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.