Corporate credibility is vital for forming the image of the company that will be positively perceived by the large number of customers. In the academic literature there is no one standard definition of corporate credibility. Newell & Goldsmith define it as “perceived expertise and trustworthiness or truthfulness of a firm” (Newell & Goldsmith, 1997, p. 237). In addition to the expertise and trustworthiness, some scholars argue that attractiveness is also a very important factor that influences credibility (Epega, 2008, p.5). Therefore a company that would like to apply effective strategies in terms of advertising and PR should invest sufficient resources into the factors mentioned above.
All market leaders in any industry usually have a high level of credibility – Apple, Coca-Coca, Home Depot, etc. – and work hard to improve their image by communicating with the customers, showing that they are the leading experts in their business segment and using design and technology in order to look attractive. Especially the new innovative companies in the creative industries have to worry about the corporate credibility if they want to stay competitive. For example, the music service company Spotify is a young company that was founded in Sweden, but operates at the global level. It has been developing in all three dimensions – expertise, trust, attractiveness – in order to grow the customer base which now equals 75 million active users (Dredge, 2015). The company has become an expert in music and specializes in streaming all kinds of music via different devices. In order to build a rapport with the customers, Spotify uses various communication channels online. There are 423,000 followers on Instagram and almost 10 million followers on Facebook. Moreover, there is a very quick customer service and support that communicate with the users if they have problems when they use the app. Finally, the company’s target audience is the young people, therefore it must look attractive in order be popular. The web-site and the app are user-friendly and colorful. Thus despite a very young age, Spotify may be regarded as company that has a very high level of credibility.
References:
Epega, T. (2008). Factors influencing the perceived credibility of public relations message
sources. Graduate Theses and Dissertations. Retrieved from
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Newell, S., Goldsmith, R. (2001). The Development of a Scale to Measure Perceived
Corporate Credibility. Journal of Business Research, 52, p. 235-247.
Dredge, S. (10 June 2015). Spotify responds to Apple Music by revealing it now has 75m
active users. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/view
content.cgi?article=1227&context=etd
