Aldi And Costco Just Became Two Of The World's Most Reputable Companies

RepTrak has released its 2021 Global RepTrak 100, the 2021 installment of their annual listing of the world's 100 most reputable companies. At the top stood Lego, but more importantly for us, Aldi and Costco have managed to snag spots for the first time, reaching the 65th and 78th places, respectively. 

Other companies on the list that readers of Mashed would recognize include Kellogg's at number 30, The Kraft Heinz Company at 57, Mars at 59, The Hershey Company at 76, Nestle at 85, and Amazon at 92, which even though it received the same score out of 100 from RepTrak, fell 51 places from its 2020 position. 

Aldi and Costco's rise in reputation during the coronavirus pandemic shouldn't surprise you. A conclusion The Progressive Grocer draws from the report is that relevancy was a top priority. "Consumer durables and apparel, technology (both hardware and software) and household and personal products companies lead the way after a year when the world depended on them for productivity, entertainment, comfort and safety," they explain. As bargain stores, these two brands became ever more indispensable, so no wonder people began to regard them as such.

As such lists appear, questions about who holds Costco in such high esteem, what the rankings actually mean, and why companies are listed should follow. RepTrak is pretty open about their methodology, which they list above the rankings it produced. They asked 68,577 people from the 15 largest economies in the world what they thought about corporations that boast a global revenue of over USD $2 billion, have a familiarity level of 20 percent in the countries asked, and must reach a score of 67.3 in reputation.

Initially, all of that makes sense. The biggest brands will tend to be the ones with the best reputation as they have a myriad of chances to impress people. However, on inspection, 68,577 is actually a rather small group of people to base a global perception on. For reference, the BBC had to decline to confirm that they received 100,000 complaints over the past weekend due to their scrapping of usual programming in favor of never-ending coverage of Prince Philip's death, potentially making it the most complained about story in the BBC's history. In that context, 68,577 people sound paltry.

Another point to note would be the self-selecting of the economies to another small margin of people. Of course, these compromises are always a necessary for surveys to work, but it's worth keeping in mind. Still, congratulations to Costco and Aldi for cementing themselves across this scattershot of people.