Apple has the best image of any American company, scoring a record high in a new study by polling firm Harris Interactive. While Apple was at the top of the poll, financial institutions were the bottom feeders.
Apple, co-founded by Steve Jobs in 1976, vaulted to No. 1 in Harris Interactive’s annual public opinion poll on corporate brands. The Cupertino, California company raced passed last year’s brand champ in the poll, Google Inc.
Banks and other Wall Street institutions, meanwhile, plummeted to alarmingly low levels in the survey released on Monday. Some of the nation’s financial firms have images that now U.S. history, such as Enron Corp.
AIG ranks last in the research company’s survey, falling behind Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.
Apple and Google have emerged as top American brands, as the tech industry is enjoying its showing as the only industry with a mostly positive reputation. Harris found that tech companies “have been consistently associated with strong vision, innovation and leadership over the past five years.”
Sixty percent of those polled say Corporate America’s image got worse over the past year, while only 9 percent thought it improved. Coca-Cola, Amazon, and Kraft Foods rounded out the top five in the survey.
Survey respondents evaluated companies on six qualities: leadership, financial performance, workplace environment, social responsibility, emotional appeal and the quality of products and services.
Walt Disney Co, Johnson & Johnson, Whole Foods Market, Microsoft Corp and United Parcel Service Inc filled the remaining slots in the 2012 top 10.
Zieminski continues, “Apple earned a record high score of 85.62 on a scale of 100, helping the company rise from No. 5 a year ago. In addition to riding Jobs’ legacy, Apple’s gains were driven by product quality to profitability and environmental record.”
“The timing of Jobs’ death certainly played a role in bringing out an emotional attachment to the company and reinforced the elements of reputation that he brought (to Apple products),” said Harris Executive Vice President Robert Fronk, who leads the company’s analysis of corporate reputations.
One of the hottest names in the tech sector, Facebook, did not rank despite being familiar to billions of people.
“People don’t currently think of Facebook as a company,” Fronk said. He says the brand is looked at as a channel or a service than a corporation, something that will likely change after it goes public.
Companies with the lowest reputation rankings are all financial service providers:
AIG, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America each garnered fewer than 50 points, a level that signifies that the companies “risk remaining viable,” according to Harris.
“Financial services companies and banks have been mishandling their corporate reputations even pre-Occupy Wall Street,” Fronk said.