Stories are the reason we stay awake late to finish a book, watch a movie or binge watch on Netflix. Stories engage us like little else. So why do we not see more stories used in advertising? If done right, storytelling can make your communications more engaging, more impactful, and more motivating. For the purposes of advertising, however, not any story will do. It takes skill and thought to make a story an effective creative tool for your brand.
In this Financial Times special report, learn the major stories that defined this year’s BrandZ™ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands; from what it is about Apple that makes it so successful, to consumers moving away from Luxury brands and what impact that is likely to have on the category as a whole. See the impact that millennials are having on brand strategy, as well as what the banking industry should be doing to repair its reputation in these exclusive reports from the Financial Times, using BrandZ data.
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To be certain that brands are backing ads that will deliver ROI, marketers really ought to be testing every execution. However, owing to the traditionally high cost of pretesting, often only the most expensive formats end up being tested. Yet, as Daren Poole, Global Brand Director, Creative Development, Millward Brown, argues, if marketers are more pragmatic about the level of insight that they actually need, they can test more creative across more channels and executions without the higher price tag.
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Millward Brown and WPP will release the 10th annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands 2015 ranking and report Wednesday, May 27th. The report offers insight on brand value and performance globally across 14 categories.
Brand is among the most valuable financial assets of modern corporations. Brand contributes more to shareholder value creation than any other asset – tangible or intangible. Strong brands help drive sales, grow market share and build shareholder value. They're a key to the success of many of today's leading stock market winners. Read more.
The 2015 BrandZ™ Top 100 brands are all big and salient, but in many categories they struggle to be seen as meaningfully different. This works to their detriment because brands that are perceived as meaningfully different possess some important properties. Read more.
There's no mistaking the swelling tide of attention to, and interest in, corporate sustainability – both from the perspective of businesses and from consumers. Guiding millennials through the evolving sustainability landscape may be a key foundational element of creating meaningful conversations on this topic in the years to come. Read more.
Today, technology has broad implications that impact Brand Value propositions on many levels. One of these is brand behavior. Both good and bad behavior is immediately known to customers and other stakeholders who want to know how brands think – and act – about topics like child labor, women’s pay equality or sustainability. More broadly than this, purpose will be the acid test for the successful brands of the future. People will select the brand that stands for something they believe is worth supporting. Purpose will also inspire the workforce, and future winners will need to win with employees to be successful.
The SocialZ Verve Index, first released in 2014, uses Millward Brown's proprietary Verve Scoring methodology to measure the overall social vitality of a brand in social media. Born and bred digital brands again dominate the Top 10 in this year's ranking. Social networks – Google (led by YouTube), Twitter, and Facebook take the top three spots. Perpetual consumer favorites, Apple, Disney, and Nike are also in the Top 10. These iconic brands fuel avid attention through new product releases and strong integrated social media activity. Read more.
Brands today have so many ways to connect with consumers and many people are overwhelmed by the amount of advertising they see. It’s important for advertisers to think more carefully about receptivity, and how to track it. Brands that fail to consider the long-term cumulative effect their advertising will have on how people think and feel about their brands may end up irritating consumers, turning them off to advertising overall, or to their brands, and overspending to do so.
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Audi, Chipotle, sports clothing brand Under Armour, Japanese water brand, I Lohas, and the iconic iPhone. What do these brands have in common? All five enjoyed strong market share growth during the recent recession, and each one gained share at the expense of their competition. Unlike McDonald’s, Aldi or Amazon, which also grew, the others are not well known for offering low prices. So how did they grow share? They took what made them different from the competition and made it meaningful and salient to a wider audience.
Our research shows the strongest brands are both Different and Distinctive. Perceived differentiation is driven more by whether people view a brand as unique: think Burberry or, setting the trends for its category, think Apple. Difference can be driven by an innovative product, positioning or even tone of voice. Distinctiveness is driven by sensory and semantic cues that make the brand easy to recognize, for example colors, packaging, logo, design or taglines. Given these definitions it becomes clear that Burberry and Apple are both different and distinctive. Is your brand Different, Distinctive or both? Read more.
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Digital is often considered the most measurable medium, but quantity of digital metrics does not equate to quality of measurement. Many digital blind spots prevent brands from fully anticipating or measuring the response to their campaigns. Ignoring these blind spots may jeopardize your brand's overall success.
RadioShack Brand Name Could Play a Key Role in the Company's Revival
After months of speculation, the bid for RadioShack by Soohyung Kim's hedge fund Standard General was officially approved in bankruptcy court, saving the ailing electronics retailer from imminent liquidation. While RadioShack's road to bankruptcy has been long and well documented (the company was last profitable in 2011), Mr. Kim sees promise where others did not.
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Each generation uses digital differently to consume content and shop for products and services, and marketers need to understand these differences to target their desired audiences on the devices they are most likely to be using. Millward Brown Digital surveyed more than 1,000 consumers in three generations (millennials, born after 1980; Generation X, born 1965-1980; and boomers, born from 1946-1964) to see how different age groups favored different screens for various activities. Published in Adweek, April 12, 2015.
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The importance of brand continues to grow in China, due to increased levels of consumer purchasing power, value expectations and sophistication. Chinese companies that have invested in brand building are now reaping the benefits. So why is there still a persistent gap between how consumers view Chinese versus global brands? Doreen Wang, Global Head of BrandZ at Millward Brown, suggests that Chinese brands need to find meaningful and appealing points of difference in order to thrive on the global stage.
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Businesses understand that building a strong brand helps generate a price premium and increases sales volumes. For many of the stock market’s leading performers it is the strong brands they have built that drive market success. Doreen Wang, Head of BrandZ at Millward Brown explains why investment banks, financial analysts and private equity investors should pay more attention to “brand” in investment valuations.
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Strategies for Brands to Reach Users on Different Screens Based on Intent
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Native advertising was a real talking point in 2014, yet only a minority were truly making the most of it. In 2015 this will all change though, as publishers will offer advertisers solutions that are both impactful for marketers and compelling for their audience. However, leveraging this new technology is not as simple as merely purchasing an ad. In this article, Jon Salm, Client Analyst, Millward Brown Digital, explains how you and your brand can best make use of native advertising.
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When micro-video platforms began to introduce paid marketing options, it created a whole raft of new opportunities for brands to leverage the unique aspects of these channels. However, in order to ensure that branded content can succeed, you need to make sure that your messaging complements the specific demands that each platform has. In this piece, Amanda Phillips, Sales & Marketing Director, Millward Brown, explains how you can best optimize your micro-video content to work best for you.
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