Longtime readers of the Nones Notes Blog have seen periodic articles about the evaluations done every year (since 1999) by the Harris Poll measuring the reputation of the 100 most visible U.S. corporations.
As perceived by the general public, in these annual rankings technology companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon have tended to outrank most other iconic brands across a variety of attributes.
It was almost as if the tech firms could do no wrong … whereas other famous corporate names were more susceptible to being hammered on a routine basis, depending on the “news of the day.”
Harris’ 2018 research results have now been published, and they show that the reputation of tech companies has been hit rather hard – all except for Amazon, that is.
The Harris Poll scores the 100 corporations on a variety of factors, including:
- Products and services
- Financial performance
- Workplace environment
- Vision and leadership
- Social responsibility
- Emotional appeal
The opinion research is conducted annually, beginning with consumer top-of-mind awareness of companies that have either excelled or faltered during the year. With the highest possible company rating being a 100, the Top 20 companies in the 2018 Harris Poll listing come in with reputation quotients ranging between 79 and 83:
- #1. Amazon.com: 83.22 reputation quotient
- #2. Wegmans: 82.75
- #3. Tesla Motors: 81/96
- #4. Chick-fil-A: 81.68
- #5. Wald Disney Company: 81.53
- #6. HEB Grocery: 81.14
- #7. UPS: 81.12
- #8. Publix Super Markets: 80.81
- #9. Patagonia: 80.44
- #10. Aldi: 80.43
- #11: Microsoft: 80.42
- #12. Nike: 80.24
- #13. Kraft Heinz Company: 80.15
- #14. Kellogg Company: 80.00
- #15. L.L.Bean: 79.83
- #16. Boeing Company: 79.80
- #17. Costco: 79.78
- #18. Kroger Company: 79.67
- #19. Honda Motor Company: 79.60
- #20. Proctor & Gamble: 79.32
It’s true that Amazon continues to be top-ranked (repeating its performance in 2017), but Google fell out of the Top 20 altogether, dropping from #8 position to #28.
Apple tumbled even more precipitously, falling from the #5 position to #29.
Facebook isn’t even in the Top 50 any longer; it languishes in the bottom half of the companies evaluated, now living in the neighborhood of companies like General Electric and YUM! Brands.
Of course, even the no-longer high-flying reputations of the tech firms can begin to compare with the bottom-dwellers – the companies who saw their reputations get hit with a ton of bricks over the past year and are now marooned at the very bottom of the Harris listing.
You know them: Equifax, Wells Fargo, and the Weinstein Company. How wonderful they are …
Nones Notes 
It seems to me companies become unpopular when they visibly abuse humans.
Wells Fargo misused both customers and employees in a noticeable manner. Facebook takes your personal confessions and makes them public knowledge. Weinstein…well, let’s just say the company had bathrobe troubles. Meanwhile, firms at the reputational top give us in large quantity things we want in an uncomplicated manner.
Who could hate UPS? It’s much easier to detest a highly visible natural resources company like Exxon, because politics plays into it, from labor unions to government taxation to global warming policies and overseas revolution. It’s all warm and fuzzy, on the other hand, when you can deliver an uncontroversial product which doesn’t pollute, doesn’t require large, possibly unhappy cadres of labor, whose construction needs don’t do anything ro annoy the public, and which can operate as if it were an unobtrusive piece of furniture in our lives.