New Research Analysis Reveals Powerful Relationship Between Brand and Corporate Reputation

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Analysis of 50,000 consumers has found that when positive brand equity and positive corporate reputation were combined the effects were even stronger than the individual power of each.

“We believe that this relationship carries forth to all the industries that were included in the EQ and RQ studies. Individual companies will need to measure and analyze their unique product brand and corporate reputation drivers to find their maximized model.”

This new analysis of data can be found in a paper, “A Hidden Harmony: Documenting the Connection between Brand and Corporate Reputation,” published today by the Council of Public Relations Firms, in conjunction with Harris Interactive, a leading research-based consultancy specializing in brand and corporate reputation measurement and modeling.

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For marketers, these findings suggest that companies would achieve better results by adopting a new approach that takes product brand efforts and corporate reputation efforts out of their respective silos and deploys them jointly in pursuit of common objectives such as purchase consideration and recommendation.

“This has big implications for how companies are organized,” said Dave Senay, Fleishman-Hillard president and CEO and the 2013 Chair of the Council of Public Relations Firms. “Reputational considerations play a bigger role in purchase decisions than we’ve ever been able to statistically prove before, and on the flip side, brand dimensions definitely impact reputational outcomes. This shows, for the first time, the meaningful interplay between brand and reputation on a massive scale."

“Given the incredibly large number of respondents we had to work with, and the number of companies and brands we could include in the analysis, the impact levels we see and the validation of the drivers unique to each industry make this valuable and important analysis,” said Robert Fronk, Harris Interactive Executive Vice President. “We believe that this relationship carries forth to all the industries that were included in the EQ and RQ studies. Individual companies will need to measure and analyze their unique product brand and corporate reputation drivers to find their maximized model.”

Using results from the 2012 Harris Poll Equitrend® (EQ®) survey, which measures brand equity and associated attributes of over 1,000 product brands, and the 2012 Harris Poll Reputation Quotient® (RQ®) survey, which measures the corporate reputation of nearly 100 companies, the analysis applied statistical methods to analyze how the convergence of brand equity and corporate reputation drove purchase consideration and recommendation in three industries—automotive, B2B, and beverage.

The Council of Public Relations Firms is the U.S. trade association representing America’s leading public relations firms. Its members are the premier global, mid-size, regional, and specialty firms across every discipline and practice area. The Council’s mission is to advocate for and advance the business of public relations firms by building the market and the value of firms as strategic business partners. For more information about the Council, visit www.prfirms.org.