While reputation doesn’t appear as a line item on balance sheets, its impact on a company’s financial performance is undeniable. A strong reputation enables firms to command premium pricing, foster customer loyalty, and achieve competitive differentiation. As highlighted in the Harvard Business Review, companies with robust reputations often enjoy higher price-earnings multiples and market values, along with lower costs of capital. (Harvard Business Review)
In today’s business landscape, reputation has become a strategic imperative. According to a Forbes article, global executives attribute approximately 63% of their company’s market value to its overall reputation. (Forbes)
Chief Communications Officers are placing greater emphasis on reputation management. A significant 91% of CCOs have identified reputation as their top investment priority for 2025, underscoring its critical role in corporate strategy. (Provoke)
Furthermore, reputation benchmarking has emerged as a primary metric for CEOs when evaluating the effectiveness of PR and communication teams. This focus reflects a broader recognition that reputation is not just a communications concern but a central component of organisational success.
In an era where trust is both fragile and invaluable, proactive reputation management is essential. Companies that prioritise and invest in their reputational capital are better positioned to navigate challenges and seize opportunities in the marketplace.
The premise of reputation is based on what people feel is important to them
Based on a CARMA’s comprehensive analysis of over several reputation studies, there are six essential pillars that provide a structured framework for measuring, managing, and enhancing corporate reputation:
1. Products & Services
This pillar evaluates how the market perceives your offerings in terms of quality, value, and customer experience. Strong performance here directly influences purchase decisions, customer loyalty, and advocacy.
2. Culture
This pillar examines your workplace environment, employee experience, and organisational values. A positive culture not only attracts top talent but also shapes how employees represent your brand externally, affecting stakeholder perceptions.
3. Sustainability
This pillar assesses your environmental stewardship, social responsibility initiatives, and governance practices. As stakeholders increasingly prioritise purpose-driven organisations, sustainability efforts significantly impact reputation capital.
4. Conduct
This pillar scrutinises organisational behaviour, ethics, transparency, and integrity. Ethical conduct builds trust, while misconduct can rapidly erode reputation equity built over years.
5. Performance
This pillar measures financial results, operational efficiency, and business growth. Strong performance signals organisational health and stability to investors, partners, and other stakeholders.
6. Vision
This pillar evaluates leadership effectiveness, strategic direction, and future outlook. A compelling vision inspires confidence in long-term viability and adaptability to market changes.
Aligning with what your audience is exposed to
Measuring reputation needs to first start with mapping the audience journey, followed by a thorough analysis of all the different touch points.
A comprehensive approach to understanding organisational standing analyses three critical sources of data: media coverage, social conversation, and audience perception, against the six reputation pillars.
PR and communications practitioners can develop data-based narratives and initiatives that effectively build and manage stakeholder relationships during both stable periods and crises, and ensure all communication efforts contribute to reputation capital.
The most resilient organisations see reputation a strategic business asset, not just a communication outcome, and actively manage it across all organisational and stakeholder touchpoints.
Companies with strong reputations outperform competitors financially, while reputation damage often results in immediate market valuation losses.
Understanding the underlying drivers of audience perception helps with crafting data-driven communication decisions that advance business goals, build trust, and strengthen reputational capital.
A study on the influence of airline communications on reputation capital
Recent evidence from CARMA’s 2024 Airlines Reputation Report provides insights into how reputation dynamics play out across global markets.
The study analysed over 1,150 news articles, 1,700 social media posts, and surveyed more than 1,500 consumers across six countries.
What makes this research particularly valuable is its multi-dimensional approach. Rather than relying solely on media sentiment or consumer surveys, CARMA’s methodology traces the audience journey from traditional media exposure through social engagement to final opinion formation.
The study found that Singapore Airlines maintaining strong reputation metrics despite experiencing a fatal turbulence incident, largely due to transparent crisis response and exceptional passenger care.
Conversely, Malaysia Airlines continues to struggle with reputation challenges a decade after MH370’s disappearance, reminding us that single incidents can create enduring perception challenges when not countered with proactive communication.
Perhaps most illuminating is the documentation of how Singapore Airlines’ decision to award substantial staff bonuses generated measurable reputation benefits, creating a direct link between internal culture decisions and external perception.
This was originally published on Provoke Media.
