It goes without saying that the spontaneous combustion of Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 was a big deal, but rarely do we get an opportunity to see the impact of tech gaffes on public sentiment quantified. A new Harris Poll ranking the “reputation quotient” of the 100 most recognizable brands in the United States provides just that, and the picture isn’t good one for Samsung. In fact, it’s pretty dire.
In last year’s reputation ratings, Samsung landed in the seventh position out of 100 companies, beaten only by Amazon, Apple, and Google on the tech side of things. Fast forward to today, and Samsung has found itself barely squeezing into the top half of the chart with the number 49 spot on the rankings.
As big of a drop in the charts as it has taken, it’s interesting to note that Samsung’s actual reputation rating only actually dropped from 80.44 to 75.17. Harris considers a rating of 80+ to be “Excellent,” and groups ratings of 75 to 79 into the “Very Good” category. Additionally, both Apple and Google took hits in their ratings as well, though not nearly as drastic — Apple fell from 83.03 to 82.07 and Google dipped from 82.97 to 82.00.
The study is conducted via interviews with US adults, each of which are asked to rate companies that they are familiar with. According to the methodology of the research, each company received a rating from approximately 300 respondents. The timing of the study wasn’t particularly favorable to Samsung, having been conducted from late November to mid December of 2016, which was precisely when Samsung was in the midst devising a way to remotely kill off the Note 7s that were still in the hands of owners.
