It appears that people just really, really love deep discounts and free shipping. Wired reports that, according to a new Harris Interactive poll, Amazon (AMZN) is actually the number-one most respected company in America. Apple (AAPL), Disney, Google (GOOGL) (?!) and Johnson & Johnson made up the rest of the top five.
Amazon apparently “trounced” Disney in the category of emotional appeal, which makes us wonder whether everyone has just forgotten how much we all cried during the movie Dumbo.
Even the people who ran the poll sound astounded that Amazon took home the top prize:
“Amazon is predominantly a virtual company where you don’t get to see the people. You don’t see brick and mortar,” says Robert Fronk, executive vice-president of reputation management at Harris. “For them to first of all have the highest reputation, but more importantly to be the company with far and away the highest emotional appeal, is amazing.”
According to Wired: “Forty-six percent of all respondents said they ‘definitely would trust’ Amazon ‘to do the right thing.'” Presumably respondents were thinking of their personal information rather than the fate of the publishing business or how mom-and-pop stores will fight against a competitor that can deliver just about anything to your doorstep within 48 hours. Either that, or every single one of the 19,000 respondents was actually Macmillan CEO John Sargent being really, really sarcastic.
Meanwhile, Facebook (META) was ranked 42nd when competing against just tech companies, putting the social network below Best Buy but above T-Mobile. That’s gotta sting.