Around the Net

Survey Ranks America's Most Admired Companies

The companies atop the Reputation Institute's annual list of the large companies most trusted and admired by your fellow Americans -- at least by the 7,790 people who responded to its survey -- are cuddly old standbys like Johnson & Johnson, which repeats at No. 1, and Walt Disney, which moved from No. 7 to No. 4. The secret to their showing is an ability to forge a direct connection to consumers and their families, Laurie Burkitt reports.

Judging criteria changed this year, allowing companies with at least $8 billion annual revenue into the running as opposed to the $13 billion threshold in previous years. That opened the door to Kellogg (No. 3), Sara Lee (No. 6) and Dean Foods (No. 10) to move into the Top 10. Other companies on the list are Kraft (No. 2), PepsiCo (No. 5), Google (No. 7), Microsoft (No. 8) and UPS (No. 9).

"Get more people talking about your products and your company, and you can bet you'll improve your bottom line," says Anthony Johndrow, managing director of Reputation Institute. When reputations improve by five points, he says that consumer recommendations go up by 6.5%.

advertisement

advertisement

Read the whole story at Forbes CMO Marketing »

Next story loading loading..