Marketing communication: principles and practice

Image of the service provider
Image exists on more than one level – the corporate image influences the local
image. Grönroos (1990) argues that because local business environments
and local societies differ, it may be self-defeating to try to streamline local
image to fall in line with corporate image. This issue of differentiation or
standardization may depend on the strengths of disparate local images.
A favourable and well-known image is an asset because image has an impact
on customer appreciation of the communication and operations of the
corporation, by:
• communicating expectations
• filtering and influencing the perception of technical and functional quality
• combining and reflecting the experiences and expectations of each
customer
• impacting on employee attitudes by communicating values
In the marketing of professional services, for example, personal selling and
other interpersonal interactions are crucial to judgements of competence in
delivering the service. 
‘Most Admired Companies’ rankings
The biggest and best known study of admiration for companies has been
conducted annually for many years by the 
Fortune
magazine.
I D E N T I T Y
,
I M A G E
,
A N D R E P U T A T I O N
200

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In Britain, 
The Economist
carried out, with the help of Professor John
Saunders and other researchers from Loughborough University Business
School, a similar exercise in 1989, 1990, and 1992. This was undertaken 
by sending 1,800 business people and analyst participants a list of pub-
licly quoted firms in their own industry, selected on the basis of market
capitalization. In total, 7 executives in each of some 260 companies in 
26 industries were asked to participate. Participants were asked to rank the
firms on their own industry (excluding their own) on eight criteria. More
recently, the study has been published by 
Management Today
in 1994, 1995,
and 1996.
In 1994 Price Waterhouse was commissioned by 
The Financial Times
to
conduct a study in Europe to identify the most respected companies (see 
The Financial Times
, 27 June, 1994). This study asked senior executives to
nominate the most-respected companies in their industry on the basis of
seven measures of business performance:
1 customer focus
2 people
3 products and services
4 business performance
5 leadership and management
6 strategy
7 environment
The 
Fortune
study has been criticized for not capturing the views of all
constituents (see for example, Fombrun, 1996). 
Fortune
’s surveys have sought
the evaluations of senior executives, directors, and analysts, but have
misrepresented the company images with other constituents – employees,
customers, and the local communities in which the companies operate.
Instead of broadening the coverage of images, 
Fortune
have merely increased
the number of executives surveyed – well beyond the sample size required
to get a representative view.
Closer to home, the 
NorthWest Business Insider
annually reports a league
table of the Top 250 (recently expanded to 300) best-performing companies
based in the north-west of England. This is compiled using published annual
reports and accounts, using:
• chief-executive salary
• dividend payments to directors
• profit
• profit per employee
• sales growth
• number of jobs
• change in net-cash holding
• donations to charity
• donations to political parties