Canadians choosing brand reputation over product: Harris Poll

Canadian consumers are looking beyond the product to the brand and, more importantly, brand reputation.

That was a major theme during the official launch of the first-ever Canadian edition of the Harris Poll’s Corporate Reputation Quotient (RQ) at Stagwell Canada’s office opening in Toronto on Wednesday. The Harris Poll “Canada 50,” in partnership with Canadian Business, was based on more than 5,500 interviews with Canadian consumers and ranked how the “most visible” companies in Canada are perceived by the public across key metrics including trust, vision, growth, products and services, culture, ethics and citizenship.

The panel that convened to discuss the findings included Mark Penn, chairman and CEO of Stagwell; John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll; and Sara Cappe, president of Harris Poll Canada.

“More than ever, consumers don’t just look at the product – they look at who’s selling it and what their reputation is,” said Penn, who is a former EVP and chief strategy officer at Microsoft. Penn added that there are two halves to a “proper reputation point.” The first involves trust, the second involves performance. “To be a great company, you have to do well in both of those… to be both a good citizen and a great performer.”

The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) clinched the top spot in the poll to become the most trusted and reputable organization in Canada. Beyond reputation, the PWHL also performed: the league boasted record ticket sales and high viewership. For context, the PWHL ranked above traditional powerhouses like the NHL, which placed 35th in the poll.

Canadian Tire was the highest Canadian company out of the top 50, ranking in 5th spot. “Four of the top 10 companies are Canadian, but also five of the bottom 10 are Canadian,” Gerzema pointed out. “Canadians tend to view domestic companies positively on elements like ethics and values. However, Canadian companies are not often seen as true leaders, and tend to underperform on elements such as innovation, quality and vision.”

Other key findings of the poll reflected this, with Canadian companies excelling on character and struggling with growth. With nearly identical levels of trade between U.S. and Canada, Canadian consumers know brands on both sides of the border. While local companies outperform on “character” attributes like ethics, culture and citizenship, they lag commercially in measures of growth, innovation and product and service quality.

“Canadians were discerning and, in some ways, punishing of the companies that we think about as legacy Canadian companies,” Cappe said. “We see from that that we are expecting more from Canadian companies right now in order to compete, and we are looking for them to show vision and to show what they’re doing when it comes to innovation.”

Larger Canadian brands like WestJet (38th), Bell (41st) and Air Canada (44th) failed to impress on “trajectory” dimensions such as vision, while only four Canadian-based companies cracked the top 10: PWHL (1st), Canadian Tire (5th), Manulife (8th), and Sun Life (9th).

Other key findings included corporate reputation has been damaged by inflation and banking trust remains high.

On the inflation side, Canadians expressed weariness of the rising cost of living and have increasingly turned their frustration toward businesses. Companies in sectors heavily reliant on pricing transparency – such as grocery (Loblaws), airlines (WestJet) and telecoms (Bell) – see their reputations suffering, the study found.

On the banking side, Canadian banks enjoy strong public confidence, unlike American banks. All of Canada’s “Big Five” banks ranked within the top 25, with Scotiabank leading at 13th. In contrast, U.S. banks like Wells Fargo and Bank of America placed much lower in the American edition of the study, Axios Harris Poll 100, highlighting a significant cross-border difference in banking trust.

While this is the first year the study has run in Canada, the Harris Poll RQ Study has been running in the U.S. for 25 years. The U.S. ranking is published annually as The Axios-Harris Poll 100.

“The Harris Poll and RQ study’s expansion into Canada is a game-changer for businesses that want to truly grasp what drives consumers on both sides of the border,” Penn said. “With the U.S. and Canadian economies so interwoven, digging into how the same brands are perceived in each country can expose the contrasts and overlaps in what really motivates consumers. These insights aren’t just valuable – they’re essential for any business serious about cutting through the noise, adapting to market nuances, and capitalizing on shared values for real impact.”