BUILDING A GOOD NAME

Advertising can help to build reputations, but to be effective, the advertising message must be consistently and honestly carried through in the company’s interaction with the public

All you have in business is your reputation,” says Virgin founder Richard Branson. Quite how to build that reputation is less easy to summarise, but it seems to boil down to consistency.

It is telling that in the 2017 SA Reptrak Pulse reputation survey, conducted by Reputation House and released this week, seven of the top 10 companies with the best reputations were in the fast-moving consumer goods and retail category.

Companies in these two sectors have to be consistent: stock must always be available, and the experience with customers must be reliably good.

Milk producer Clover, which is listed on the JSE, was the top-rated reputable company in SA in 2017. It scooped top spot in 2016 as well.

From rank two to 10, the remaining companies in the top tier were Coca-cola, Pick n Pay, Nestlé, First National Bank, Woolworths, Spar Group, Old Mutual, Discovery and TFG.

It was no surprise that state-owned enterprises (SOES) had the lowest standing on the rankings. Eskom, subjected to the onagain, off-again leadership of Brian Molefe and a number of scandals, was cited as the “least reputable” SOE by respondents.

Reputation House chairman Dominik Heil says though this survey has been conducted in many countries, there are some interesting differences between SA and the rest of the globe.

“Usually banks have really weak reputations around the world,” says Heil, “but South Africans seem to like banks.”

First National Bank ranked at number five, Capitec at 21, Standard Bank at 28 and Nedbank at 29. Absa is 44th.

Heil says that, historically, SA mobile network operators, led by Vodacom and MTN, have had some of the best reputations in the world. “That their reputations have decreased over the past year suggests they are falling in line with global trends,” he says.

Of the 50 companies listed on the rankings, telecoms are in the bottom 10 — with the exception of Vodacom Group, at 32.

One intriguing aspect of the survey findings is that the reputations of SA ➦ Survey respondents were from sections of society that are most likely to affect the economic success of businesses.

The Reptrak Pulse 2017 reputation study was conducted in February and March. The reputations of the biggest, most visible companies in SA were measured by means of an online survey of 5,806 people.

Of these, 47% classified themselves as white, 33% as African, 9% as Indian/asian and 7% as coloured; 3% chose not to say.

The level of education was given as more than matric by 65%; 35% said they had middle education (matric).

Reputation House chairman Dominik Heil says the data was collected from economically active people. “This unfortunately tilts our sample towards the historically advantaged sections of society.

“It is not intentional, but it tends to work out this way given the income distribution across races in SA.”

Heil says the study is not an indication of what the average person on the street thinks, but is a fair representation of the sections of society that typically have the biggest effect on the economic success of SA companies.

Most respondents were from Gauteng, with 27%, followed by Kwazulu Natal, with 23%; 15% were from the Western Cape.