to what needs to be improved in order to stay ahead of the competition, or in BP’s case, get out of the doghouse.
ReputationPlus™ is a diagnostic reputation measurement and management approach that provides a comparative view of corporate reputation.
This is more or less an essay on negative public views of corporations. Criminal Actions of corporate CEO’s that are immediately covered by a plethora of of distortions and strategic misrepresentations aren’t going to get the brass ring. Ethics codes must be upfront and heeded. In BP’s case they simply did not heed the engineers warning about the unsafe setup of the whole operation. Lets call them, the corporate guys in the $15,000 suits-the “suits”and the others they are playing against–the guys on the rig and those in the know of safe and proper procedures-the “shirts”. Unfortunately they are in direct competition, not on the same team. Only Brazil and Norway have the most stringent procedures in place for drilling. The phrase “drill baby drill”continues to ring in my head. Now we have an angry mob, similar to the mob that wanted to kill Frankensteins monster, after BP. The oil cannot be put back under the shell a mile or so deep, as the genie cannot be put back into the bottle by any amount of journalistic wrangling. It should be a Harvard-style case study as to what preventative measures are gained from this fiasco. I dont see much opportunity for growth or change in the article. Corporate image seems to be the word of the day, rather than correcting underlying factors that lead to bad decisions and global health impacts. This is a sort of Beatlemania type “instant karma” where the consequences of bad thought and action come back instntly to the perpetrator, in this case as as evil black suffocating oil that spreads like the Blob. People want truth, justice and the American way back, but Superman® has retired and is on life support and the USA gov lives in a fantasy land and there are no answers just lost opportunity to do the transparent, honest right thing. Lets listen to the shirts, not the suits.
I agree w/ Kent, and in addition:
How is BP able to spend so much on their “heartfelt” commercials, but limited funding to actually fix their “mistake” is being rebutted by their insurance claims adjustors?
There are no ethics in these companies, along with the government; they will continue to act as they do until we stand up & fight. I’m ready, are you?