Only one publicly traded company cracked the top five rankings for having the best corporate reputation in America in the newly published 2022 Axios-Harris Poll 100 list.
What Happened: The poll, which has been conducted since 1999, is based on a survey of 33,096 Americans conducted from March 11 to April 3. The survey was a two-step process that first inquires about high-visibility companies and whether their corporate reputations excel or falter with the general public, and then focuses on 100 of these companies across the seven key dimensions of reputation — trust, vision, growth, products and services, culture, ethics and citizenship, with the latter defined as whether the company shares the respondents’ values and supports worthy causes.
The companies that secured the top five rankings in this year’s poll were Trader Joe's, HEB Grocery, Patagonia, Hershey (NYSE:HSY) and Wegmans.
Hershey is the only publicly traded company of the quintet, while Patagonia was the sole company not in the food industry . The public admiration of the food industry shows a continuing resonance of the coronavirus pandemic’s worst days.
"The poll reinforces what we have seen on the ground with our local news product Axios Local," said Jim VandeHei, co-founder and CEO of Axios. "To reestablish trust with a skeptical population, you have to start closer to home, making a real impact within local communities. Consumers reward brands that deliver a trusted product on time and as promised."
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What Else Happened: Rounding out the top 10 of companies that the public admired the most were Samsung, Toyota Motor Corporation (NYSE:TM), Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), Honda Motor Company (NYSE:HMC) and Sony (NYSE:SONY).
Elsewhere on the list, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) placed 12th, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) was 22nd, Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) was 58th and The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS) was 65th,
Walmart (NYSE:WMT) was 77th and The Trump Organization occupied the cellar at 100th out of 100 companies.
Companies with at least a good reputation and the strong year-over-year improvement include AT&T (NYSE:T) (up 6.3%), Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Google (6.1%), Starbucks (NASDAQ:SBUX), (6.0%), Yum! Brands (NYSE:YUM) (5.4%), General Motors (NYSE:GM) (4.7%) and The Home Depot (NYSE:HD) (4.5%).
The companies with the biggest reputational declines from last year include Stellantis (NYSE:STLA) (down 8%), Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) (-4.9%), Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) (-4.7%), Disney (-4.3%), Trump Organization (-4.3%), Chick-fil-A (-3.7%), PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) (-3.5%), eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) (-3.3%), ExxonMobil (-3.3%) (NYSE:XOM) and Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) (-3.2%).
"To excel at reputation, companies must deliver high marks on business performance, corporate character and trust," said Ray Day, vice chairman of Stagwell, which includes The Harris Poll. "While you can build a brand, you earn a reputation. Companies with strong reputations have a price advantage, a competitive advantage and a talent advantage. That's why reputation needs to be a priority from the board room to the C-suite."
Photo courtesy Disney.
