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The Wall Street Journal: Corporate reputation study: Shell ranked at 50 out of 60 companies

Reputation Quotient Methodology

The Harris Interactive corporate reputation study was carried out in two phases: a nominations phase, which occurred in July and August, 2006 and a ratings phase, which occurred from September 21 to October 23, 2006.

In the nominations phase, Harris Interactive conducted 7,886 interviews throughout the U.S. using a combined online and telephone methodology. The online respondents were randomly selected from the Harris Interactive online panel of multimillion members. All respondents were asked to nominate two companies that they feel have the best reputations overall and two companies that they feel have the worst reputations overall. Nominations were open-ended and all responses were tallied, placing subsidiaries and brand names within the parent company.

By totaling the mentions for best and worst companies provided during the nominations phase, Harris Interactive identified the list of 60 most visible companies in the U.S to be measured in the ratings phase.

In the ratings phase, 22,480 respondents were randomly selected to complete a detailed rating of one or two companies with which they were “very or somewhat familiar.” All interviews were conducted online. Respondents rated companies on 20 attributes in six key dimensions which comprise the Harris Reputation QuotientSM (RQ) including, products and services, financial performance, workplace environment, social responsibility, vision and leadership, and emotional appeal. After the first company rating was completed, the respondent was given the option to rate a second company.

Each of the 60 companies was rated by at least 279 people; the average number of respondents per company was 596. All data were weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult (aged 18 and over) population. Weighting variables for this study included demographic variables (i.e., age, sex, education, race, ethnicity, household income and region), and some nondemographic variables to project findings to the U.S. adult population.

Finally, reputation quotient (RQ) figures were calculated for each company to determine the rankings. Each company’s RQ is based on the respondents’ ratings of each company on the 20 attributes. RQs are calculated by summing the ratings on the individual RQ attributes, dividing by the total possible score (i.e., 7 x the total number of attributes answered) and multiplying by 100. The highest possible score is 100. In comparing any two RQ scores, a T-test was used to determine statistically significant differences at a confidence level of 95%.

Annual RQ 2006 Corporate Reputation Scores for the 60 Most Visible Companies

    Base: All Adults

     Rank in 2006  Company                     RQ Score 2006   RQ Score 2005
           1       Microsoft Corporation               80.74           78.11
           2       Johnson & Johnson                  80.44           80.56
           3       3M Company                           80.09           78.78
           4       Google                                    79.81           79.52
           5       The Coca-Cola Company           79.52           79.69
           6       General Mills                            79.38           78.03
           7       United Parcel Service (UPS)        79.07           79.37
           8       Sony Corporation                     78.58           78.75
           9       Toyota Motor Corporation         78.14           77.27
          10       Procter & Gamble Company       77.99           75.91
          11       Amazon.com, Inc.                    77.66              NA
          12       Whole Foods Market                 77.58              NA
          13       The Walt Disney Company         77.49           75.88
          14       Honda Motor Co.                      77.26           75.60
          15       FedEx Corporation                    76.69           77.79
          16       Intel Corporation                      76.36           77.27
          17       Lowe’s                                    75.86              NA
          18       Home Depot                             75.34           76.50
          19       General Electric Company           75.25           73.39
          20       Costco                                     75.14           74.03
          21       Berkshire Hathaway Inc.             74.68              NA
          22       Apple Computer                        74.59           70.59
          23       Dell, Inc.                                   74.22           75.73
          24       PepsiCo                                    73.88           75.26
          25       Nike                                         73.73           72.11
          26       IBM Corporation                        73.56           73.42
          27       The Boeing Company                 73.52           73.10
          28       Starbucks Corporation                73.25           72.93
          29       Southwest Airlines                      72.92           73.21
          30       Target Corporation                     72.64           71.83
          31       Nordstrom                                 71.97              NA
          32       Best Buy Co.                              71.93           69.74
          33       Unilever                                      71.74           70.28
          34       American Express Company         71.48              NA
          35       J.C. Penney Company                  71.45           68.81
          36       Wells Fargo & Company               69.81              NA
          37       Verizon Communications              69.43           67.01
          38       Hewlett-Packard                          69.14           69.44
          39       Merck                                         69.01           64.07
          40       Wal-Mart Stores                          68.28           69.99
          41       Sears Holdings Corporation          67.64           65.26
          42       State Farm Insurance                  67.55              NA
          43       Bank of America Corporation        67.55           66.00
          44       SBC Communications                   66.83           66.67
          45       Citigroup Incorporated                 66.69           65.00
          46       AT&T Inc.                                   66.60           62.37
          47       McDonald’s                                  66.43           66.83
          48       Time Warner, Inc.                         65.57           63.85
          49       DaimlerChrysler                            65.22           64.47
          50       Royal Dutch/Shell                         64.22           59.45
          51       Allstate Corporation                      64.16           65.82
          52       BP                                               63.97              NA
          53       Chevron Corporation                     63.42           62.46
          54       Sprint Corporation                        62.88           61.01
          55       Ford Motor Company                     62.74           66.14
          56       Altria Group                                  62.58           61.62
          57       General Motors Corporation           62.50           66.07
          58       Comcast Corporation                    61.49           62.08
          59       ExxonMobil Corporation                60.65           59.57
          60       Halliburton Company                     52.48           52.22

More information about Harris Interactive may be obtained at www.harrisinteractive.com.
To become a member of the Harris Poll Online and be invited to participate in online surveys, register at http://go.hpolsurveys.com/PR
    Press Contact:
    Nancy Wong
    Harris Interactive
    585-214-7316

    Harris Interactive Inc. 1/07

SOURCE Harris Interactive
Nancy Wong of Harris Interactive, +1-585-214-7316 http://www.harrisinteractive.com Copyright (C) 2007 PR Newswire. All rights reserved ********************************************************************** As of Sunday, 01-28-2007 23:59, the latest Comtex SmarTrend(SM) Alert, an automated pattern recognition system, indicated an UPTREND on 01-19-2007 for JNJ @ $67.98. For more information on Comtex SmarTrend® Alert, contact your market data provider or go to www.CSTADirect.com SmarTrend is a registered trademark of Comtex News Network, Inc. Copyright © 2004-2007 Comtex News Network, Inc. All rights reserved.

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