Global Reputation Score Declines for the First Time Since 2018 According to the 2022 Global RepTrak® 100 from The RepTrak Company

BOSTON, MA – March 28, 2022 – The RepTrak Company™, the world’s leading reputation data and insights company, announces the results of its 2022 Global RepTrak® 100. The report is the world’s most comprehensive reputation study, compiled for the past 12 years using RepTrak’s in-depth analysis and ranking of the top 100 companies worldwide by Reputation Score.

Utilizing its advanced reputation monitoring software, RepTrak gathered data from more than 243,000 ratings globally to understand the public’s perceptions of the most important elements of corporate reputation: ESG (Environmental/Social/Governance), workplace fairness, leadership, innovation, branding, and more.

Available today is the complete 2022 Global RepTrak 100® ranking and report, with comprehensive analysis of global, industry, and demographic trends, at https://www.reptrak.com/rankings/.

This data shows how people think, feel and act towards particular companies and ranks those companies based on the RepTrak Reputation Score.

An unusual downturn in corporate reputation

In 2022, the global RepTrak Reputation Score sent down for the first time since 2018. RepTrak data demonstrated the public’s disappointment in the corporate sector on a global scale. Perceptions in APAC and Europe drove this shift, bringing the global average Reputation Score (scale is 1-100) down from 74.9 in 2021 to 74.2 in 2022.

“Corporate reputation is constantly evolving,” says RepTrak CEO Kylie Wright-Ford. “As the world remained in flux, Top 100 companies were exceptional in their efforts, rising up to intense and complex stakeholder expectations on ethical, supply chain, and workplace issues globally.”

ESG remains important but expectations are unmet

The global ESG score was also down this year. Each individual driver saw a significant decrease, with Environmental experiencing the biggest decline. RepTrak data has shown that perceptions of a company’s leadership in ESG have a direct impact on purchase intent – the public’s willingness to buy from a company goes from 20% with a weak ESG score to 60% with a high score. “This year’s ESG results serve as a reminder: it’s not just about what you do, it’s about how you do it,” says Wright-Ford. “ESG is only increasing in importance, affecting how we buy, trust, and recommend the brands we interact with.”

Brand improvement as a risk to reputation

Reputations got weaker, but brands got stronger in 2022, according to RepTrak. The global Brand Score improved, indicating that organizations did a better job of communicating and providing a positive brand experience.

“At RepTrak, we see the brand as the promise a company makes to its stakeholders and reputation as a measure of how well that promise is kept. When brand perception improves more than reputation, it’s a sign of potential risk,” said Wright-Ford. “This indicates that companies are over-promising and sometimes under-delivering in their stakeholders’ eyes.”

2022 was not Pharma’s year

Pharmaceutical companies’ leadership provided a 2021 reputation improvement for the Pharma, Biotech, & Life Sciences industry. In 2022, Pharma Reputation Scores dropped, causing a decline for the industry. RepTrak data shows that the industry benefitted from Pharma’s COVID response and leadership role in the global crisis, but as COVID variants persisted, vaccine mandates fluctuated, and global vaccine inequality varied, the scores declined. The industry score remains in the Strong range and above the pre-vaccine result in 2020. 

“Pharma’s 2022 results serve as a great example of the complexity of reputation and the need for continuous monitoring of its movements,” said Wright-Ford. “Our 2021 data showed the positive impact of the pandemic response by pharmaceutical companies, creating a halo effect for the industry. In 2022, we see a different perspective as the public is keeping its eye not only on product delivery but also ethical and fair behavior, transparency, and seeking to do good beyond profit.”

2022’s Reputation Leaders

The top 10 companies by Reputation Score, as ranked in the 2022 Global RepTrak® 100, are:

Rolex SA

Ferrari N.V.

The LEGO Group

Rolls-Royce Aerospace

Mercedes-Benz

Harley-Davidson, Inc.

The Bosch Group

PayPal

Netflix, Inc.

Intel Corporation

RepTrak data shows that Rolex’s rise to first place is backed by its top-tier Product and Services score, landing in RepTrak’s hard-to-achieve excellent range. This is the 5th time Rolex has been in first place and the 9th time Rolex has been in the top 10 for the Global RepTrak. RepTrak’s approach to reputation monitoring connects improvements in reputation with increases in key metrics such as product recommendation and purchase intent – Rolex’s result across the majority of these business outcomes were up for 2022. 

“Rolex is proud to have been elected as the World’s Most Reputable Company in 2022,” says a Rolex spokesperson. “This recognition reflects our perpetual quest for excellence. Thanks to our values of perfection and to our culture of continuous improvement, we strive to always go further. Our aim is to constantly improve not only our products but also our environmental and social performance, as well as our impact on society. This leadership position encourages us to pursue our efforts for the good of all.” 

PayPal breaks into the Top 10 this year, advancing from 23rd in 2021. PayPal’s rise is due to a significant 1.4-point Reputation Score increase as the company has prioritized support for small and medium-sized businesses and committing to addressing economic inequality. RepTrak indicates that these investments are working to the benefit of PayPal’s reputation: Conduct and Citizenship are key drivers of corporate Reputation, both of which increased for PayPal in 2022. 

Netflix also enters the Top 10, up 3 places from 2021. The company’s Reputation is strongest in Europe, but saw positive movement around the world due to the strength of its Products & Services. Millennials and Gen Z offer the greatest endorsement of Netflix’s products and services, ranking the company 1st overall for this key Reputation Driver. 

The Great Resignation impacts Reputation

As a Reputation Driver, Workplace saw the biggest score decrease in 2022. With the Great Resignation in full swing, individual RepTrak Reputation factors including “equal opportunities in the workplace,” “rewards employees fairly,” and “concerned for employee well-being,” saw statistically significant decreases. While the entire corporate sector is facing talent acquisition pressure, RepTrak data indicates that Innovation is key to driving interest in working for a company. RepTrak has also found that “rewards employees fairly” is a top concern.

“Companies around the world are under tremendous pressure to find great talent. The pandemic has changed the workplace and the public’s mindset about employers, perhaps forever. We at RepTrak can see that the public is telling companies that they need to be creative and fair when it comes to where and how work gets done and how people are compensated,” said Wright-Ford.

Additional notable findings:

• Reputation was down across industries and across organizations. Results at the individual company level show the same: company scores in the Global RepTrak Top 10 and Top 100 have lower scores than was true in 2021.

• Countries with stricter COVID protocols were more likely to see a corporate Reputation Score decrease.

• Notable increases in rank include Volkswagen (+53), Xerox (+43), MSD (+42), Burberry Group (+33), and PayPal (+26)

• Generations are showing shifts as they turn to new life stages. GenZ has progressed more fully into adulthood and Millennials are gaining seniority. Reputation Scores are lower this year for Gen Z and Millennials’ perceptions are beginning to align with older generations.

Report and Methodology

RepTrak helps companies understand how stakeholders feel, think, and act towards them, measuring Reputation using a 0-100 scale and tracking how a company is perceived across several Reputation drivers: Products & Services, Innovation, Citizenship, Performance, Governance, Leadership and Workplace. RepTrak’s proprietary measurement system has been developed to allow worldwide application on a normative scale, which enables direct comparison regardless of sector, size, or geography.

For consideration in the 2022 Global RepTrak® 100, a company had to meet the following criteria: 

• Be a corporate brand with global revenue above USD $2 billion

• Achieve a global average familiarity threshold above 20 percent in all fifteen countries measured and a familiarity threshold above 20 percent in eight or more of the fifteen countries measured

• Reach a qualifying Reputation Score above the median score (i.e., 67.3 points)

To determine the ranking, The RepTrak Company analyzed Reputation data for several thousand companies which was collected between December 2021 and January 2022 using world-class survey methodology and was enriched by RepTrak’s historical database. Companies that met these criteria were then ranked based on their global Reputation Scores. A company’s corporate Reputation is determined using RepTrak’s proprietary and patent-pending Reputation Score - a score from 0-100 that measures how people feel towards a particular company. Reputation Scores demonstrate a strong positive relationship with business outcomes, such as an audience’s willingness to buy, recommend, or trust a company. The top 100 companies with the highest Reputation Scores made the final ranking. 

The Global RepTrak® 100 ranking is based on more than 243,000 ratings collected across the 15 largest economies globally using online surveys. For access to the report, visit https://www.reptrak.com/rankings/

About RepTrak

The RepTrak Company™ is the world’s leading Reputation data and insights company. We provide the only global platform for data-driven insights on Reputation, Brand, and ESG. Our proprietary RepTrak® model is the global standard for measuring and analyzing the sentiment of the world using proven data science models and machine learning techniques across industries and geographies.

Subscribers to the RepTrak® Program use our predictive insights to protect business value, improve return on investment, and increase their positive impact on society. 

Established in 2004, The RepTrak Company owns the world’s largest Reputation benchmarking database of over 1 million company ratings per year used by CEOs, boards, and executives in more than 60 countries worldwide.  For more information, please visit www.reptrak.com.