For the second year, FleishmanHillard Canada has conducted authenticity gap research in Canada, to help clients manage the gap between consumers’ expectations and their actual experiences.
“As a PR firm, reputation management is a big part of what we do and it’s predominantly one of the most important things that a lot of our clients come to us for,” says Angela Carmichael, senior partner and general manager at FleishmanHillard Toronto.
The 2015 Authenticity Gap looked at about 150 companies in 20 Canadian industries including consumer electronics, banks, law firms, luxury automotive, grocers, beer, sports apparel, airlines and pharmaceuticals.
Among the industries studied this year, the luxury auto industry had the highest expectation of credible communications. “The auto brands we included were already perceived as underperforming against this expectation – and that doesn’t bode well for Volkswagen, given recent revelations about their testing practices,” Carmichael says. “It doesn’t help that the data also shows that customers perceive luxury auto companies to be missing the mark when it comes to care of the environment.”
Surprisingly, the beer industry had the highest expectation of environmental care with customers believing the industry can do more to deliver quality products that don’t put the environment at risk.
This year’s Authenticity Gap research also found the banking industry is missing customers’ expectations for innovation and better value in a significant way. The recent launch by online bank Tangerine Bank of its first credit card could be seen as a sign the company is paying attention to what its customers need, Carmichael says.
To measure the Authenticity Gap, the firm has identified three categories and nine drivers of authenticity, which consumers use to assess the reputations of brands and companies.
The drivers consist of innovation, customer care and better value within the customer benefits category, commitment to doing the right thing, consistent performance and credible communications in the management behaviour category and employee care, community impact and caring for the environment in the society outcomes category.
Part of the fieldwork involved identifying informed influencers in each industry to assess perceptions of industries and brands and to find gaps in what they’re delivering compared to people’s expectations of them, says Nick Drew, senior vice-president of research and analytics at FleishmanHillard Toronto.
The importance of the drivers differ depending on the industry, Drew says. In the airline industry, for example, consistent performance is important. “In addition to the wings staying on the plane, people also want to know that when they get on an Air Canada plane, it’s going to give them the Air Canada experience that they expect every other time that they’ve gone on it,” Drew says.
Consistent performance is also big in the banking industry, Drew says. “(People) want to know the banks are going to be in business and their money is still going to be there tomorrow.”
By contrast, in consumer electronics, innovation is the most important attribute.
For many clients the research serves as a way to validate what they believe may or may not be happening in their industry or to see how they compare to competitors, Carmichael says. It also helps clients be smarter with their marketing and PR dollars.
As well, the research can get clients to think about their reputations when they’re not in crisis mode.
“We sometimes forget about reputation until something happens and all of a sudden your phone is ringing. It doesn’t take much for your reputation to be challenged,” she says.
