Brand Equity Suffers When Customer Data Breached

“Lose my information and you’ve lost my business” was the overarching theme of responses in a survey of 400 consumers’ views on brand equity as it relates to data breaches, according to a study by Tablus, MarketingCharts reports.

Some 87 percent of consumers surveyed said they lost respect for businesses that lost sensitive customer information.

The survey also revealed that a majority of respondents saw a strong link between data breaches and brand equity, Tablus said. Among the findings:

• 93 percent of respondents said that businesses have an obligation to protect sensitive content.
• 95 percent of respondents felt there was no excuse for a company to expose a customer’s confidential information.
• 85 percent of respondents would prefer to do business with a company that has never experienced a data breach.
• 82 percent of respondents would warn others from doing business with a company that exposed its customers’ personal information.
• 82 percent of respondents said companies that had never experienced data loss were more trustworthy than those that have.
• 96 percent of respondents stated that companies’ highest priority should be protecting customers from data breaches.
• 94 percent of respondents said if there was a technology that could prevent the loss of confidential personal information, all businesses handling such information should use it.
• 90 percent of respondents stated that they did not trust companies that couldn’t provide protection for their confidential information.
• 88 percent of respondents said companies that provided better protection of their customers’ confidential information have better reputations.

“This survey shows how essential content protection is to an organization, not just from an IT perspective, but from the value a brand has in the public eye,” said David Puglia, VP of marketing for Tablus.

“Newspaper headlines have shown how fragile brand equity can be after a company experiences a data breach, and companies must stay ahead of the threat in order to maintain brand equity.”