Corporate Eye

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Susan Gunelius

Susan Gunelius

World’s 50 Most Popular Brands

earth globe worldBased on an analysis of billions of online conversations, social media intelligence company Infegy ranked 800 brands to determine which were the world’s 50 most popular brands in 2014. By analyzing billions of online conversations from 2015, Infegy based its ranking on the volume of conversations per brand, the overall positive or negative sentiment for each brand, levels of positive purchase intent, and the topics people reference when talking about brands.

According to the study, Google is the most popular brand of 2014 followed by Twitter, Facebook, Apple, and Tumblr. This is the second year in a row that Google has taken the top spot.

However, it was Disney that got the most positive brand sentiment (86%) in social conversations during 2014 followed by Nordstrom (83%), Mercedes-Benz (81%), Adidas (81%), and BMW (81%). On the other hand, CNN got the most negative brand sentiment in social conversations (52%) of the top 50 most popular brands followed by Fox (52%), Soundcloud (51%), Tumblr (46%), and NBC International (43%).

In terms of purchase intent, FitBit was highest at 36% followed by Amazon.com (23%), Google (22%), PayPal (18%), and Playstation (14%). The brands that ranked lowest of the top 50 most popular brands of 2014 in terms of purchase intent were Soundcloud (0%), CNN (2%), MTV (3%), BBC (3%), and NBA (3%).

The biggest jump in ranking was experienced by Chipotle, which moved up to 46th place (a 13-spot increase) while Chevrolet experienced the biggest fall of the top 50 to 30th place (down from 20th place the prior year).

Five new brands made it onto the list of the 50 most popular brands in 2014. They are Flappy Bird (#39), NBC International (#42), Toyota (#44), Intel (#45), and Fox (#48).

The Infegy data also provides statistics related to brand popularity by gender. According to the report, MTV, Starbucks, Chipotle, BMW, and Flappy Bird ranked highest among women. For men, MLB (Major League Baseball), NBA (National Basketball Association), NFL (National Football League), Playstation, and XBox ranked highest.

Technology brands make up 70% of the top 10 most popular brands of 2014 according to the Infegy study. Those top 10 most popular brands are:

  1. Google
  2. Twitter
  3. Facebook
  4. Apple
  5. Tumblr
  6. Disney
  7. Microsoft
  8. BMW
  9. YouTube
  10. Nike

You can follow the link at the beginning of this article to view the full list of the top 50 most popular brands as well as to see additional data related to brand sentiment, purchase intent, and gender.

Image: Stephanie Hofschlaeger

Brands with the Most Loyal Customers in 2015

shirt shoppingBrand Keys has released its annual ranking of the brands with the most loyal customers. This year’s ranking includes 64 categories and 540 brands that were self-identified by over 36,000 U.S. consumers between the ages of 18 and 65.

Overall, the 2015 ranking includes 36 new brands, which means consumers are actively looking for brand replacements in many categories. Some new brands that made it on the list for the first time this year include Under Armour, Reddit, Lyft, and Microsoft Surface. One of these debut brands ranked first in its category—Air Canada.

Other brands that have been on the list in the past but took the top spot in their categories for the first time in 2015 include Facebook, Chipotle, Exxon Mobile, Travelocity, Nationwide, and Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain Breakfast Bars.

Brands that held onto the top spot in their categories since the 2014 ranking include Hyundai, Google, Domino’s, Ford, Avis, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Konica Minolta.

Overall, Apple takes the top spot in the most categories with customers ranking it as the brand they’re most loyal to in three categories: laptop computers, smartphones, and tablets.

Here are the top brands in 2015 based on customer loyalty according to Brand Keys’ in several popular categories:

  • Airline: Air Canada
  • Athletic Footwear: Nike
  • Automotive: Ford and Hyundai
  • Banks: Chase
  • Credit Cards: American Express and Discover
  • Laptop Computers: Apple
  • Online Music: Pandora
  • Online Retailers: Amazon
  • Online Travel Site: Travelocity
  • Online Video Streaming: Netflix
  • Printers: Canon
  • Search Engine: Google
  • Smartphone: Apple
  • Social Networking Sites: Facebook
  • Tablets: Apple

It’s important to note that there is a growing gap between what customers expect to get from brands and what brands are actually delivering to consumers. Brand Keys found that although customer expectations have increased by 28% across all of the categories in the 2015 study, brands have only improved their ability to meet customer expectations by 7% over the prior year.

The most important part of branding is massaging consumer perceptions so they have realistic expectations for your brand (i.e., the expectations that you want them to have) and then meeting or exceeding those expectations in every brand interaction. Today, it’s too easy to switch to a new brand. If your brand fails to meet consumer expectations, they’ll turn away from it and find another that does meet their expectations in every interaction.

Are you meeting your customers’ expectations for your brand? Remember, if your brand lets your customers down, it’s very difficult to regain their trust. Without their trust, there is no loyalty and your brand will fail. Close the gap!

Image: Robert Linder

The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies in 2015

innovation idea lightbulbThe world’s most innovative company in 2015 might surprise you. According to Forbes’ annual ranking, the most innovative company today isn’t Apple (which ranked second on the list), and it’s not Google (which ranked fourth). It’s not Facebook or Twitter (neither company ranked in the list of the 50 most innovative companies, although Facebook’s Instagram did rank in fifth place).

So which company is the most innovative in 2015?

In 2015, the most innovative company in the world is Warby Parker, an eyewear company that started as an ecommerce startup and today has retail locations around the United States with $100 million in revenue. The CEOs of Warby Parker attribute the company’s success to their “deliberate” prioritization of the brand.

Here are the top 10 most innovative brands of 2015 according to the Forbes ranking:

  1. Warby Parker
  2. Apple
  3. Alibaba
  4. Google
  5. Instagram
  6. Color of Change
  7. HBO
  8. Virgin America
  9. IndiGo
  10. Slack

This year’s list of the most innovative companies in the world includes companies from every continent except Antarctica making it a truly global list. The list features newcomers like WeWork and American Giant as well as global companies like Toyota, L’Oreal, and Tesla and Kickstarter companies like Oculus VR and Kano.

Forbes shared 20 lessons of innovation for 2015 that its staff learned while developing this year’s list of the most innovative companies. You can follow the link to read all of the lessons (it’s well worth it!). Five lessons that really caught my attention are:

  • Innovation requires speed, and velocity of change can make or break innovation.
  • Every company is a tech company regardless of the industry they operate in.
  • Platforms are powerful and can drive innovation execution.
  • Innovation follows the traditional bell-curve lifecycle, which means companies that fall off of the list of the most innovative companies can get back on the list as their innovations mature.
  • Collaborative disruption facilitates innovation and partnerships are becoming more common as companies realize the benefits of collaborative innovation.

You can follow the link at the beginning of this article to see the full list of the 50 most innovative companies of 2015 as well as a breakdown of the companies by sector. One thing is certain, it’s great to see a variety of companies on this list rather than the same “innovative” companies that always appear on these lists like Apple and Google.

What do you think? Are you surprised by any of the companies that made the list this year or any of the companies that didn’t make the 2015 list? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the 50 most innovative companies of 2015.

Image: Raja R

UK Consumers Will Share Private Data with Brands Under Certain Conditions

data sharing privacyWant UK consumers to share their private data with your brand so you can use it to develop personalized and highly targeted brand marketing campaigns? Don’t assume because you’ve been in business a long time or have a lot of positive customer reviews that consumers will start giving you all of the data you ask for. They won’t. However, there is a way to get more UK consumers to share their data with your brand. As eMarketer reports, the key is communication.

Based on the results of a study by DBS Data, the Direct Marketing Association UK, and fast.MAP, UK consumers want two primary things from brands in order to share their private data with them: trust in the brand and a clear and concise data protection policy. Let’s take a closer look at the findings from the study.

Here is the ranking of reasons UK internet users said they believe a brand will handle their data responsibly:

  1. Trust in the brand = 26%
  2. Clear and concise data protection policy = 25%
  3. Ask with whom they can share data = 19%
  4. Give me the option of how to communicate = 19%
  5. Previous experience of good customer service = 18%
  6. Easy-to-use website with obvious security = 15%
  7. Ability to update/edit data held = 11%
  8. Easy to find data protection policy = 10%
  9. Thorough contact details = 9%
  10. High street presence = 8%
  11. Positive customer reviews = 8%
  12. Been in business a long time = 6%

The results of this survey are good news for brands. There are some very specific ways that you can increase consumer trust in your brand and convince them to share their private data with your brand.

First, develop a transparent, easy to read, and easy to understand data protection policy, and make it easy to find and read. Second, give them choices so they feel like they’re in control. Allow them to choose who you can share their data with and how to communicate with you. Third, your customer service team is often the “face” of your brand, and how they treat customers trickles through to affect many aspects of your business, including brand trust and your ability to collect customer data. With that in mind, make sure the customer service team is well-trained not only in serving customers but also in advocating the brand and building brand trust with callers.

Do you collect data from your online customers? Leave a comment and share what works well for your brand.

Image: ilker

Brand Social Customer Service is Failing Consumers

question marksConsumers want social customer service, but according to the fourth quarter 2014 data from Social Bakers’ Socially Devoted study, consumers are very disappointed in the customer service they’re actually receiving from brands on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites.

To put this problem into perspective, Social Bakers reports that the telecom industry offered the best social customer service during the fourth quarter of 2014, but even that industry leaves a lot to be desired. If you asked a question via social media that was directed to a telecom brand during that time period, there was a 33% chance it would be answered if asked on Facebook and only a 14% chance if it had been asked on Twitter. And that’s the best performing industry! No wonder consumers are disappointed in the social customer service they receive from brands.

What all companies need to understand is that social media isn’t just for brand marketing. Consumers expect companies to offer customer service through brand social media profiles and pages, too. In the retail industry, the demand for social customer service increased by 22.1% during the fourth quarter of 2014! Other industries where the demand for social customer service increased the most during the fourth quarter are e-commerce (up 20.5%), software (up 17.2%), services (up 14.4%), and industrial (up 13.8%).

Social Bakers points out that providing customer service via social media increases social interactions with “socially devoted” brands getting 3.4-times more interactions than “non-socially devoted” brands. In other words, every one of those interactions could lead to a conversion or sale—directly or indirectly.

The Top 5 Brands Offering Social Customer Service

The five brands that provided the most social customer service on Facebook during the fourth quarter of 2014 were:

  1. KLM – 99.1% response rate and 99 minutes response time
  2. Robi Axiata Limited – 99.0% response rate and 20 minutes response time
  3. Grameenphone – 95.9% response rate and 88 minutes response time
  4. Banglalink Meia – 98.8% response rate and 41 minutes response time
  5. Telkomsei – 65.3% response rate and 35 minutes response time

The five brands that provided the most social customer service on Twitter during the fourth quarter of 2014 were:

  1. Telkomsei – 70.6% response rate and 7 minutes response time
  2. STC – 81.6% response rate and 32 minutes response time
  3. ASOS Here to Help – 71.1% response rate and 316 minutes response time
  4. Virgin Media – 67.6% response rate and 256 minutes response time
  5. O2 in the UK – 67.6% response rate and 371 minutes response time

Follow the link at the beginning of this article to get the full top 10 brand lists as well as all of the statistics from the Social Bakers study.

One thing is certain, consumers want brands to offer customer service via social media, and they expect the response rate to be high and the response time to be low. If you’re not delivering on those wants and expectations, you’re disappointing your customers.

Image: Benito LeGrande

Facebook’s Growing Problem – Passive Users

keyboard passiveFacebook is the most popular social networking site in the world (except China) with the most members (81%) and the most active users (42%) according to December 2014 data from GlobalWebIndex. However, Facebook was the only large social network to see its active usage drop in 2014 (by 9%). At the same time, Facebook is facing an even bigger problem, which GlobalWebIndex refers to as passive Facebooking.

As 2014 drew to a close, GlobalWebIndex reports that only 52% of Facebook users were active users, which is a significant drop from 70% in 2012. When they do use Facebook, users are just browsing without actually posting or commenting on anything they read or see. In December 2014, two out of five Facebook users (not including China) used the site passively to browse but not to interact.

What’s causing the shift to passive Facebooking? Is it that people are becoming more interactive on other social media sites? Are they unhappy with privacy and tracking policies used on Facebook? Are they using their mobile devices to access Facebook which makes them less likely, statistically, to interact rather than just consume content? Have changes to how Facebook presents information in users’ news feeds affected their behavior?

While Facebook is seeing a decline in active usage (although still at levels higher than other social media sites), competitors are seeing huge gains. Pinterest grew its active users by 97% in 2014 while Tumblr grew active users by 95%. Snapchat was the fastest growing social/messaging application in 2014 (+57%), and YouTube is getting visits from more people (82% of internet users between the ages of 16 and 64) than Facebook (73%).

GlobalWebIndex also reports that the total amount of time that people spend on social networks continues to increase. In 2012, they spent an average of 1.61 hours per day on social networks, and in 2014, that number increased to 1.72 hours per day.

Bottom-line, social networking and social media overall continue to grow, but Facebook appears to already be moving past the maturity stage into the decline stage. If the trend toward passive usage continues, the company could be in big trouble very soon. Already, brands are unhappy with how Page updates are displayed to fans, making it nearly necessary to pay for advertising to get any brand exposure on the the site. For a site that depends on interaction of its users for many things, passive usage is a very big problem.

What do you think? Should Facebook be worried? Are you investing your 2015 social media time and online advertising budgets into Facebook at the same levels you have in the past or are you shifting your brand to other social sites? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Teresa Howes