J&J, Kraft Tout Best Corporate Reps

In a time of unprecedented activism, cynicism and social networking, pubic opinion means a lot to your company's bottom line. A recent national corporate reputation survey from Vision Critical and its public opinion arm Angus Reid Public Opinion took a radical approach to measuring corporate reputations by probing the negatives (like executive compensation, secrecy, greed and arrogance) to give a richer view of which companies are winning the battle for public opinion which are losing and why.

 

Each of the 54 companies in the survey was evaluated by 800 Americans, from a total of 10,800. An overall reputation ranking is a based on an index scored from 0 to 100 that represents the average associations given to a company based on 15 attributes and 8 personality traits.

 

The good news for our industry is that U.S. household goods companies won out in battle for public opinion, claiming five of the top 10 spots:

 

1 Johnson & Johnson

2 Kraft Foods

3 Disney

4 Campbell Soup Company

5 Home Depot

6 Google

7 Procter & Gamble

8 Apple

10 Microsoft

 

Johnson & Johnson tops the list of most favorably perceived companies in a top 10 dominated by CPG companies and the big three computing and technology companies. The top 10 all rated favorably on fundamentals, like value, quality and trust and being welcomed into a local community, all signs of well managed companies and good corporate citizens. These companies are not just household names but valued household guests -- their products staples of most American households.Coca-Cola (No. 14), Kimberly-Clark (No. 15), Pepsico (No. 16) placed in the top 20, while no pure play consumer goods companies landed in the bottom half of the list.

 

The top ranking companies have generally avoided any major recent scandals, reflected by a lack of the most negative label of "idiots" -- the public's shorthand for arrogance, greed and secrecy. However these companies still attracted comment about executive compensation and putting their profits above what is good for the country.

 

The bottom half of the rankings are dominated by financial services and health insurance companies. Those with the least favorable rankings are ones that have been splashed across our television screens and newspaper front pages -- think BP -- and not for positive reasons. Health insurers, major banks, Toyota, brokerage firms and oil companies are all subject to public opinion backlash.

 

Click here to view the full list.