DJs, Qantas, Vodafone Hutchison fall in corporate reputation rankings, but JB Hi-Fi still sells: Survey

The reputations of David Jones, Vodafone Hutchison and Qantas have taken a hit, according to a new survey, although JB Hi-Fi retains the title of having Australia’s strongest corporate reputation.

According to an annual corporate reputation survey conducted by research consultancy AMR, the listed electronic group JB Hi-FI was ranked as having the best reputation. It is the second time the company has topped the rankings.

The government-owned Australia Post, Toyota Motor, Nestle Australia and Wesfarmers filled out the top five.

Big bank challenger ING Direct, Qantas, Air New Zealand, Aldi Australia and Myer were in the top 10.

The annual survey of Australians aged 18-64 looks at 60 companies, chosen from the BRW Top 100 companies list. The survey, which is part of a global study, had 5,600 respondents in Australia.

It judges the companies on products and services, innovation, workforce, citizenship, governance and leadership.

AMR general manager Greg Petterson says the top 10 is filled with “challenger-type brands that are pushing the envelope a bit more and developing more services, and then iconic brands with a strong emotional connection.”

“One thing you can learn is that you can withstand mini-crises, but a lot of it is how upfront you are about it, and trying to help people.”

Looking at companies whose reputation took a slide, David Jones fell to 25th this year, from eighth the previous year, after a sexual harassment scandal involving its former chief executive Mark McInnes.

On the question of governance, it slumped to 41st from 18th. For leadership, it dropped to 46th from 10th.

Technical problems at mobile phone group Vodafone Hutchison saw its ranking slump to 59th from 35th.

National carrier Qantas also dropped three places down the list, after a series of technical problems, but remained in the top seven.

Petterson described the Qantas result as interesting.

“Because they had developed such brand equity over the years, they only saw a small fall. They have such a fantastic safety record overall, so people took the incidents as an anomaly,” he told SmartCompany.

“The other thing is Qantas handled it very well. They were very transparent, as opposed to Vodafone.”

Petterson says the big banks did reasonably well – ranking in the 30s and 40s – after soaring up the list post-GFC.

He’s upbeat National Australia Bank will survive recent technical difficulties with its reputation reasonably intact, so long as it doesn’t produce other big blunders and manages to handle this one well.

“NAB will have to keep their eye on the issue over the next six to 12 months,” Petterson says.

But if they don’t, NAB won’t be the only brand to suffer. Petterson says problems in banks, which before the GFC had a poor reputation, are more likely to affect companies across the whole industry than other sectors.

Telstra, one of the most popular stocks for retail shareholders, came in last at 60th. Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton came in at 29th and 33rd respectively.