Disney

What’s happening with the reputations of the leading U.S. corporations? Are we talking “bad rep” or “bum rap”?

Actually, it turns out that corporate reputations are on the rise; that’s according to findings from the 2011 Reputation Quotient® Survey conducted by market research firm Harris Interactive.

Each year since 1999, Harris has measured the reputations of the 60 “most visible” corporations in the United States. The 2011 survey, fielded in January and February, included ~30,000 Americans who are part of Harris’ online panel database. Respondents rated the companies on 20 attributes that comprise what Harris deems the overall “reputation quotient” (RQ).

The 2011 survey contained 54 “most visible” companies that were also part of the 2010 survey. Of those, 18 of the firms showed significant RQ increases compared to only two with declines.

The 20 attributes in the Harris survey are then grouped into six larger categories that are known to influence reputation and consumer behavior:

 Products and services
 Financial performance
 Emotional appeal
 Vision and leadership
 Workplace environment
 Social responsibility

Each of the ten top-rated companies in the 2011 survey achieved between an 81 and 84 RQ score in corporate reputation. (Any RQ score over 80 is considered “excellent” in the Harris study). In cescending order of score, these top-ranked corporations were:

 Google
 Johnson & Johnson
 3M Company
 Berkshire Hathaway
 Apple
 Intel Corporation
 Kraft Foods
 Amazon.com
 Disney Company
 General Mills

At the other end of the scale, the ten companies with the lowest ratings among the 60 included on the survey were:

 Delta Airlines (61 RQ score)
 JPMorgan Chase (61)
 ExxonMobil (61)
 General Motors (60)
 Bank of America (59)
 Chrysler (58)
 Citigroup (57)
 Goldman Sachs (54)
 BP (50)
 AIG (48)

Clearly, BP and AIG haven’t escaped their bottom-of-the-barrel ratings – and probably won’t anytime soon.

What about certain industries in general? The Harris research reveals that the technology segment is perceived most positively, with ~75% of respondents giving that sector a positive rating.

The next most popular segment – retail – had ~57% of respondents giving it a positive rating.

For the auto industry, the big news is not that it’s held in high regard (it’s not) … but that its ratings jumped 15 percentage points between 2010 and 2011. That’s the largest one-year jump recorded for any industry in any year since the Harris RQ Survey began.

What industries are bouncing along the bottom? Predictably, it’s financial services firms and oil companies.

But the news from this survey is, on balance, quite positive. In fact, Harris found that there were actually more individual companies rated “excellent” than has ever been recorded in the history of the survey. Considering the sorry state of the economy and how badly many brands have been battered, that result is nothing short of amazing

Last week, the Associated Press reported that U.S. newspaper advertising revenues declined dramatically in 2009, bringing ad receipts to the lowest level recorded in nearly 25 years.

In fact, newspaper publishers’ total advertising revenues last year came in below $28 billion, down $10 billion from 2008. According to the Newspaper Association of America, annual ad revenues have now fallen by nearly $22 billion – a whopping 44% — since 2006.

And now, amid this toxic environment comes word that The Wall Street Journal has declared an all-out war on The New York Times for local advertising. In mid-April, the Journal — up to now focused almost exclusively on national and international news — is set to introduce a New York-focused section as part of its paper. Outside observers believe this will put as much as ~20% of the New York Times’ retail advertising revenues at risk.

And this isn’t a minor foray on the part of the WSJ, either. It will be spending upwards of $15 million to produce the new 12-page section which will cover local business, real estate, sports and cultural events. The financial outlay includes salaries for ~35 editorial writers – surely one of the few instances of new editor jobs actually becoming available.

The WSJ action couldn’t come at a worse time for the Times, which has experienced sharper ad revenue declines than the industry average. It’s responding by launching a major trade marketing campaign of its own, touting its audience strength with female readers and “high culture” afficionados.

But just how effective this countermove will be is debatable, as recent moves by the paper haven’t exactly telegraphed a continuing commitment to the local news scene. In the last few years alone, the Times has consolidated weekly sections covering specific regions of the New York metro area (Long Island, Westchester, Northern New Jersey), as well as axing its stand-alone “City” and “Metro” sections.

Over the coming months, it’ll be interesting to see how effective the WSJ is with its new local-focused section – whether or not it’ll land a major blow on its rival.

Either way, the vision of two venerable newspapers engaged in a Herculean struggle, fighting over an ever-shrinking advertising pie is isn’t exactly a pretty sight.

It reminds me of the famous scenes in the Disney movie Fantasia of the huge dinosaurs furiously going after one other – even as the world’s changing ecosystem is rendering the entire species extinct.