BMMRU BRAND MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING RESEARCH UNIT

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1 BMMRU BRAND MANAGEMENT AND MARKETING RESEARCH UNIT DEFINING A BRAND S REPUTATION & IDENTIFYING THE CRITERIA USED TO ASSESS A FINANCIAL SERVICES BRAND S REPUTATION: A COMPARISON ACROSS STAKEHOLDERS F.Harris and L.de Chernatony 00/4 Copyright Open University Business School

2 DEFINING A BRAND S REPUTATION AND IDENTIFYING THE CRITERIA USED TO ASSESS A FINANCIAL SERVICES BRAND S REPUTATION: A COMPARISON ACROSS STAKEHOLDERS ABSTRACT The importance and impact of reputation is well documented in the literature. Yet scant empirical research has been conducted into the way different stakeholder groups define and assess reputation. This paper examines the way that different stakeholder groups define a brand s reputation and identifies the criteria they use to evaluate a financial services brand s reputation. The findings provide confirmation of many of the themes discerned in definitions of reputation proposed in the literature. However, in contrast to the literature, the research revealed that different stakeholder groups do not necessarily use different criteria to evaluate reputation, but rather emphasise different criteria. Keywords: reputation; definitions; criteria; financial services brands; stakeholders INTRODUCTION The strategic importance of reputation is well recognised. There are numerous advantages of reputation, for example, it can provide a sustained competitive advantage (Hall, 1992), influence brand selection (Dowling, 1994), affect stakeholders confidence about future outcomes (Weigelt & Camerer, 1988) and attract better job applicants (Fombrun, 1996). Brand reputation is particularly important in the services sector owing to their intangibility and the difficulty in evaluating their quality and performance (Herbig and Milewicz, 1995; Saxton, 1998; and Shenkar and Tuchtman-Yaar, 1997). 2

3 The purpose of this paper is firstly to examine how various stakeholder groups define a brand s reputation, since stakeholders perceptions of a reputation may differ (Corley and Gioia, 1998; Carter and Deephouse, 1999). It is important to identify what respective stakeholders understand by the concept of reputation before attempting to measure it. The second aim is to explore the criteria different stakeholder groups use to evaluate a financial services brand s reputation, because many authors have suggested that different stakeholders use different criteria to assess reputation (e.g. Fombrun and Shanley, 1990; Shenkar and Tuchtman-Yaar, 1997; Brown, T., 1997; Fombrun and van Riel, 1997; Saxton, 1998). In order to identify the relevant dimensions on which reputation should be assessed it is necessary to explore the criteria used by a range of stakeholders. Five stakeholder groups were examined: (i) the management team responsible for managing a financial services brand; (ii) staff interfacing with consumers; (iii) staff interfacing with independent financial advisers; (iv) consumers; and (v) independent financial advisers (IFAs) acting as intermediaries between companies and consumers. The research was conducted in the financial services sector for several reasons. Reputation has been identified as of particular relevance for services brands (Herbig and Milewicz, 1995; Saxton, 1998; and Shenkar and Tuchtman-Yaar, 1997) and influences brand selection (Dowling, 1994). Reputation influences consumers decisions in financial services, owing to the difficulty of assessment at the point of purchase (Llweellyn and Drake, 1995). Financial services transactions involve the exchange of promises between a buyer and a seller in which fewer search and credence qualities are available, with the result that experience qualities are more 3

4 likely to influence purchase decisions (Zeithaml, 1981; Davies, 1996). Financial services are important, complex and high-risk purchases (Jones, 1999), yet are uninteresting to consumers (Levy, 1996), representing a means to an end, rather than an end in themselves (Denby-Jones, 1995; Free, 1996). These factors, together with the heightened competition from new entrants following deregulation, may increase the propensity to use a brand s reputation as a shorthand device in the selection of financial services. The paper opens by reviewing the definitions and measurement of reputation in the literature. These are then compared with the definitions and evaluation criteria of the five stakeholder groups that participated in the research. While a generic foundation for the definition of reputation emerged, this needed to be augmented according to the stakeholder group. We further found that operationalising the brand reputation concept could be based around a core group of attributes, however the importance of these attributes varied by stakeholder group. LITERATURE REVIEW Definitions of reputation The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) defines reputation as the the beliefs or opinions that are generally held about someone or something. A review of the reputation literature revealed many definitions of reputation. However, a number of common themes were discerned, as will now be reviewed. 4

5 Reputation is frequently interpreted as the accumulated perceptions of an organisation or brand, encompassing a historical perspective. For example, Fombrun and Shanley (1990) suggested that reputations represent publics cumulative judgements of firms over time. Herbig and Milewicz (1995) proposed: reputation is an aggregate composite of all previous transactions over the life of the entity, a historical notion, and requires consistency of an entity s actions over a prolonged time. Weigelt & Camerer (1988) described a corporate reputation as a set of attributes ascribed to a firm, inferred from the firm s past actions. Fombrun and Rindova (1996, cited in Fombrun and van Riel, 1997) interpreted it as a collective representation of a firm s past actions and results. Rindova (1997) described it as a relatively stable and evaluated (favourably or unfavourably) representation, which is distilled over time from multiple images. Similarly, Marwick and Fill (1997) defined reputation as a reflection of the historical, accumulated impacts of previously observed identity cues and possible transactional experiences. Another theme in the definitions of reputation relates to credibility. Herbig and Milewicz (1995) defined reputation as the estimation of the consistency over time of an attribute of an entity based on the entity s willingness and ability to perform an activity repeatedly in a similar fashion. Likewise, Fombrun and Rindova (1996, cited in Fombrun and van Riel, 1997) proposed that a corporate reputation describes the firm s ability to deliver valued outcomes to multiple stakeholders. The views of multiple stakeholders are seen as contributing to the estimation of a body s reputation. Gray and Balmer (1998) viewed it as the estimation of the company by its constituents. Saxton (1998) defined it as the reflection of an 5

6 organization over time as seen through the eyes of its stakeholders and expressed through their thoughts and words. Fombrun and Shanley (1990) talked about it as representing publics cumulative judgements. Fombrun and Rindova (1996, cited in Fombrun and van Riel, 1997) considered that reputation included the following perspectives: both internally with employees and externally with its stakeholders. Reputation is also reported to encapsulate a company s or brand s relative standing in comparison to competitors. For example, Fombrun and Rindova (1996, cited in Fombrun and van Riel, 1997) stated that it gauges a firm s relative standing in both its competitive and institutional environment. Reputation has also been described as a shorthand device. Schweizer and Wijnberg (1999) suggested that a firm s corporate reputation is a shorthand evaluation of the stock of information about that firm in the possession of a particular actor or group of actors that is used by those actors to make decisions, involving a certain degree of risk with regard to the firm, without feeling the need to collect more information (p.252). Assessing reputation There are several published ways of measuring corporate reputation (e.g. Management Today s annual review (Brown, M., 1999), the Harris-Fombrun Reputation Quotient and the annual Fortune study), the most popular of which is Fortune Magazine s Most Admired Corporations Survey (Brown, E., 1999). The magazine asks approximately 11,000 executives, outside directors and financial analysts to rate the ten largest revenues companies in their industry on the following 6

7 eight criteria: (i) quality of management; (ii) quality of products; (iii) long term investment value; (iv) innovativeness; (v) financial soundness; (vi) ability to attract, develop and keep talented people; (vii) community and environment responsibility; and (viii) use of corporate assets. However, the Fortune rankings suffer from a number of limitations. Although, as noted in the previous section, reputation is commonly defined as encompassing the views of multiple stakeholders, the Fortune rankings focus only on the evaluations of external executives, directors and analysts. Furthermore, Fryxell and Wang (1994) observed that the rankings related more to a firm s reputation as an investment, with all but one factor (community and environment responsibility) appearing to be directly influenced by the raters perceptions of the financial performance of the firm. In addition, the empirical derivation and validation of the eight criteria is unclear. Yoon, Guffey and Kijewski (1993) developed a set of reputation attributes by averaging respondents importance-weighted evaluation of a company s reputation on 10 reputation attributes derived from the literature and confirmed through information communication with industry experts. However, reputation was addressed from the perspective of only buyers, rather than multiple stakeholder groups. Perceptions of a reputation can vary between stakeholder groups (Corley and Gioia, 1998; Carter and Deephouse, 1999), based on the interests of each stakeholder group (Zyglidopoulos and Phillips (1999). Different aspects of a brand s reputation are likely to be salient to different stakeholders (Fombrun & Shanley, 1990). Many authors have suggested that different stakeholders use different criteria to assess 7

8 reputation (e.g. Fombrun and Shanley, 1990; Shenkar and Tuchtman-Yaar, 1997; Brown, T., 1998; Fombrun and van Riel, 1997; Saxton, 1998). For appropriate evaluation of a company s or brand s reputation it is important that it be assessed along relevant dimensions. Yet little research appears to have been undertaken to uncover the criteria used by various stakeholders to assess reputation. Fombrun and Shanley (1990) argued that publics assessments of a company s reputation were constructed using accounting and market information, media reports and other non-economic cues. Fombrun (1998) reviewed a range of reputation rankings compiled by the media and social monitors and observed that, while the criteria varied according to the audience addressed, six common criteria could be discerned: financial performance, product quality, employee treatment, community involvement, environmental performance and organisational issues. Fombrun (1996) proposed that various traits built reputation. For employees, he suggested that these were ones that generated trust, empowered them and instilled pride. For investors, it was traits that showed profitability, maintained stability and growth prospects. For customers, traits that cultivated product quality and provided customer service were reported to build reputation. Finally, for the community, the traits were those that served the community and were green for the environment. In view of the lack of consensus about definitions of reputation and the diverse operationalisations to measure it, we sought to advance knowledge through examining the definitions and evaluation criteria of five stakeholder groups. 8

9 METHOD Eleven financial services organisations that were well-known and offered financial services to consumers participated in the research. As part of a larger study examining a range of branding concepts in financial services, postal questionnaires were sent to the following stakeholder groups: members of the brand teams responsible for managing their firm s financial services brand; samples of staff responsible for representing a financial services brand to consumers and Independent Financial Advisers (IFAs) (termed consumer-facing staff and IFA-facing staff); samples of their consumers; and samples of IFAs who dealt with the financial services companies involved. Intermediaries have been reported to play an important role in transmitting and refracting information among companies and their stakeholders, especially where consumers have incomplete information about companies actions (Fombrun and van Riel, 1997). Hence, IFAs were included where they dealt with companies participating in the study for which IFAs represented an important additional customer category. The analyses reported in this paper represents a subset of the data from the overall study and includes the views of: brand team members of 11 organisations; consumerfacing staff of seven organisations; IFA-facing staff of four organisations; consumers of seven organisations; and IFAs who dealt with three of the organisations. The number of companies for which different stakeholder group data were available varied, owing to internal issues that prevented full participation or resulted in delays in data collection for some companies. 9

10 As brands are managed by teams, questionnaires were sent to all the members of these teams. These included both internal staff (e.g. Heads, Directors, Managers in Marketing, PR, Sales, Planning, Corporate Identity, Advertising, etc.) and external consultants working on the brand. Questionnaires were sent to samples of 165 consumer-facing and 165 IFA-facing staff in each company. Consumer-facing staff included staff who dealt with consumers on a daily basis as part of their job (e.g. customer service staff, financial planning staff, branch and call centre staff). Similarly, IFA-facing staff were those staff who dealt with IFAs as part of their daily work. Staff were sampled across the full range of consumer-facing and IFA-facing staff roles and locations as far as possible in proportion to their population sizes for each company. Questionnaires were sent to 330 consumers of each company. As with staff, consumers were sampled as far as possible in proportion to their population sizes within each company, based across the range of financial services provided by each company. However, consumers were sampled from those who would have enough contact with the financial services provider to be able to complete a questionnaire; consumers who only dealt with the company through an intermediary were not included in the study. Questionnaires were sent to samples of 300 IFAs who dealt with each of the companies for which IFAs were included in the study. Only one IFA from each branch of an IFA s firm was sent a questionnaire. To increase response rates, a follow-up questionnaire was sent to non-respondents. Companies participating in the study were offered an individual report on the findings for their company and copies of research papers produced from the study. Incentives were offered to consumers in the form of a donation to a charity of their choice from a list of four charities covering a range of interests. IFAs were offered entry into a prize 10

11 draw with a prize of 500. The latter was chosen as a result of discussions with IFAs and company contacts experiences of conducting research with IFAs. The response rate to the study was 84% for brand team members, 38% for consumerfacing staff, 39% for IFA facing staff, 23% for consumers and 23% for IFAs. The numbers of respondents in each stakeholder group who provided answers for each of the questions is detailed in Table 1. Stakeholder groups Definition (no. of respondents) Criteria (no. of respondents) Brand members team Consumer-facing staff IFA-facing staff Consumers IFAs Table 1. The number of respondents in each stakeholder group who provided answers to the questions regarding the definition of a brand s reputation and the criteria used to evaluate a financial services brand s reputation Content analysis was conducted on respondents answers to the following two questions: If you had to explain to someone what is meant by a brand s reputation, what would you say? (i.e. your definition of the word reputation in relation to a brand 11

12 in general) and What criteria would you, as a member of a brand team/a member of sales/service staff/a consumer/an Independent Financial Advisor [as appropriate for each stakeholder group], use to evaluate a financial services brand s reputation? RESULTS Definition of a brand s reputation The most frequent definition of a brand s reputation across all stakeholder groups was that it was how a brand is perceived. The most frequent aspects mentioned in defining a brand s reputation are shown for each stakeholder group in Table 2 1. Owing to the large number of aspects of a brand s reputation mentioned by all five stakeholder groups, only those cited by the highest percentages of stakeholders will be reported here. A brand s reputation was interpreted most frequently by three out of five stakeholder groups as what it stands for, expectations of the brand/the extent to which it meets these, built over time and public opinion. 1 A cut-off of 8% was used in the table as this was the point after which responses fell into a long tail across the stakeholder groups. 12

13 Definitions Frequency of mention Brand team members How a brand is perceived 33 % Built up over time 14 % Immediate associations 14 % What a brand stands for 12 % Brand s emotional characteristics 12 % Customer s perceptions 11 % Personal experience 10 % Brand s values 10 % Consumer-facing staff How a brand is perceived 21 % Public opinion 12 % Immediate associations 11 % What a brand stands for 10 % Expectations 9 % How it compares to competitors 8 % 13

14 IFA-facing staff How a brand is perceived 31 % What a brand stands for 11 % How well known a brand is 11 % How well thought of a brand is 11 % Public opinion 9 % Performance 9 % Customers perceptions 8 % Expectations 8 % Guarantee of quality 8 % Consumers How a brand is perceived 18 % Reliability 18 % Guarantee of quality 13 % Built up over time 13 % Trust/confidence 9 % Expectations 8 % 14

15 IFAs How a brand is perceived 17 % Reliability 15 % Trust/confidence 13 % Built up over time 11 % Performance 11 % How it compares to competitors 11 % How well thought of a brand is 9 % Consistency 9 % Public opinion 8 % Table 2. Comparison of stakeholders definitions of a brand s reputation Internal stakeholders (brand team members and consumer-facing and IFA-facing staff) also defined a brand s reputation as the immediate associations and what the brand stands for. By contrast, external stakeholders (consumers and IFAs) considered that it represented an indication of the degree of reliability and the trust/confidence that could be placed in the brand. Differences between the stakeholder groups revealed that for brand team members, a brand s reputation also encompassed the brand s emotional characterisitcs and the brand s values. In addition, customers and potential customers (7%) perceptions of a brand were considered more important than public opinion (4%) by brand team members. Customers perceptions (6% and 8%) were also reported as an important 15

16 aspect of a brand s reputation by both consumer-facing and IFA-facing staff, but not as highly as public opinion (12% and 9% respectively). IFA-facing staff and IFAs thought that a brand s reputation also encapsulated how well thought of/respected a brand was and performance. Consumer-facing staff and IFAs considered that a brand s reputation also meant how it compares with competitors. For consumers, a brand s reputation also represented a guarantee of quality. IFAs definitions also included consistency. Based on these findings, the following propositions are posited: P1: A brand s reputation may be defined as stakeholders perceptions of a brand, what it stands for and the extent to which expectations have been met, built up over time. P2: In defining a brand s reputation, internal stakeholders also emphasise immediate associations and what the brand stands for. P3: In defining a brand s reputation, external stakeholders also emphasise the reliability of a brand and the trust/confidence that may be placed in it. 16

17 Criteria used to evaluate a financial services brand s reputation A wide range of criteria were cited as being used to evaluate a financial services brand s reputation. While there was overlap in the criteria cited, the different stakeholder groups emphasised different criteria, as shown in Table 3 2. Criteria Frequency of mention Brand team members Customers comments 24 % How well known a brand is 24 % Customer service 23 % Volume of business 23 % How it compares with competitors 21 % Trust/confidence 17 % Recommendations/advice of others 14 % Performance 13 % Media reports 10 % Customer focus 10 % Staff s opinions 10 % Integrity 8 % Company communications 8 % 2 For consistency, a cut-off of 8% has been used in the table. 17

18 Consumer-facing staff Customer service 31 % Performance 24 % Integrity 16 % Customers comments 13 % Reliability 12 % Volume of business 11 % How it compare with competitors 10 % Trust/confidence 10 % Value for money 10 % 18

19 IFA-facing staff Customer service 35 % Performance 23 % Products 17 % Reliability 16 % Integrity 14 % Financial strength 14 % How it compares with competitors 13 % Customers comments 11 % Value for money 11 % Recommendations 10 % Trust/confidence 9 % Customer focus 9 % Responsiveness 8 % Flexibility 8 % Quality 8 % 19

20 Consumers Performance 28 % Integrity 19 % Reliability 15 % How it compares to competitors 14 % Recommendations/advice from others 13 % history 11 % Customer service 11 % Media reports 11 % Value for money 11 % Company communications 10 % IFAs Performance 46 % Customer service 36 % Financial strength 19 % How it compares to competitors 17 % Consistency/stability 17 % Cost 17 % Products 14 % History 13 % How well known a brand is 11 % Flexibility 10 % Reliability 8 % 20

21 Table 3. Comparison of stakeholders criteria to evaluate a financial services brand s reputation The most frequently cited criteria were customers comments by brand team members, customer service by both staff groups, and performance by consumers and IFAs. Brand team members exhibited a preference for customer-related criteria and a notably lower emphasis on performance than all the other stakeholder groups. After performance, consumers next most frequently reported criteria were integrity and reliability. Interestingly, customer service was mentioned to a far lesser extent by consumers than by all of the other stakeholder groups. IFAs emphasised practical considerations such customer service, financial strength, how it compares with competitors, cost products and consistency most frequently after performance. After customer service, consumer-facing staff s secondary criteria resembled those used by consumers and IFA-facing staff s secondary criteria reflected those of IFAs. Internal stakeholders (brand team members and staff) mentioned trust/confidence more frequently than external stakeholders. External stakeholders (consumers and IFAs) put greater importance on a financial services brand s history in assessing its reputation than did internal stakeholders. Criteria frequently cited by all stakeholders, although to varying degrees, were performance, customer service and comparison with competitors. 21

22 Based on these findings, the following propositions were derived: P4: Different stakeholder groups emphasise different criteria in evaluating a financial services brand s reputation. P5: Brand team members focus on customer-related criteria in evaluating a financial services brand s reputation. P6: Staff put a lot of emphasis on customer service to evaluate a financial services brand s reputation. P7: Consumers focus on performance and the integrity and reliability of a financial services brand in evaluating its reputation. P8: Independent financial advisers focus on performance and functional and comparative considerations in evaluating a financial services brand s reputation. DISCUSSION The way in which a brand s reputation was defined by different groups of stakeholders is consistent with many of the themes identified in the literature. It was interpreted by all stakeholders as how a brand was perceived and built up over time. Perhaps owing to the nature of financial services transactions involving the exchange of promises (McKechnie and Harrison, 1995), a brand s reputation was also defined 22

23 in terms of what a brand stands for and the expectations/extent to which these are met. This, however, concurs with the literature in which reputation is also interpreted as an assessment of credibility (e.g. Herbig and Milewicz, 1995; Fombrun and Rindova, (1996, cited in Fombrun and van Riel, 1997). Consistent with Schweizer and Wijnberg s (1999) suggestion that reputation may serve as a shorthand device, consumers also defined reputation as an indication of a brand s reliability, quality and the degree of trust/confidence that could be placed in it. Two stakeholder groups (consumer-facing staff and IFAs) emphasised a brand s reputation as a relative concept stating that it included how a brand compares with competitors. Internal stakeholders emphasis on what a brand stands for also implies differentiation from competitors, which concurs with Fombrun and Rindova s (1996, cited in Fombrun and van Riel, 1997) interpretation of reputation as relative to competitors. As in the literature, four out of five of the stakeholder groups in our study considered it as comprising the views of multiple stakeholders. Although respondents tended to use the term general public rather than stakeholders (a term more commonly used in marketing), public is defined in The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) as of or concerning the people as a whole which is consistent with the interpretation of including all stakeholders. In contrast to the literature (e.g. Fombrun and Shanley, 1990; Shenkar and Tuchtman- Yaar, 1997; Brown, T., 1998; Fombrun and van Riel, 1997; Saxton, 1998), the findings indicated that different stakeholder groups do not necessarily use different criteria to evaluate reputation, but rather emphasise different criteria. This suggests that a common instrument could be used to assess a brand s reputation across different stakeholders, but that the factors would need to be weighted differently for 23

24 different stakeholder groups. In line with the rise of market orientation, brand team members focused on customer-related criteria. The importance accorded by staff to customer service is consistent with their roles as the interface between the brand and consumers or IFAs. The finding that consumers place greater emphasis on experience qualities both in defining and in evaluating a financial services brand is consistent with Zeithaml (1981) and Davies (1996). IFAs emphasis on functional and comparative criteria is congruent with their roles as intermediaries advising consumers in the selection of financial services. The fact that internal stakeholders mentioned trust/confidence as a criterion to assess reputation more frequently than external stakeholders, even though it was integral to external stakeholders definition of a brand s reputation, implies that external stakeholders use other criteria as indicators of the trust/confidence that may be placed in a financial services brand. CONCLUSIONS This research has contributed to the reputation literature by examining how different stakeholder groups define the concept of a brand s reputation and identifying the commonalities and differences in emphasis of their interpretations. It has provided empirical evidence for many of the themes contained in definitions of reputation proposed in the literature. Secondly, by identifying the criteria used by five stakeholder groups in evaluating a financial services brand s reputation, this research has shown that different 24

25 stakeholders use a wide range of overlapping criteria, but place different emphases on various criteria, commensurate with their roles and expertise. It is proposed that a common instrument could be used to assess a brand s reputation, but that the factors would require different weightings for different stakeholder groups. Future research needs to be undertaken to explore the relationships between the criteria used to evaluate a brand s reputation. For example, the findings suggested that while trust/confidence is important to external stakeholders, they use other variables to estimate the degree of trust/confidence that may be placed in a financial services brand. Research should also be conducted in other industries in order to examine whether and how the criteria used to evaluate reputation differ between industries. Future research might also examine additional stakeholder groups, such as shareholders and the community. REFERENCES Brown, E America s Most Admired Companies. Fortune, 1 March: Brown, M Tesco s Triple Crown. Management Today, December: Brown, T.J Corporate Associations in Marketing: Antecedents and Consequences. Corporate Reputation Review, 1(3):

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