Brand Respect 2014 – The Most and Least Respected Corporate Brands 2014
– 6 points –
– 5 points –
– 3 points –
– 5 points –
– 19 (out of 60) –
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- Global, e.g. North America, Europe and Asia (5 points)
- Regional, e.g. Europe or North America (3 points)
- Large national market: e.g. US, China, Japan, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Brazil (2 points)
- Mid-sized or small market, e.g. Switzerland, Netherlands, Argentina, Singapore (1 point)
Ranking will be recognized by key stakeholders:
- Opinion Leaders (Politicians, Professors; NGO’s) (2 points)
- Business Advisory Board, C-Level Executives (CEO, CCO, CFO, CMO) (2 points)
- High Potentials & Top Talents (employer market, students) (2 points)
- Financial Market (2 points)
- General Public (2 points)
Aggregated points: 6 (of max. 15)
- Ranking owner has limited credibility and reputation. (1 point)
- Ranking owner has fair credibility and reputation. (3 points)
- Ranking owner has excellent credibility and reputation. (5 points)
What is the ranking owner’s intention to produce and disseminate the ranking?
- Ranking is predominantly a tool to raise awareness for the owner with the possible intention to sell consultancy services. (1 point)
- Ranking is partly a tool to raise awareness for the owner with the possible intention to sell consultancy services. (3 points)
- Ranking is predominantly a tool to surface and share important insights on the subject surveyed. (5 points)
Is/Are the media outlet(s) where the ranking is published of high credibility and reputation?
- Media outlet(s) has/have limited credibility and reputation. (1 point)
- Media outlet(s) has/have fair credibility and reputation. (3 points)
- Media outlet(s) has/have excellent credibility and reputation. (5 points)
Comment: No media partner, results are distributed by PR-Newswire, only small media coverage by independent media.
Aggregated points: 3 (of max. 15)
- limited orientation only (1 point)
- fair orientation provided (3 points)
- very good orientation (5 points)
Is the Ranking published in the same format on a regular basis, e.g. annually, which allows to track developments and comparisons over time?
- ranking is published for the first time (1 point)
- ranking is published for the second time in the same format (3 points)
- ranking is published for more than 3 times on a regular basis in the same format (5 points)
Comment: Ranking published for the first time in 2013.
Do the ranking results provide added value and further insights on how companies are evaluated in in their industry, e.g. detailed ratings in various sub-dimensions of the overall result?
- limited added value only (1 point)
- fair amount of added value (3 points)
- high amount of added value (5 points)
Comment: Neither further insights on how companies are evaluated in their industry nor ratings in various subdimensions of the overall result.
Aggregated points: 5 (of max. 15)
- Ranking is based on a jury’s opinion only. (1 point)
- Ranking is based on a small survey or only on a limited group of stakeholders. (3 points)
- Ranking is based on a robust and representative survey. (5 points)
Comment: Ranking is based on responses by more than 10,000 business decision makers – but only from the “top 20 percent of US publicly traded businesses”.
Is the ranking methodology easy to understand and reasonable – even for non-statisticians?
- Methodology not easy to understand and not reasonable. (1 point)
- Methodology fairly good to understand and reasonable. (3 points)
- Methodology very easy to understand and reasonable. (5 points)
Comment: CoreBrand claims to correlate data on the levels of Familiarity and Favorability “to uncover the sentiment behind the most well-known brands. Brands with the highest Familiarity and Favorability are defined as most respected, while brands that are well-known among audiences but have the lowest Favorability are considered the least respected.
Is the ranking methodology easy to access and transparent?
- Methodology not easy to find and not sufficiently transparent. (1 point)
- Methodology fairly good to find and of medium transparency. (3 points)
- Methodology very easy to find and of high transparency. (5 points)
Aggregated points: 5 (of max. 15)
- Product / Service Brands
- Company Brands
- Corporate Reputation and Company Esteem
- Social Responsibility, CSR & Sustainability, Ethical Business Practices
- Innovation & Technology
- Employer Attractiveness & Diversity
- Leadership
- Nations & Destinations
- University & Other Institutions
- Sports
- Lifestyle
- Social Media
- Personal Branding & CEOs
Ranking statistics
- Name of Ranking: Brand Respect 2014 - The Most and Least Respected Corporate Brands
- Ranking managed/produced by institute/organization: CoreBrand
- Ranking published by media outlet: several, no media partner
- Date of recent publication: July 14, 2014
- Date of previous publication: August 20, 2013
CoreBrand, a US-based brand consultancy firm, published its annual ranking “Brand Respect – The Most and Least Respected Corporate Brands”. The ranking is based on responses by more than 10,000 business decision makers – but only from the “top 20 percent of US publicly traded businesses”. It is not revealed who these decision makers are or which companies they work for. CoreBrand claims to correlate data on the levels of Familiarity and Favorability “to uncover the sentiment behind the most well-known brands”. Unfortunately, no explanation is provided how this “sentiment” is uncovered – although that would be of highest interest for practitioners. CoreBrand states that “brands with the highest Familiarity and Favorability are defined as most respected, while brands that are well-known among audiences but have the lowest Favorability are considered the least respected“. Beyond stating the obvious – that companies with higher Favorability tend to be more respected, and that people are familiar with a brand doesn’t mean that the brand is well-liked or well-respected – this is not really a revolutionary finding! And it would be of highest interest why this is the case!!
Apart from this, the ranking methodology has significant flaws: As a high awareness is – next to favorability – one precondition for companies to be ranked on top of the list, B2B companies with high esteem among their key stakeholders have no chance to be listed. One reason for advocating awareness is that CoreBrand generates business with advertising. These methodological flaws might be the reason why this ranking has no permanent media partner and no strong media coverage, but is published via PR-Newswire, resulting in some traffic among electronic and social media.
According to the method, it is little wonder that almost only US-based companies with top awareness show up in the top ranks: Coca-Cola, PepsiCo., Johnson & Johnson or Apple.
Summarizing, “The Most and Least Respected Corporate Brands” is a mere marketing tool intended to catch budget owners’ attention for CoreBrand’s services. The ranking provides no additional value for corporate practitioners and is therefore a useless ranking. The complete report can be viewed here.