It's no secret that brands like Coca-Cola, Apple, and Google had a great 2012 and are poised for an even greater 2013. Not all companies are held in such high regard going into the new year, though.
We talked to CoreBrand, which measures the familiarity and favorability of 1,000 corporate brands across 54 industries in the U.S., to see which companies will have an especially tough year.
CoreBrand conducts 10,000 phone surveys of business leaders every year, asking them about corporate reputations based on favorability, overall reputation, perception of management, and investment potential. It then assigns them a score out of 100 and combines the scores for measured familiarity and favorability.
Some companies it flagged for credibility issues, like insurance giant AIG, did not surprise us. But a few other companies hadn't initially crossed our minds as candidates.
Jim Gregory, founder and CEO of CoreBrand, laid out the 10 brands he and his company see as the ones who will face the most credibility issues in 2013, and the reasons why each of them will have a challenging year. He declined to call them "troubled," but given the marketing challenges they face, we're confident that each of them has their fair share of obstacles ahead of them this year.
The companies are ranked according to the BrandPower ranking CoreBrand has calculated for the brands. BrandPower measures size (familiarity) and quality (favorability). Familiarity is a weighted percentage of survey respondents who know more about a brand than just the company's name. Those familiar with a corporation are then asked about the brand's favorability dimensions.
General Electric: 69.4
"GE got pounded in the 2009 financial crisis because the company was so heavily invested in its financial arm, GE Capital," according to CoreBrand. "Since then it has gone through considerable effort to rebuild its base in industrial manufacturing, such as aircraft engines. Despite still carrying heavy debt loads, the company is making strategic acquisitions."
GE was featured on our list of the best brands on Instagram. "GE is a very marketing savvy company," said Gregory. "I have no doubt they will try to be as exciting as they possibly can be." Gregory sees social media as a way for GE to communicate its strategic vision. "Social media can be as good a form of communication as an ad in the Wall Street Journal."
Toyota: 65.7
Toyota's numerous recalls in certain years have cast a once-respected company in a bad light.
"Why it has not gotten in front of this problem is inexplicable," said Gregory. "It shows real bad management." It also shows an arrogance the company has about paying the fines imposed on it by the government — they pay them but don't care, Gregory added.
"Toyota may be projecting continued worldwide sales growth in 2013, but there is no denying the brand is losing its luster," said CoreBrand.
Best Buy: 48.8
According to Gregory, Best Buy "must do something to revolutionize their brand and excite their customers."
The company's stock price is down about 50 percent from last year, and competition from Samsung and Apple has been tough. Customers have slowly realized that they don't need stores like Best Buy when they can walk into an Apple Store or a cellular retailer to get the same product without going through a middle man. With Circuit City going out of business recently, Gregory said "Best Buy has seen the writing on the wall."
It has tried to confront this challenge by creating "stores-within-the-store," where companies like Microsoft and Sony can directly interact with customers. Time will tell if this redesign will help Best Buy solidify its place in the market.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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