Walmart Tops MSLGROUP's Global Fortune 100 'PurPle' Index

PARIS, April 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Just weeks after corporate purpose featured heavily at the World Economic Forum meeting for the first time, a new ranking of the global Fortune 100 measuring the level of social engagement around a company's purpose-inspired communications places Walmart in the top spot.  Citigroup, GE, Procter & Gamble and Toshiba also make the list of top-five performers.

Produced by MSLGROUP, a leading global strategic communications network, the PurPle Index uses social data, qualitative research waves, and a proprietary algorithm.  The PurPle Index evaluated and scored Fortune's top-ranked 100 companies worldwide on a number of aspects including successful storytelling of the company's purpose, the strength of the company's call-to-action and the level of engagement with the company in social media.

Pascal Beucler, Chief Strategy Officer at MSLGROUP commented, "Walmart has understood that communicating your purpose and how it inspires your business strategy is important – but in today's world, companies that want to drive positive change in business and society must go way beyond communicating to actively engaging with their stakeholders."

Beucler highlighted Walmart's deep understanding of collaborative social innovation. Through the company's Live Better program, Walmart involved all its stakeholders in an effort to lower energy use and reduce waste. At the same time, its 'Do One Thing' initiative inspired customers and partners to infuse major causes with their own personal energy.

In addition to analyzing how well companies were engaging with stakeholders to inspire purpose, the PurPle Index benchmarks engagement in four specific areas: Health, Environment, Education and Human Potential. These categories represent the issues on which companies are focusing today to drive change in society and their business.  The research found:

• GE is not only a top five performer overall, it also leads the rankings in the core areas of both Environment and Health
• P&G and Toshiba are strong overall performers; P&G leads in in Education and Health, and Toshiba in Environment and Human Potential
• Wells-Fargo, though not a top 5 performer overall, leads the ranking for Education-inspired purpose initiatives
• Tech-related companies dominate the area of Human Potential

The PurPle Index is a product of MSLGROUP's new global offering, PurPle (Purpose + People).  Grounded in the new triple bottom line - purpose, performance and participation – PurPle puts people at the center of its proprietary strategic communications process, helps unlock purpose for companies, to maximize participation and performance.

Scott Beaudoin, global director for PurPle, commented, "Leading companies are using visual storytelling and direct engagement strategies via social media to amplify messaging around their purpose. By contrast, the lowest performers in the PurPle Index are focused on one-way communications, with platforms used only to disseminate information."

As the heart of PurPle lies in the intersection of purpose, people and performance, the team also wanted to see if a correlation existed between engagement levels around purpose and a company's bottom line.  Indeed, when compared to Fortune's list of Most Profitable Companies, 10 of the companies ranked highest for social engagement on the PurPle Index are also on Fortune's list: BP, Chevron, Citigroup, Ford, GE, Nestle, P&G, Samsung, Walmart, Wells Fargo.

To view the PurPle Index Executive Summary, visit purple.mslgroup.com

Methodology
The PurPle index uses a combination of automatically updated social data pulled in from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Kred, Klout, Peerindex and SEOMoz; qualitative research waves, and MSLGROUP's proprietary normalization algorithm to create a single score between 1 and 100. The data was collected from July to December 2012.  MSLGROUP is a large global organization that represents hundreds of clients around the globe, including numerous companies that earned positions on this index. 

About PurPle
PurPle is MSLGROUP's global offering that connects its cause, responsibility and sustainability resources, experts and specialized services together.  Focusing on Purpose + People (the 'PurPle'), the offering guides organizations and companies to build and communicate purpose-led business strategies that put people at the center.  Using the latest social and digital tools for Collaborative Social Innovation, the approach helps organizations partner with communities, governments, NGOs, customers and employees to co-create solutions to the world's toughest problems.  The specialty is led by Pascal Beucler, Chief Strategy Officer of MSLGROUP and Scott Beaudoin, global director, PurPle.  

About MSLGROUP
MSLGROUP is Publicis Groupe's strategic communications and engagement group, advisors in all aspects of communication strategy: from consumer PR to financial communications, from public affairs to reputation management and from crisis communications to event management. With more than 3,700 people, its offices span 22 countries. Adding affiliates and partners into the equation, MSLGROUP's reach increases to 4,000 employees in 83 countries. Today the largest PR network in EMEA, Greater China and India, the group offers strategic planning and counsel, insight-guided thinking and big, compelling ideas – followed by thorough execution. Learn more about us at: www.mslgroup.com  + http://blog.mslgroup.com  + Twitter + YouTube.

About Publicis Groupe
Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris FR0000130577, part of the CAC 40 index] is the third largest communications group in the world, offering the full range of services and skills: digital and traditional advertising, public affairs and events, media buying and specialized communication. Its major networks are Leo Burnett, MSLGROUP, PHCG (Publicis Healthcare Communications Group), Publicis Worldwide, Rosetta and Saatchi & Saatchi. VivaKi, the Groupe's media and digital accelerator, includes Digitas, Razorfish, Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia. Present in 104 countries, the Groupe employs 56,000 professionals.
www.publicisgroupe.com | Twitter:@PublicisGroupe | Facebook: www.facebook.com/publicisgroupe

SOURCE MSLGROUP