Brands Need To Be Local, Not Global, When Looking To Better Their Reputations

According to the advertising and marketing news aggregator site Warc, new research from MSLGroup has found that brands looking to improve their reputation need to market at a local – rather than global – level.

This is because corporate reputation is determined at a local level, the research – based on 26,000 interviews conducted across ten countries – claims. In the research, respondents were asked whether they liked, trusted and respects companies; their answers were collected to create a Reputation Core Index (RCI) – further questions were then asked to analyse the different factors affecting how respondents see different businesses.

The top factors influencing how customers view a business include perceptions of products and services and corporate behaviour. Financial performance was found to be the least influential factor affecting reputation.

The score for business reputation on the RCI averaged out at 66 across the ten countries. India, Brazil and China all scored the highest, with 79, 76 and 75 respectively. Germany, France and Sweden came lower with 60, 59 and 51 respectively.

Businesses need to keep in mind the differences between local markets and what constitutes a good reputation in each region. Global businesses recorded widely varying RCI readings in different regions, with GlaxoSmithKline scoring 42 in Sweden, but 81 in India. In fact, Glenn Osaki – the president of MSLGROUP in Asia – said: “The different observed between ‘the old world’ and ‘the new world’ underline the need for a finely-tuned reputation strategy.

“Brands should avoid a standardised global definition of reputation, but attend to each individual market with insight and care.”

This particular example also highlights another trend discovered in the survey – customers in developing markets are more positive about business’ reputation.