This year marks the 12th consecutive year that Harris has released the RQ poll.  This years’ poll looked at 60 top companies.  The poll took an online format and involved 30,104 people.  The “Reputation Quotient” is a number score out of 100 that is based on six categories of review – social responsibility, emotional appeal, products & services, workplace environment, financial performance and vision & leadership.  Scores are broken into rankings – 80+ being excellent, 75-80 very good, 70-75 good and 65-70 fair.

Google topped the poll with a combined score of 84.05, which is excellent.  Google ranked in the top 5 on all but one of the previously named categories of review.  The one from which they fell out of the top 5? Emotional appeal.  Johnson & Johnson placed second for the second year in a row with a score of 83.13.  3M rounded out the top 3 with a score of 82.56.

Last year’s winner Berkshire Hathaway fell to fourth place and with recent location tracking issues not a factor in the survey, Apple made a big move from 12th to 5th.

The bottom three on the list of 60 are Goldman Sachs, BP, and AIG – three companies who have had their share of bad press in the past few years.  AIG’s score was a meager 47.77, almost 20 points away from just a fair rating.

Here are the rankings for each category:

An interesting find within the survey is that overall reputation rankings of all industry are up from last year.  Is it possible that people are at least attempting to restore trust for some maligned sectors?  Financial services sector positive rankings jumped up 6 percent from 2010.  No industry declined.  Even the Tobacco Industry held firm at 11% positive ratings.

The most positively viewed sector is Tech, with a 75% positive rating.  The biggest jump in approval ratings was within the automotive sector, improving 15 points over the course of the year.

So what characteristics makes a company fall into that good-excellent reputation rating?  Here is Harris’ observation:

Companies that receive good-excellent reputation ratings are those that can be characterized as companies that “support the infrastructure” of the lives of the American public, both personally and professionally.  These infrastructure companies fall into two camps.
–    Those that are so solidly reliable that they let me perform my personal and work tasks without having to think about them
•    This is particularly true of those that are part of the long-term elite reputation companies

–    Those that delight me or enrich my life
•    With minor exception, this is true of those companies that are on the path to join the long-term reputation elite

What is the long term reputation elite that they refer to?  It describes companies that have received a 75+ rating for the past 10 years.  These companies include Johnson & Johnson, Sony, 3M, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, UPS and FedEx.

Wonder if Google can become one of these long term elite companies?

That probably makes for one less distraction, though, if you think about it, and his lack of a television may make for two.  Also, to cut off a possible response to Harris’s many reviews, we should note here that they’ve received more than 17,000 “helpful votes”; he is not, to spell it out, just mass-producing vague paragraphs.

Instead, Harris is showing quite a bit of dedication (even on top of writing so many reviews).  “Mr Harris, whose hobbies include train spotting, writes his reviews at home, saves them on to a disc and sends them to Amazon using the internet connection at his local library,” reports Nick Britten.

And Amazon is very appreciative of Harris’s efforts, stating, “It is thanks to people like Peter that our customers are able to make much better informed decisions.”

Harris, who is unemployed, is quite happy with his lifestyle, by the way.  Spending all one’s time reading and listening to music actually sounds rather nice.

Yahoo Pulls On The Reorg Boots

Rumors of a Yahoo shakeup proved true, and much broader than just company president Sue Decker’s pal, Hilary Schneider, gaining at the expense of another executive’s job again. Greg Coleman had been the executive in charge of global sales, which included the search and display ad business.

Coleman was also the guy who gave Wenda Harris Millard a not-so-fond farewell in June 2007. “The industry has shifted and requires a different set of skills to take the business forward,” Coleman said of Millard at the time.

Now it’s Coleman who’s being shoved out the door, as more changes take place at Yahoo. Rafat Ali at PaidContent managed to score a copy of the internal Yahoo email about the shuffling of Yahoo’s sales deck.

Yahoo has created a new division called Global Partner Solutions (GPS). Schneider has been minted the new head of this group, which will develop international business while overseeing all of Yahoo’s US sales, marketing, and business development when it comes to advertising.

“Therefore, with the decision to create this new Global Partner Solutions unit under Hilary

Almost two-thirds of respondents said they were happy with their lives in general and 62 percent believed they would be even happier in the future.

"Nearly two-thirds of the young people surveyed said they think that the Internet, instant messaging, cell phones and other technologies make people happier, and 61% said those things make them feel closer to their family," said eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson. "You simply cannot separate young people from technology; it is part of who they are."

Respondents generally said that not having technology would be stressful. Close to half of young people do not turn off their mobile phones, even while relaxing.

Harris Interactive asked young people in October 2006 what things made them happy. Owing a PC made both teens and pre-teens happy. Mobile phones were of more of a priority for teens than pre-teens.

According to the MTV- Associated press study 54 percent of young people said they could not live without the Internet. Fifty -one percent said they could not be without a computer and 49 percent could not live without their cell phones. Forty-seven percent said they could not live without television.

"We found that online men claim to be more informed of online fraud," said Adrienne Hall, senior director of the Trustworthy Computing Group at Microsoft. "47 percent of men said they are very knowledgeable or knowledgeable of online scams, compared with only 36 percent of women.

"However, despite claiming to be more knowledgeable, men are more likely than women to be victims of online crime. The survey found that 69 percent of women claimed they have never been a victim of an Internet scam, compared with just 63 percent of men."

Just add "I can’t be phished" to "I don’t need directions" and "I’ll be back."

Hall said the number of unique phishing sites detected by the Anti-Phishing Working Group went up last year by 166 percent. In addition, this has gone far the beyond proof-of-concept games in the past – phishers are after your money for sure.

"In the past year," she said, "Microsoft has witnessed a shift in criminal behavior. Online criminals have been focused on finding vulnerabilities or causing mayhem in various ways, and have been motivated by personal interest as a hobby or for notoriety. We are seeing an increasing trend towards stealing people’s personal information and money."

Perhaps the most disturbing statistic though was that over half (58%) of those surveyed had little to no knowledge of current online threats and scams, despite that Americans lost $49.3 billion to identities thieves last year, and $5.2 billion to viruses.

Hall recommends a new creed for everyone to remember and pass along: Think first, click later. 

Over the past ten years, just three of the 21 industries measured have seen a positive increase in customer satisfaction, and in the past year, just six did, according to Harris. Fourteen industries went down this year.

Harris polled over 1,000 US adults in July, and adjusted the results according to arrive at a "net positive." For example, 92 percent of those polled said the supermarket industry does a decent job of meeting their needs, compared to eight percent that said they didn’t, leaving a net positive score of 84.

Search engines were second on the list, with a net positive of 77 (84% and 7%). Also high on the positive list were computer hardware companies (64), computer software companies (61), hospitals (58), banks (56), and packaged food companies (55).

 Other industries in the positive:

Car manufactures – 46
Electric and gas utilities – 42
Internet Service Providers – 46
Investment and brokerage firms – 45
Online retailers – 48 (down
Telephone companies – 35 (down 26)
Airlines – 26 (down 40)
Pharmaceutical companies – 21 (down 39)
Life insurance companies – 18 (down 17)

Industries in the negative:

Cable companies –   -1 (down 29)
HMOs –    -20 (down 33)
Health insurance –    -21 (down 34)
Oil companies –    -33 (down 57)
Tobacco companies –   -46 (down 18)

Harris’s poll reflects that, too, as it there was no list of options given to respondents; the poll appears to have been open response, asking "Which three brands do you consider best."

While Coke landed on top, up from the seventh spot a decade ago, Pepsi was seventh this time, up from the 10th spot – perhaps proof positive that branding works. Then again, with the influx of pharmaceutical ads on television – you know, where there used to be Pepsi and Nike spots – it’s a wonder nobody chose Pfizer or Zoloft.

"Top of mind association with being ‘best’ is a good position for any brand," said Robert Fronk, Senior Vice President, Brand and Strategy Consulting, Harris Interactive.

"For a truly successful brand relationship though, the objective is not just awareness, but to foster the ongoing process and outcome of brand engagement, which requires more custom and sophisticated measures based upon the interaction of the brand and its desired audience."

I think he’s talking about sales.

Four brands have remained on the top ten list for the past ten years: Ford, Sony, Coca Cola, and Pepsi.

A noticeable absentee from the list is Google, which has been chosen the top brand by branding professionals and market experts in various polls over the years. The difference here is that Harris’s poll did not focus on professionals, but rather, over 2100 consumers.

Here are the top ten brands:

1.    Coca Cola
2.    Sony
3.    Toyota
4.    Dell
5.    Ford
6.    Kraft
7.    Pepsi
8.    Microsoft
9.    Apple
10.    Honda

According to the Online Retail Report, converting browsers into buyers requires access to information throughout the purchase process. When users can easily find answers they are looking for, their satisfaction level increases and the online retailer’s costs go down.

Forty-two percent of consumers said they prefer being able to find the answers they need online on their own if they had a question or wanted help while shopping online.

The report also found that segmented and tailored e-mail messages can be a potential driver for sales and personalized follow- up can turn a one-time customer into a repeat customer. Sixty-eight percent of consumers said they browsed a Web site after receiving an email from a retailer. Seventy-three percent said they would like any post- purchase follow up.

"Providing shoppers with easy access to relevant information is critical to the success of any online retailer," said Greg Gianforte CEO of RightNow.

"RightNow helps retailers provide consistently exceptional customer experiences and drive conversion rates by delivering tailored messages to the right shoppers at the right time."

Within the group of 16-to-24 year olds there is a large number (47%) who have not used the mobile Internet. This could be do to lack of an enabled phone or they don’t see any benefits from using the application.

The cost and the charging structure have been cited as reasons why the mobile Internet is not yet considered mainstream. Many of the charges for this service are based around cost per megabyte making it challenging for users to gauge how much they are spending.

Pre-pay payment plans are still widely used in the UK, especially among younger consumers, although mobile operators are trying to lure more subscribers on to contracts.

Tom Perrott, Insight Director within the Harris Interactive Europe Technology Research Practice, comments, "Networks will have to work hardest among the pre-pay customers to implement a charging structure that does not hold back use, but still provides them with the much needed revenue stream to reduce their dependence on just voice and text."

Perrot adds, "Apart from younger consumers being the earlier adopters, males also tend to take up technology sooner than females and initially are the more intensive users." Male’s account for half the adult population in Great Britain, and 62 percent of those who have used the mobile Internet are males. Among all adults who use mobile Internet, males account for 73 percent of those who use the application at least once a week.

This survey was conducted online by Harris Interactive Europe among a total of 2,144 adults (aged 16 and over) within Great Britain between March 28th and April 2nd 2007.

They found that the iPhone is not yet a household word but that 47 percent of respondents were aware of the product and 17 percent had an interest in buying it, which they noted was impressive for a product that has not yet been released.

When it came to the question of when people would buy an iPhone, nine percent said they would purchase the product at launch, while another 8 percent would buy before their wireless service contract expired. Around 17 percent said they would hold off on making a purchase and wait for their current wireless service to expire.

Another 25 percent said they would purchase it when their current wireless carrier offered the iPhone. Additionally, 40 percent said they would wait until the price dropped.

Survey results revealed that the most popular feature of the iPhone is its storage capacity (37%), followed by the quad band worldwide capabilities (36%) and its easy to use interface (31%).

Overall, multi-functional mobiles like the iPhone are appealing to 31 percent of the marketplace, while the rest say they do not need or wish to pay for all the extras and look for simpler solutions.

Commenting on the survey results, Joseph Porus, Vice President of Harris Interactive’s Technology Practice said, "Apple’s new iPhone has shaken the industry to its core. Look for strong sales and a new cult to develop around iPhone. Also expect increased orders for midnight oil as competitors scramble to play catch-up."