A study of meaningful brands has found Woolworths, Coles, Kellogg’s, Vegemite, and Milo are among the top 10 meaningful brands for Australians.
The annual Havas Media Meaningful Brands Survey is a global study highlighting how quality of life and wellbeing connects with brands at both a personal and business level.
The top 10 Australian performers for 2015 were Woolworths, Google, Coles, PayPal, Kellogg’s, Samsung, Microsoft, Vegemite, Milo, and Visa.
Consumer electronics brands most commonly leveraged emotional wellbeing, highlighting self expression and social connections. Meanwhile, retail heavyweights, Woolworths and Coles relied on marketplace outputs to drive their high ranking on the MB Index while FMCG brand names like Kelloggs, Vegemite, and Milo leveraged personal wellbeing promises to drive higher share of wallet.
Vegemite, an Australian icon, rated highly on the Havas MB Index, pulling heavily on the heart with nostalgia and heritage attributes. Similarly, Kellogg’s and Milo make the list as their brands resonate with healthy living and family, as ‘brands we grow up with’.
Almost two thirds of Australians believe that brands should play a role in improving quality of living and wellbeing. Despite the clear opportunities for businesses, more than 70 per cent of Australian consumers feel brands currently aren’t working hard to contribute to improve our personal or collective wellbeing or deliver improvements in the marketplace.
According to Havas Media, meaningful brands can increase their share of wallet by seven times and on average gain 46 per cent more share of wallet than less meaningful brands, and deliver marketing KPI outcomes double that of lower scoring brands.
Meaningful Brands are also said to outperform the stock market by 133 per cent, with the top 25 scorers delivering an annual return of nearly 12 per cent.
The survey includes 1000 brands, 300,000 people, 34 countries and scope 12 industries.
The research covers all aspects of people’s lives, including the impact on collective wellbeing (the role brands play in our communities and the communities we care about), personal wellbeing (self esteem, healthy lifestyles, connectivity with friends and family, making our lives easier, fitness and happiness), and market place factors which relate to product performance such as quality and price.
Imogen Hewitt, head of strategy for Havas Media Australia said the Meaningful Brands Study demonstrates that brands perceived as improving consumers’ lives also deliver better performance across measures of brand awareness, consumer engagement and profitability.
“The most successful brands are those that create meaning and value by delivering on their promises to consumers. That could be through tangibles like price, performance or intangibles like personal well-being or community engagement,” Hewitt said.
“Locally, we’ve seen a real mix of brands and products featuring on the 2015 Meaningful Brands list. So, while there is no one size fits all solution, there is a clear benefit for brands when they can offer consumers something that improves their own lives or the lives of those within their communities. It’s great to understand this relationship but it is greater still to know what to do about it, and that’s what the Meaningful Brands study does for us.”
