"Decade of the Brand" - Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Index

NEW YORK NY February 11 – The “Decade of the Brand” opens with 2010 proclaims the 14^th annual Brand Keys’ Customer Loyalty Engagement Index®, (CLEI) conducted by the New York-based brand and customer loyalty and engagement consultancy (www.brandkeys.com).

For all 518 brands in the 71 categories tracked in Brand Keys’ Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, attributes relating to “brand” and the degree to which brands affect customer decision-making, category-expectations, and engagement have increased significantly.

“While a powerful finding, it’s not entirely surprising. Our 2009 findings predicted that value, not price, was the watchword in consumer behavior. And you can’t have the value conversation without the brand conversation, as true brands provide meaningful differentiation on a world over-run by commodities,” noted Robert Passikoff, Brand Keys founder and president.

“That makes brands a surrogate for value, and more important than ever to consumers in every category. But that’s brands – real brands, not just well-known products and services or the latest celebrity-endorsed offerings that stand for nothing in consumers’ minds. It’s real brands that have reached their highest level of consequence since the 1960’s,” added Passikoff.

“Given the levels of commoditization we’ve witnessed in the past decade, it’s no surprise that consumers are looking for brands to make a difference. The consumer value equation has shifted dramatically from ‘price-value’ to ‘value-for-dollar,” said Passikoff. “The undeniable fact is that consumers looking for value have been forced to look beyond mere primacy of product, price and service. With increased standardization and decreased product differentiation, a real brand can serve up the value consumers expect.”

“It is important to note that the CLEI data is predictive of coming shifts in the consumer marketplace. This particular swing, with real brands becoming more valuable to consumers, is showing up in how they view, compare, and, most importantly, buy in key categories. Consumers have significantly higher expectations regarding anything where brand aspects are associated and leveragable,” said Passikoff.

What Drives Consumers to Buy?

Category drivers are predictive of how consumers will behave in a given category. These drivers have shifted this year, and all brand-related characteristics are making larger contributions to the consumer engagement and loyalty process, specifically in the areas where consumers expect the most in the category.

Category drivers, and the attributes, benefits, and values that make them up, including brand-related values, are critical to a marketer’s understanding of product and service engagement and getting it right when dealing with consumers.

“Properly configured, category drivers will tell you far more than who a consumer is, which is the marketing research typical (demographic and attitudinal) point-of-view. They tell you what you really need to know: how consumers will behave in the marketplace, and most importantly, what will get them to behave more positively toward your offering versus your competitors,” noted Passikoff. “This only matters, of course, if you’re keeping score by counting your sales and profits, and not merely tracking awareness levels.”

Brands that received the highest loyalty and engagement assessments for 2010 were:

                                                               Examples of Key Brand Drivers

Airlines: JetBlue                     Brand Reputation

Allergy Medicine (OTC): Tylenol

Athletic Footwear: New Balance/Nike     Brand Values

Automotive: Hyundai           Right Brand for Me

Banks: Wells Fargo                        Brand Trust/Confidence

Beer (Light): Coors Light

Beer (Regular): Budweiser

Bottled Water (Regular) Aquafina/San Pellegrino   Brand for Value

Bottled Water (Enhanced): Vitamin Water

Breakfast Cereal (Adult): Cheerios     Brand for Tasty Lifestyle

Breakfast Cereal (Children): Lucky Charms  Brand Family-focus

Car Insurance: Allstate            Brand Reputation

Car Rental: Avis

Casual Dining: IHOP                         Brand Value

Clothing Catalogues: J. Crew

Coffee: Dunkin’ Donuts            Brand Value

Computers (Laptops): Apple          Brand Reputation

Computers (Netbooks): Acer/Samsung

Cosmetics (Luxury): Estee Lauder

Cosmetics (Mass): Mary Kay

Credit Card: American Express/Discover  Brand Reputation

Digital Camera (SLR): Canon/Nikon

Digital Camera (Point-and-Shoot): Kodak

DVD Player: Samsung

Energy Provider: PSE&G

Evening News: CBS

Gasoline: BP

Hair Color: Clairol/L’Oreal               Brand Value

HDTV (LCD): Samsung/Sony

HDTV (Plasma) Samsung

Hotel (Luxury): Inter-Continental

Hotel (Upscale) Embassy Suites

Hotel (Mid-Scale): Best Western

Hotel (Economy): Day’s Inn

Insurance: New York Life           Brand Trust

IT Solutions Providers: Accenture

Laundry Detergent: Tide

Long Distance Providers: Verizon

Major League Sports: Major League Baseball/National Football League

Morning News Show: Today (NBC)

Moisturizing Skin Care (Luxury): Clinique

Moisturizing Skin Care (Mass): Mary Kay  Brand for Value

Mutual Fund: American Funds

Multi-Functional Office Copiers: Canon/Konica Minolta

Online Books & Music: Amazon.com     Brand Reputation

Online Brokerage: Scottrade.com

Online Travel Sites: Expedia.com/Kayak

Pain Reliever (OTC): Advil                Trusted Brand

Paper Towels: Bounty/7^th Generation

Parcel Delivery: FedEx            Brand Reliability

Pet Food (Cats): Purina

Pet Food (Dogs): Purina One            Brand Value

Pizza: Domino’s                      Brand Value

Printers: HP

Quick-Serve Restaurant: McDonald’s

Retail Apparel: J. Crew            Brand Buzz

Retail Discount: Wal-Mart

Retail Price Clubs: Sam’s Club

Retail Department Store: Kohl’s/TJ Maxx

Retail Electronics: Best Buy

Retail Office Supply: Staple’s

Retail: Home Improvement: Home Depot

Search Engine: Bing/Google            Brand Added-Value

Soft Drink (Diet): Diet Pepsi

Soft Drink (Regular): Pepsi       Brand Appropriate

Spaghetti Sauce: Barilla

Toothpaste: Tom’s of Maine

Vodka: Grey Goose                       Brand Image

Wireless Handset: Samsung

Wireless Smartphone: Apple          Brand Reputation

Wireless Carrier: AT&T Wireless          Brand Leadership

Methodology

For Brand Keys’ 2010 survey, 33,500 consumers, 18 to 65 years of age, drawn from the nine US Census Regions, self-selected the categories in which they are consumers, and the brands for which they are customers. They were interviewed by phone, face-to-face (to account for today’s 20% of the population who are cell phone-only consumers) and on-line.

“At a time when brands are struggling to differentiate from their competition and to find ways to profitably engage their customers, the changes this year serves as a ‘bellwether’ for marketers. It will be the products and services that answer with a truly consumer-centric view of their category – being a real brand – based on predictive loyalty metrics, that stand to gain the most, and establish themselves as this decade’s brand leaders,” said Passikoff. 

“If marketers think that differentiating their products and services and engaging consumers is hard now, just wait until they try doing it when their brands devolve into category placeholders, a product or service that everyone knows, but doesn’t know for anything in particular. That’s when no discount will be deep enough, which is a hard lesson that many retailers have already learned,” Passikoff concluded.

The complete listing of the 71 category rankings can be found at www.brandkeys.com/awards