Company's Reputation

I believe that a company’s branding and public image can significantly influence public’s perception of the company. I never worked for named brand in the U.S. However, as a consumer, I have more or less experience with all kinds of brand. My first reaction to this topic is Starbucks. As a coffee company, it includes social responsibility in its mission. For Starbuck’s fans, the fair trade coffee can be a reason for people to purchase it. And it successfully constructs its brand as doing decent trade and being responsible for society. No matter how its coffee taste and its capacity/price, its reputation in being responsible and decent becomes an incentive for consumer to purchase and a feature of marketing and branding in foreign countries. In fact, the public perception of Starbucks is different in other countries than in the U.S. I believe that Starbucks is a quite common and affordable brand that represents coffee in every day life in the U.S. However, in China, it used to be branded as luxury and targeting high-end consumer. A recent news report even stated that Starbucks in China has the highest price all over the world. I think it is part of its branding strategy to trigger curiosity to a new brand and utilize some people’s vanity. However, I appreciate more on its branding strategy in the U.S. because its reputation is more positive because it involves with social responsibility and the quality of products.

I also think of a bad example of brand and its reputation. Chick-Fil-A is one of the first brands that I choose to against after having some sense of it. Chick-Fil-A experienced a controversy for it against same sex marriage. I also saw some news about racism issue of the employee of Chick-Fil-A in California. As a result, my perception of the brand’s reputation turned bad and I decided never purchase in this food chain. Even though I don’t sure whether other will do the same thing, I perceive minority issue as very serious topic and I will prefer to purchase in a brand that has more inclusive culture and more friendly to various groups of people. In this case, even though there is no impairment on the reputation on the quality of product itself, consumer might still choose to against a brand just because it has bad reputation on the issues they are concerned about.

In my opinion, reputation of a brand is not only tied to its product quality, but also relevant to its mission and opinions in social issues. For those industries that has minor difference in product among brands, customer might choose to purchase relies on its reputation on other aspects, such as social responsibility or its entertainment effect. Besides the condition I mentioned above, we can see some organization sponsor sports and venue. It is also a way to brand companies’ image and manifest its concern of the community. Since different people have different perception, organization should figure out its targeted preference and what they value the most. Then trying to cumulate reputation in these aspects.

Personal Reputation

When considering ourselves as customers, reputation of business is an important element for us to choose brands and sellers. From business to personal level, we still own our personal business to represent the “brand” of ourselves. I guess it might be a little hard to consider our reputation because college students haven’t exposed to the real world too much. However, I found some interesting skills and personality traits can be built as reputation in individual level.

As an international student, there is no doubt that I have a strong reputation in my English skill in my whole family. The reputation development process is pretty simple in the case because I am the only person study aboard and major in communication and economics. It is interesting to see people’s intuition on the relationship between major and proficiency in English. One of my cousin studies accountancy in Australia. But the perception of his English skills is lower than mine because my family tends to think B.A. requires a stronger skill. It somewhat makes sense even though I believe that this stereotype is not necessarily true. People also perceive this reputation during my summer internship in China. I usually helped my colleague to translate documents. I don’t perceive the reputation in language skill is an intentional development process. Sometimes it is just something people believe and they insist their perception no matter how you explain. I felt like reputation itself is not necessarily making me feel good, but I try to maintain it by satisfying people’s needs and requests. For example, I was responsible for teaching my younger cousin’s English during my summer break. Even though I don’t like teaching kids, this is something that my family perceive as I have obligation to do. In workplace, sometimes it also bothers me. I was asked to help my supervisor to write an English essay to pass a journalist certificate exam. It is quite similar as helping her to cheat but I didn’t refuse it because I didn’t want to make her feel bad and have a hard time with me. Even though I maintain my reputation in my skill, sometimes I personally don’t appreciate it too much in this circumstance.

It is obvious that different reputations require different process to develop; some are easier, while some are harder. Comparing my two majors, I felt like I have more reputation in communication major and especially about gender communication. I didn’t realize it until my friends invite me to speak about feminism in China in their RSO’s weekly discussion and my professor of that class recommend me to assist a research conducted by her PhD student. To develop some reputation in certain academic or research area as an undergraduate student, I think taking a relevant class and keep passion in doing research and sharing some updated news and findings with people are important. I don’t consider myself as an expert and I am not that interested in academic field. I just have passion on it and wrote a blog about it for my James Scholar project. I also keep sharing relevant news and articles after finish that class. I think people have more incentives to maintain reputation in the field they are interested in. For example, I participate in that research even though I knew it would make me really busy in this semester. It can help me not only maintain the reputation, but also gain some rewards from it. For example, I can get recommendation letter from relevant professors and easier to be admitted by communication department if I apply their programs as grad school. I can also get something write in my resume and broaden my network. I don’t think it is wise to “cashed it in” reputation and abandon the coming opportunities because a long-term relationship with low uncertainties will always be more helpful. Though I don’t have experience in cashing in my reputation, I think this is something that might bring me rewards and new opportunities. So I have incentives to do extra work to maintain it.