Australian supermarkets Woolworths and Coles, along with food brands Kellogg’s, Vegemite and Milo are among the top 10 ‘meaningful brands’ for Australians, according to new findings from communications and marketing company Havas Media.
Havas’ Meaningful Brands 2015 study revealed that:
- 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
- Top Meaningful Brands deliver marketing KPI outcomes that are double that of lower scoring brands
- Meaningful Brands outperform the stock market by 133 per cent, with the top 25 scorers delivering an annual return of nearly 12 per cent
The top 10 Australian performers for 2015 were Woolworths, Google, Coles, PayPal, Kellogg’s, Samsung, Microsoft, Vegemite, Milo and Visa. While the usual (global) suspects featured heavily, Havas Media said the Meaningful Brands Index showed that size was not a barrier, with challenger brand PayPal taking out the fourth spot thanks to the brand’s efforts to make people’s lives easier and strong local partnerships with retailers.
“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,” said Imogen Hewitt, Head of Strategy for Havas Media Australia.
About the research
Meaningful Brands – Havas’ metric of brand strength — is the first global study to show how consumers’ quality of life and well-being connects with brands at both a human and business level. The Company said the research unique in both scale – 1,000 brands, 300,000 people, 34 countries — and scope (12 industries).
The research covers all aspects of people’s lives, including the impact on consumers’ collective wellbeing (the role brands play in our communities and the communities we care about), in consumers’ personal wellbeing (self esteem, healthy lifestyles, connectivity with friends and family, making consumers’ lives easier, fitness and happiness) and market place factors, which relate to product performance such as quality and price.
Consumers ‘sense of wellbeing’ impacts spending
Globally, the Meaningful Brands research found a clear correlation between brands which impacted consumers’ sense of well-being and their “Share of Wallet” – a metric used to measure the percentage spent with a brand vs. the total annual expenditure within its category is on average 46 per cent higher for meaningful brands.
Meaningful Brands 2015 demonstrated that brands that contributed significantly to consumers’ quality of life were rewarded with stronger business results – they earned a “Return on Meaning”. This can measure the impact of increases in a brand’s meaningfulness and how it affects each marketing KPI, the brand’s Share of Wallet and its performance on the stock market. Meaningful Brands also outperform the stock market by nearly seven fold, with top scorers delivering an annual return of 11.76 per cent.
“The most successful brands are those that create meaning and value by delivering on their promises to consumers,” Ms Hewitt said. “That could be through tangibles like price, performance or intangibles like personal well-being or community engagement,” she said.
“Locally, we’ve seen a real mix of brands and products featuring on the 2015 Meaningful Brands list,” Ms Hewitt said. “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,” she said.
What worked for different brands
Havas Media said retail heavyweights, Woolworths and Coles relied on marketplace outputs (meeting functional needs) to drive their high ranking on the MB Index while FMCG brand names like Kelloggs, Vegemite and Milo leveraged personal well-being promises to drive higher share of wallet.
Vegemite, an Australian icon, rated highly on the Havas MB Index, pulling heavily on the heart (and purse) strings with nostalgia and heritage attributes. Similarly, Kellogg’s and Milo made the list as their brands resonated with healthy living and family, as ‘brands we grow up with’.
Consumer electronics brands most commonly leveraged emotional well-being, highlighting self-expression and social connections.
Consumers’ perceptions influences brands’ success
Havas said the Meaningful Brands research provided valuable insights into how consumers’ perceptions can influence brands’ bottom lines. The research found that almost two thirds of Australians believed that brands should play a role in improving our quality of living and wellbeing.
However, despite the clear opportunities for businesses, more than 70 per cent of Australian consumers said they felt that brands currently were not working hard to contribute to improve consumers’ personal or collective wellbeing or deliver improvements in the marketplace.
Australians ‘especially sceptical consumers’
Australia is unique in the APAC region, as it is more akin to more the mature markets of Western Europe and North America where consumers exercise far more discretion with their brand loyalty compared to younger markets where emotive marketing plays a bigger role.
Havas Media said its research found that Australians were especially sceptical consumers, with only 31 per cent trusting of brands, in line with other mature markets like North America (22 per cent) and Western Europe (31 per cent). Conversely, the global average sits at 40 per cent while levels of trust are even higher elsewhere — for example in Asia (78 per cent).
Havas Media said the figures also showed that global polarisation in the way people feel about brands has continued to widen. This was especially strong in developing Asian markets, where people still said they cared about 60 per cent of brands, an attachment 10 times higher than in the West. Not only was the relationship healthier in developing Asian markets, the Returns on Meaning for brands were 30 per cent higher.
