Toyota and Air New Zealand dominate reputation rankings

Companies again rank in top 2 for the fifth year running
Auckland, April 19, 2018 – Toyota and Air New Zealand have proven again to have the strongest reputations in New Zealand, ranking 1st and 2nd respectively in the annual NZ Corporate Reputation Index (RepTrak®), released this week by the Reputation Institute.

It is the fifth year in a row the two organisations have taken out the top two positions in the study, which is the longest running survey of its type in New Zealand. It measures how New Zealanders view the nation’s top 25 companies across seven reputation drivers; Products/Services, Innovation, Workplace, Citizenship, Governance, Leadership and Financial Performance, and then ranks them accordingly. It also uses a consistent methodology globally that allows for comparisons between the results in NZ with those of companies in other countries around the world.

Toyota has twice before ranked highest in the eyes of New Zealanders, taking out line honours in 2013 and 2015. Air New Zealand ranked first in 2014, 2016 and 2017, with Toyota coming a close second in each of those years.

The strong results have also been seen across the ditch, with Air New Zealand ranking 1st in the Australian RepTrak® this year, and Toyota ranking 2nd.

“Toyota and Air New Zealand are excellent examples of organisations that have worked hard to keep leadership positions through a variety of activities, and as a result, New Zealanders view them very positively across multiple measurements. For example, they both ranked in the top 2 for the individual reputation drivers of Products/Services, Innovation, Workplace, Leadership and Performance,” explained the Reputation Institute’s Australia and New Zealand MD Oliver Freedman.

“New Zealand consumers clearly recognise the consistent and varied contributions both organisations make to the local business world and the products and services they offer. They should be congratulated on this result, and the achievement of being in the top 2 for so many years. It’s a result rarely seen in markets across the world.”

Freedman said compared to the Australian results which were dominated by car companies and airlines, the top 10 most reputable companies in New Zealand had a “mix of organisations from a variety of industries”.

ANZ Bank ranked 3rd overall this year – its best result to date - with its reputation showing strong improvement over the past three years. Foodstuffs rose two places from last year to rank 4th in this year’s RepTrak®, with Genesis Energy showing good improvement moving from 13th in 2017 to 5th this year. ASB ranked 6th overall – a slight drop from 3rd last year – but it ranked 1st overall for the individual measurement of Citizenship. By contrast, there were no banks in the top 10 most reputable companies in Australia.

Freedman said one of the strongest improvements in reputation was seen in BP New Zealand’s rankings, which rose from 23rd last year to come 9th – the first time the company has ranked in the top 10.

New Zealand Post’s overall reputation has continued its steady decline, this year ranking 11th, but ranked 1st when the study started in 2010. However, Freedman said its decline was very slow compared to its Australian counterpart.

“While both New Zealanders and Australians both view the reputations of their postal services less favourably than previous years, the decline seen by Australia Post has been more dramatic and more rapid than the fall experienced by New Zealand Post. It seems that NZ Post is handling some of the issues facing the postal sector more effectively which bodes better for its future reputation.”

Other key results include:
- Improvements by both Spark New Zealand and Contact Energy which moved up the rankings to rank 14th and 15th respectively
- A decline seen by Zespri which moved from 5th overall in 2017 to 12th overall this year. However, the organisation still polled strongly in the individual measurements of Products/Services, Innovation, Citizenship, Leadership and Performance (ranking 3rd in each)
- Mainfreight and Fulton Hogan both fell 9 places each to rank 17th and 20th respectively
- ExxonMobil and Fletcher Building are viewed as New Zealand’s least reputable companies, ranking 24th and 25th overall

Freedman said while there were some dips and rises among the companies measured, overall the reputation of New Zealand companies was “relatively stable”.

“New Zealanders recognise the efforts that most of these organisations have made across a range of key drivers and that is reflected in the results. Many companies have similar rankings to previous years; those that have experienced shifts would do well to examine the source of those changes.”

Ends.

Methodology
Data was collected online between 28th February to 11th March 2018 among a representative sample of the New Zealand population, total n=2,030.

The 25 companies included in the New Zealand RepTrak® 2018 are sourced from the Deloitte Top 200 Company list, which ranks companies by revenue.

The reputation scores (RepTrak® Pulse scores) are based of 4 questions relating to trust, esteem, good feeling, admiration and respect. Respondents rate each statement on a 1 to 7 scale which is used to calculate the over reputation score ranging from 0 to 100. Reputation scores are then used to create the ranking.

Adults aged 18 and older are surveyed as part of the RepTrak® in New Zealand, with results weighted according to Stats NZ to ensure they represent appropriate gender and age groups.

To qualify to rate a company a respondent must indicate they are very or somewhat familiar with the company.

In addition to collating overall reputation, RepTrak® also measures how New Zealanders feel about each of the 25 companies according to seven parameters; Products/Services, Innovation, Workplace, Citizenship, Governance, Leadership and Performance.

About Reputation Institute
Reputation Institute powers the world’s most reputable companies. By tracking and analysing stakeholder perceptions, we unleash the power of reputation to enable leaders to build better companies. Our RepTrak® model analyses the reputations of companies and is best known as the Forbes-published Global RepTrak® 100. Underlying the model is the RepTrak® methodology, the global gold standard for measuring reputation. Learn more at:

http://www.reputationinstitute.com.

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