Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOfficers cleared a protest site in Washington this month.More than three years after the financial crisis, Wall Street banks are still in the doghouse.
In a survey intended to track the reputations of leading companies, only 17 percent of respondents had a positive impression of the financial services industry, according to Harris Interactive, a consulting firm. That is lower than the 22 percent of survey participants who had a favorable opinion of the industry last year. Wall Street ranks third from last in popularity among all industries surveyed, above only tobacco and government.
“The automotive industry of two to three years ago is where the financial services industry is today,” said Robert Fronk, the executive vice president of global reputation management for Harris Interactive. When it comes to Wall Street banks, Mr. Fronk said, “a big part of reputation has to do with expectations, and the expectations around these industries rest on trust. That trust has been broken.”
The reputations of Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs all fell significantly in this year’s survey, which used responses from more than 17,000 respondents to calculate the reputation quotient, or RQ, of 60 major companies.
Bank of America suffered the biggest hit, losing 9.1 points from its RQ and dropping from 55th to 58th in the survey. Berkshire Hathaway, last year’s fourth-ranked company and the top-ranked company in 2010, fell 7.3 points to 24th place.
Perhaps this year’s survey respondents paid close attention to the comings and goings in the financial sector and took umbrage at the lawsuits, widespread layoffs and flagging profits plaguing the industry. A more likely proximate cause, however, is that the Occupy Wall Street movement – combined with certain consumer missteps, like a $5 monthly fee for Bank of America debit card customers that was announced only to be rescinded amid customer outrage – has made already unpopular firms even more reviled.
Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and the American International Group were the lowest scorers in the survey, with R.Q.’s of 49.9, 47.6 and 46.2, respectively. A.I.G. has been a low scorer since 2009, the year after it received an enormous government bailout. But the reputation quotients of Bank of America and Goldman Sachs dipped under 50 for the first time this year. That puts those companies in what Harris Interactive calls the “reputation critical” category, which has in past years included companies like Enron, Halliburton, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and WorldCom.
“We’ve seen 12 companies fall below the 50-point line,” Mr. Fronk said. “10 of the 12 are out of business or in some sort of government receivership.”
Apple was the highest-scoring company included in the survey, with an R.Q. of 85.6. Last year, Apple finished fifth, behind Google, Johnson & Johnson, 3M and Berkshire Hathaway, with a score of 82.
Mr. Fronk said that while he did not expect Bank of America or Goldman Sachs to recover quickly from the image problems of the last few years, the reputations of firms like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo could bounce back more quickly.
“Those companies are more weighed down by the industry than their own actions,” he said.
In recent months, some banks have rolled out expensive public relations campaigns in an effort to reverse their image problems. Bank of America has run advertisements featuring its small-business lending programs and its charitable work, while Goldman Sachs revamped its Web site last year to include a “Meet Our People” section as well as videos promoting the firm’s work with nonprofit organizations like the Harlem Children’s Zone.
“Reputation Rehab,” as Harris Interactive calls it, is possible. General Motors, Toyota and BP all improved their RQ in this year’s survey, as the automotive industry recovered from its lows and one-time image disasters – Toyota’s huge 2011 recall and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 – receded further into memory.
Still, Mr. Fronk said, even a multimillion-dollar ad campaign can’t repair a badly damaged corporate reputation all on its own.
“The marketing doesn’t help if the foundational belief around the company and some reputation pillar or platform doesn’t exist,” he said.