The most beloved company in America is Amazon, according to the 2018 Harris Poll Reputation Quotient Rankings which were published on 22nd March 2018.

This was the third year in a row that Amazon garnered the top position in this corporate reputation poll, which gauges consumers’ views on workplace environment, social responsibility, emotional appeal, financial performance, vision and leadership, and products and services.

Mr. President, why pick on Americans’ favorite brand?

The brand defines the 2018 consumer’s benchmark for a best-retail experience, which is what people increasingly expect across the various interactions they have throughout a day.

[As a sidebar, consider the other 24 companies in the top 25, shown in the table: there are many grocery stores, some technology, and a few other retailers. Ironically, UPS, also targeted by President Trump, ranks #7 on the Harris list — basically the “messenger” of Amazon’s packages. Interestingly, shipping services ranked highly on the Temkin Experience Ratings for 2017, which I also intuit are part of the Amazon shipping halo].

LinkedIn also ranked Amazon tops in their study on the most desirable employers to work for. They wrote up their insights in this post on their website last week, citing several factors making the eretailers a most-favored workplace: among them, that Amazon “obsesses about what customers want,” adopting a strong design approach; a culture that encourages “little experiments that might fail,” encouraging creativity; and embrace of frugality as a “winning cultural value,” which also inspires creative innovation and streamlining which translates into high value for customers.

There are several other studies quantifying Amazon brand-love among consumers. Take Brand Finance’s Global 500 report, which rated Amazon ahead of Apple and Google. Brand Finance calculated that Amazon’s brand value grew over 40% in just one year. That fast-growth was built on an entire portfolio of businesses that went well beyond shipping stuff to consumers between 2017 and 2018, from the Whole Foods acquisition to video streaming, Alexa adoption, etc.

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  I shared my perspectives on the Amazon Prime-ing of consumers last week with a brilliant group of health providers, technology developers, UX designers, and healthcare strategists. The message strongly resonated with the audience, whose show-of-hands told me the majority were Amazon Prime members.

By the fourth quarter of 2017, over one-half of U.S. households were Amazon Prime subscribers. Last month, Amazon extended discounted Prime membership to people enrolled in Medicaid plans and SNAP food benefit programs. That would bring fast, free shipping to people who live in food deserts and potentially pharmacy deserts who could receive fresh, nutritious products that might bolster health and wellness.

The fact is that as many consumers trust large retail and digital companies to help us manage our health as trust healthcare providers, a recent PwC/Strategy& survey found. Why is this the case? Because people find transparency and clear value propositions delivered by retailers and digitally-enabled companies.

It’s that transparency and value that digital companies must continue to deliver in the post-Facebook/Cambridge Analytica landscape. Amazon has the opportunity to demonstrate positive personal data stewardship for consumers. More people will be watching more closely, from the President and FTC to many of us who are both retail- and personal-data-engaged.

Sunday’s New York Times begged that question in a front-page article titled, “Hey, Alexa, What Can You Hear? And What Will You Do With It?”

In the meantime, with the news of Walmart intending to purchase health insurer Humana, the convergence of health, retail, care and food will heat up. Emma Court  pointed out the potential for Walmart + Humana at the grocery, which I’ve been evangelizing for a few years now – that link will take you to a post written in 2014 on the blurred lines for health@retail.

This is a very sweet spot for health/care, “primed” for retail health, groceries, and pharmacies to, if you’ll pardon the word, target. Remember that there are a lot of grocers that are beloved-brands on the Harris list. All of them have pharmacies, and increasingly nutritionists/dietitians on staff. We might well re-name the “Harris Poll Reputation Quotient Rankings” as the “Harris Poll Health Ecosystem Partners.”

No doubt the #1 beloved consumer brand will be partnering with a number of them for health/care.