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Marketing departments are wrestling with an identity crisis. When McDonald's recently faced the dilemma of hosting a presidential candidate, its response – "We are not red or blue, we are golden" – wasn't about Happy Meals or Big Macs. It was about company values and political neutrality.
This moment crystallised a question many marketers grapple with: is managing political positioning the same job as building brand preference? Is defending company ethics the same as driving customer acquisition?
For years, brand served as the catch-all framework for everything from purpose to customer experience. But that's changing, and the implications run deeper than semantics.
Initial findings from Bloomberg’s new Corporate Reputation Study, which canvassed the views of over 1,200 marketing and communications leaders from around the world, reveal the extent of this shift: 79% now see corporate reputation and brand equity as distinct concepts (50% – somewhat distinct, 29% – entirely distinct). Among professionals aged 25-35, the separation is even more pronounced. This was the latest study from the Bloomberg Industry Accelerator series: the second wave of its proprietary Global Corporate Reputation Pulse.
"Brand used to be the lens by which a heck of a lot went through," says Anne Kawalerski, managing director of advertising for the Americas and chief client officer at Bloomberg, who presented the research. "Everything from brand purpose, your values, your promise, your positioning, CSR, thought leadership, strategic communications, experience and storytelling.”
What's driving this separation?
The trust versus differentiation divide
The research reveals that trust and credibility now define corporate reputations, while image and perception have declined in importance.
"Nearly half of CEOs and CMOs, and over half of CCOs, see it as the least important driver of corporate reputation," says Kawalerski. "This indicates that the primary job to be done for corporate reputation is more foundational than commercial."
Brand equity, meanwhile, is shaped most by brand personality, market positioning and customer experience. Surprisingly, emotional connection ranked dead last – a shock for marketers trained to see it as the brand essence.
The McDonald's example illustrates this clearly: its political neutrality statement represents corporate reputation work (values, ethics), while the Golden Arches and consistent global experience represent brand equity (product differentiation, customer expectations).
The ownership puzzle
This separation creates practical headaches. While CMOs and CCOs are perceived as owners of corporate reputation, Bloomberg found that sales, marketing, product development, finance, communications, customer service, legal and HR all believe they own corporate reputation in some way.
"If the CMO and the CCO are the tip of the spear, but need all of these other functions, or all these other functions are involved, how does that work, practically?" asks Kawalerski. "And where does the funding come from?"
Some organisations are experimenting with chief marketing and communications officer roles to manage both areas under unified leadership, but the structural challenges remain complex.
AI accelerates the urgency
Large language models (LLMs) are adding pressure to resolve this confusion, with OpenAI claiming 1 billion user messages are sent daily on ChatGPT. Even Google execs apparently see a decline in search to the likes of ChatGPT and Gemini as inevitable. “As brand marketers and comms leaders, we’re going to lose control very soon. What do we do about that?" says Kawalerski.
One audience member highlighted the implications: “A quote from your CEO, or anyone else in your C-suite, in the media, is more valuable than any ads, because that's what's going to be in LLMs.”
A new content ecosystem, described by Kawalerski as C2B2M (creator 2 business 2 machine), is emerging where corporate reputation and brand are shaped by what creators signal, how businesses validate those signals, and how machines summarise them.
This creates new challenges for marketing teams. "CCOs and CMOs must align or correct the narrative defined by creators and develop new ways of connecting with audiences," says Kawalerski. "This didn't exist before LLMs. What does that mean for how we hire? What does that mean for our teams?"
The measurement mismatch
The separation also reveals measurement contradictions. Social media monitoring has jumped to nearly 40% as the top method for measuring corporate reputation in 2025, up from 25% in 2024. Yet, corporate reputation's building blocks – social responsibility, digital responsibility and product quality – take years to establish.
By contrast, the components that build brand equity, digital presence, visual identity and pricing perception can be deployed and measured much faster.
For marketing departments, this means rethinking team structures when corporate reputation spans multiple functions, splitting budgets between long-term trust building and shorter-term brand differentiation, and developing measurement approaches that match timeframes to objectives.
Companies are responding with increased investment; 24% are significantly increasing budgets in 2025, and 56% are slightly increasing them. The research also indicates that in-person conferences present the greatest opportunity to enhance corporate reputation.
What's emerging is corporate reputation as the foundational layer handling purpose, values, CSR and strategic communications, with brand equity focusing on market positioning, customer experience and differentiation.
The separation is already happening. Marketing leaders must ask whether their departments are structured – in terms of strategy, assets and teams – to handle these fundamentally separate challenges.
Find Bloomberg's latest study from its Bloomberg Industry Accelerator series: the second wave of its proprietary Global Corporate Reputation Pulse here.
