People Are Talking

Businesses are competing in a reputation economy, where “who they are” matters more than “what they produce,” says the Reputation Institute, which studies and monitors the reputations of U.S.-based public companies. From its research, the Reputation Institute concludes that consumers’ perceptions of companies are 60-percent responsible for key consumer behaviors such as purchase consideration, loyalty and recommendation. Product perception accounts for the remaining 40 percent.

This spring, the Reputation Institute released its sixth-annual list of the 10 U.S. companies ranking highest in consumer reputations. See if you can guess where each one of the following brands placed on the list, then scroll down to check your answers.

>>Improve Your Rep
After identifying which American businesses have the strongest consumer reputations, the Reputation Institute dug deeper to find out what these companies were doing right. Here’s what it found out.

Invest in reputation management. Companies moving up the reputation chain invest up to 40 percent of their annual budgets on corporate reputation.

Designate a reputation strategy leader. For many companies, this is the CEO.

Plan your reputation. Nearly all high-ranking companies include reputation in their annual business plans.

Track your reputation. Companies often use reputation as a key performance indicator, even more so than customer retention.

>>QUIZ ANSWERS …
The Reputation Institute’s Top 10 brands according to consumer reputation are:

#1    General Mills
#2    Kraft
#3    Johnson & Johnson
#4    Kellogg’s
#5    Amazon
#6    UPS
#7    Coca-Cola
#8    Apple
#9    Pepsi
#10  Procter & Gamble