Who do you trust more, Google or Toyota? The answer might depend on where you live. In its annual corporate reputation survey of 60,000 people worldwide, the Reputation Institute finds that Google scores highest in the U.S., but is No. 2 worldwide after Toyota. On the global list, Ikea is No. 3, Johnson & Johnson is No. 5, and Walt Disney is No. 12. Apple doesn’t even make it into the top 25 (see below).
Using the same data, Forbes breaks out the top 75 companies in the U.S. In the U.S. alone, Apple is No. 17, HP is No. 18, Intel is No. 19, Dell is No. 25, IBM is No. 35 and Microsoft comes in at No. 43. Bringing up the rear is Motorola at No. 50, Cisco at No. 55, CBS at No. 62, and American Express at No. 75. (See partial list below).
These rankings are based on an opinion poll, but they just don’t seem right to me. How can Dell be No. 25, with all of its customer service issues last year? And why is American Express, which regularly ranks as one of the most admired companies in the world and one of the top brands, dead last?
It is instructive to compare some of these rankings to the top 100 brands, as measured by an estimate of brand value. (See below). Google, again is No.1. Microsoft is No. 3, IBM is No. 6, Apple is No. 7, Toyota is No. 12, HP is No. 16, American Express is No. 20, Intel is No. 27, and Dell is No. 41. About the only company the two rankings agree on is HP. These brand rankings feel like a better measure of reputation to me than the Reputation Institute’s survey.
What do you think? Take our own poll. Vote for the companies you trust or admire the most. Multiple answers are allowed.
Editor’s note: I put in BMW twice by mistake in our poll, so please only vote once for BMW if you vote for it at all. I’m keeping the existing poll up rather than put up a new one and throwing away the votes that have already been cast.
I trust -
Apple
Google
Nokia
Intel
Yahoo
Ebay
Dell
Microsoft
Apple still seem to have not gained much trust from other countries than US.
BMW is listed twice in the poll. Skews results and all…
BMW is shown twice.
Google 1st for me!
Oops, BMW is twice. But I’m just going to leave it because 657 votes have already been registered, and to fix it I would need to put up an entirely new poll, throwing out those results. So we might have to throw out BMWs results, or just go with the highest one of the two.
How about none of the above?
Reasonable..
Google Docs and Docs for Apps are down for at least last 15 minutes! So much for the reputation.
i love pixar
even though they are owned by disney, i don’t really trust disney but i trust pixar
could be the integrity of their storytelling
i.e. wall-e v. bolt
I don’t really know if I actually “trust” any of them but I voted the best answers I could
I was also going to comment on the irony of a Google reputation survey, the same morning that Google Docs has been down for about 1 hour! People are twittering about it at the rate of about 2 tweets per minute:
http://summize.com/search?q=google+docs+down
“And why is American Express, which regularly ranks as one of the most admired companies in the world and one of the top brands, dead last?”
Without knowing how this ranking works, I’d say it would be because not that many people have experience with American Express. How can you admire or trust a company you’ve never had any experience with?
I sure hope they checked it people had an experience with the company before asking them whether they trusted or admired said company.
When was the last time you heard someone say “Man, I really like what General Mills is doing these days”?
Sure, people love their Coco Puffs but does that really mean they love and respect General Mills? I think you need to correlate the respected companies with the respected brands list to see the whole picture.
OK - Google Docs back up again. Total outage: 1 hour.
Most people on TC are tech-inclined. Therefore the results of this poll will be skewed in favor of Tech companies.
Whoever created to poll must love BMW… It’s on there twice.
Skoda
Surprising that Mozilla Firefox isn’t on this list (?). Definitely among the most trusted and admired brands in my book.
I personally trust Google the most, but what is with all of those technology companies on there?
Who do you trust more, Google or Toyota? The answer is very clear GOOGLE..If we answer the next question, the previous question would be answered itself..
How many times in a week do we need to depend on Google and how many times we depend upon Toyota?
The answer is crystal clear…..
lol, yea… BMW is twice there =D
Comparing the different survey results strikes me as incongruent. Trust and value and admiration are all very different things. I can admire a company I don’t really trust: Dell, for example, is highly admirable for the massive change they brought in JIT production. But that doesn’t mean I have trust in their product, their sales process and intent, their customer service, etc.
I can also trust one company more than another even if it’s brand value is lower (for example I have more “trust” in the lower-valued BMW than in Microsoft).
So these results are all interesting to analyze academically, but there’s not much point in trying to reconcile the lists.
I admire IBM & Levi’s very much too.
My IBM thinkpad (pre Lenovo R51 model) is a legendary workhouse & my Levi’s jeans have never malfunctioned on me before
I’m guessing those who trust Google the most never read Google’s Privacy Policy
You just can’t stop admiring what is possible in this this new age: a company is barely 10 years old and already it’s No 1 trusted company in US and 2′nd in the world. Unbelievable…
How about Four Seasons?
:-I
Why no love for IBM in the TC poll? (ok, I’m biased, I work for them… but still, would love to see how they’d have fared in your TC poll). Or was it supposed to be IBM instead of BMW twice?
I dub thee Eric “Pollmaster” Schonfeld. Please take this anyway you want.
Also, it is nice that users do not read previous comments before they comment.
Erick, rather… bah, no ability to edit my posts.
I only voted for Toyota - their cars have saved me from injury on one occasion and have always proven to be very reliable and robust. The service packages are great too.
http://www.brandtags.net/battle/leaderboard.php is another real time listing of brands “value.”
How can Google be so respected when they no stomach in standing up to China and their thought police.
trust and admire are two different values. I admire Google but don’t necessarily trust them to do the right thing, e.g. when it comes to privacy and analysis of data etc.
Apple I both admire and trust based on my long experience as a customer.
Google is basically a spyware and data aggregating company, no? I try to stay away from Google except for search, and keep their tracking cookie off my computer.
It’s a shame that the sheeple are so meek and corporations so much in control of Congress. I think we Americans should be as secure in our computers as we are in the rest of our home. If you have a firewall that blocks outbound communications, you get messages all the time like “ubxqjkl.exe is trying to access the Internet.” What the hell is that? What’s going out? Some things get into general knowledge, like the fact that every time you upgrade Windows a copy of your registry goes back to Bill, but we should really be able to control what goes in and out of our computers.
this polls sounds like pure bullshit to me.. KRAFT? the makers of CRAP food that kills you and is disgusting and awful? people are either really stupid or something is messed up.. KRAFT IS what is wrong with the food industry..
anyways this whole poll seems rediculous.. i consider myself quite informed on brands.. and this lists really sucks
yea bmws are cool and all.. but i admire toyota more for what they have done for the global auto industry.. anyways i once again have lost faith in humankind
I admire Google (their business module and minds behind) but I don’t trust them. I think the poll question in incorrect.
Be careful about trusting google too much folks. Try googling a camera, for instance, the “Canon SD1000″. One of the sponored links that appears is “Everyprice.com”. This is a well known front end to several bogus low-lif bait and switch electronics companies that operate out of NYC. All the of reseller reviews on Everyprice.com are completely bogus. Many consumers are getting screwed everyday, and have been for years now. Google, however, still gladly accepts money from Everyprice.com to be a “sponsored link” and suck unsuspecting consumers to these horrible electronics companies (thedigitalnerds, wilddigital, fotoconnection, the list goes on and on and on). That’s not very reputable in my opinion. Google needs to open its eyes, close its wallet, and do something about this.
I agree with the above, your question is double-barrelled and therefore makes no sense. Then again I work in Market Research so I deal with this kind of crap every day.
Reputation Instituter actually use a number of questions to get their rankings, though it’s interesting that even your bad question brings Google to the top.
There are certain situations - Apple and Berkshire Hathaway being great examples - where the company reputation derives primarily from the myth of the founder. Berkshire Hathaway rates high in most reputation rankings, but if you dig into the individual companies (e.g. Johns Manville, Geico, Shaw Industries), the story is very different. Same with Apple, whose reputation is attached at the hip to the myth of Jobs, despite a recent run of generally mediocre products and (now with the i-Phone contract fiasco) services.