Google and Rolex top global brands, driven by perceived commitment to CSR

TORONTO, May 2, 2017 /CNW/ - While multinational brands lead the pack in winning the hearts and minds of Canadians, two homegrown companies – Mountain Equipment Co-op and Shoppers Drug Mart – are among the leaders in the Canadian edition of the world's largest and longest-running annual study on corporate reputation.

This year's Canada RepTrak® 50, which measures the corporate reputation of the most highly regarded companies in Canada, finds technology giant Google in the top spot, followed by watchmaker Rolex, while last year's top-ranked company, LEGO, drops seven spots to number eight.

After being shut out of the top 10 in 2016, Canadian-owned companies are moving their way up to the top of the rankings, with MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op) and Shoppers Drug Mart/Pharmaprix taking third and seventh place overall respectively among the more than 300 companies tracked, based on over 30,000 ratings collected from Canadians in the first quarter of 2017. The survey is also unique in that it only includes ratings from people with stated familiarity with the companies.

"The most significant shift we've observed in the past year is the increased importance of corporate citizenship as one of the key drivers of a company's reputation with Canadians," said Bradley Hecht, Vice-President and Chief Research Officer at Reputation Institute. "It's no surprise the reputations of all top 10 companies reflect their commitment to social responsibility, as these companies are associated with making the world a better place."

In addition to the overall ratings from Canadians with stated familiarity with each company, the RepTrak® system also scores companies on seven key dimensions of reputation: products and services, innovation, workplace, governance, citizenship, leadership and (financial) performance.

Here are the top 10 companies in the 2017 Canada RepTrak® 50 survey:

In all, nine Canadian companies cracked the Top 50, including Tim Hortons (13^th), Jean Coutu Group (16^th), Agropur (27^th), Jamieson Vitamins (31^st), Home Hardware (45^th), Porter Airlines (47^th) and Cineplex (50^th).

"It's extremely gratifying to receive this recognition, validating our efforts to continually earn our members' trust," said MEC CEO David Labistour. "We endeavour to not only meet their evolving expectations for high-quality products and services but to provide value through other elements of the MEC brand, from holding community events to support them to be active outdoors to reducing the environmental footprint of our operations through programs like zero waste."

The 2017 Canada RepTrak® 50 also looked at the most reputable industries and found the

hospitality, technology, consumer, and transport sectors were the only ones with a strong reputation in Canada, while the raw materials, energy and telecommunications fields received the weakest scores.

What factors define reputation?

When looking at the key attributes that define the most reputable companies in Canada, in addition to their strong CSR credentials, three major components stood out:

• They let people really get to know them – through transparency and communication
• To build reputation it is necessary to reinforce the emotional bond that stakeholders have with the company, by leveraging the power of familiarity
• They earn more love from millennials
• Top companies have a higher reputation among millennials, and outperform other companies in their ability to garner millennial support
• They express a deeper sense of brand purpose
• Top companies have a reputation that is amplified by a powerful corporate brand halo, as defined by appearing genuine, unique, and consistent

With a direct correlation between corporate reputation and business performance, companies have an opportunity to understand the key opportunities and gaps, and have processes in place to manage reputation.

"While all top companies score well in performance and product attributes, the key to standing out is in corporate social responsibility, where companies get the greatest return on their investment in reputation," said Daniel Tisch, President and CEO of Argyle Public Relationships, a leading Canadian expert in reputation management. "Effective CSR is about expressing values – and adding value to the business in a way that's open, honest and transparent."

To see the full rankings of the 2017 Canada RepTrak® 50, visit www.reputationinstitute.com/canada.

About Reputation Institute (www.reputationinstitute.com)  
Reputation Institute (RI) is the world's leading consulting and advisory firm for reputation. RI enables many of the world's leading companies to make more confident business decisions that build and protect reputation capital, analyze risk and sustainability topics, and drive competitive advantage. RI's most prominent management tool is the RepTrak® model for analyzing the reputations of companies and institutions — best known via the Global RepTrak® 100, the world's largest and most comprehensive study of corporate reputations, as well as Country RepTrak® and City RepTrak® studies that look at reputation across organizations within a given geography.

About Argyle Public Relationships™ (www.argylepr.com)
For more than 35 years, Argyle has been chosen by some of the world's biggest brands, put big ideas onto the public agenda, and grown to become one of Canada's largest independent communications firms. Argyle builds relationships in many sectors, in many ways. The firm's specialties include consumer and trade marketing, corporate communications, healthcare communications, government and public affairs, digital communications and branding and design.

SOURCE Argyle Public Relationships

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