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3 top qualities of meaningful brands

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Members of the marketing community have long debated the secret to marketing success. Many practitioners assert that differentiation is the key factor. Others maintain that salience is uppermost during critical purchase moments, while a significant group believes that great marketing builds positive consumer sentiment by delivering on a meaningful brand promise.Drawing on learnings from thousands of brand equity studies as well as a recent, groundbreaking pilot that linked neuroscience and survey data to consumer shopping behavior, we have established that the strongest brands don’t rely only on being meaningful or only on being different or only on being salient—they weave all three qualities together.An analysis of the global BrandZ database, in which we compare brands that are low on all three qualities with those that are high on all three, shows that brands that are meaningful, different, and salient derive three times more of their volume from the strength of the brand, as opposed to factors like availability and promotions. Furthermore, they command a price that is 14% higher, and their growth in value share is, on average, six percentage points higher than brands that are low on meaning, difference, and salience.Observing consumer behaviorOur knowledge of the characteristics of successful brands and the latest thinking on human decision-making underscore the importance of meaning, difference, and salience. But can we quantify the influence of each of these elements on consumer purchase volume and price paid?To investigate this, we ran a groundbreaking global pilot. We linked respondents’ survey responses with their actual purchase behavior as well as neuroscience data to get a full picture of how raw emotional response in the brain links to how brands are perceived, and how that in turn influences their purchase choices.We found that the contribution of each of the three qualities was different depending on whether we were looking at purchase volume or price paid. To drive volume, it is most important for a brand to first be meaningful and then be salient. Difference is slightly less important.Being meaningful is also the most important quality in justifying a price premium; after that, being different is next in importance, while being salient matters less. The exact proportions vary by category. To stay meaningful, ask these questions:Does your brand meet the functional needs of consumers?Are you communicating your brand’s story in a relevant way?Does your combination of story and functional delivery make people feel good?Of the brands we measured in our pilot, Coca-Cola and British Airways were among the most meaningful. Both achieved that status through great product delivery that met consumers’ core needs, as well as marketing that made consumers feel good about them.Grow volume through being salientIf growing volume is the goal, then salience is the next most important consideration after meaning. But salience is not simply top-of-mind awareness triggered by the category name; our pilot work confirmed that salience is best measured in association with category needs.For example, British Airways was the strongest brand on traditional top-of-mind awareness for the airline category in the UK. But when we applied a needs-based approach to salience, it was a budget airline brand that came through as the most salient brand. That’s because budget airlines have built an extremely strong association with low price, one of the most important category needs. So, to build salience, you must not only shout louder than the competition, but you must shout about things that relate to category needs.To command a higher price, be differentIf your objective is to sell your brand at a higher price, focus on being different. For an example of great brand differentiation, we can look to Apple, the second most valuable brand in the world according to the latest BrandZ Top 100. Though Apple does well on each element, its most outstanding performance in nearly every category and country is on being different. The basis for this success is Apple’s consistently great product innovation, but Apple also goes beyond functional differentiation to project a unique personality and a clear set of values.Not all product innovations can capture people’s imaginations as Apple has done, but all brand owners should work to establish genuine points of meaningful product differentiation. And even where there is limited scope for functional differentiation, brands should still strive to differentiate through their personality and values.Consider the power of threeThe most successful brands are not just meaningful, just different, or just salient—they are all three. Don’t sell your brand short by only acknowledging one of the three ingredients. Instead, accept the importance of all three and use consumer insight, knowledge of the category, and brand objectives to identify the best area of focus.The writer is Priti Mehra, managing director, Millward Brown Singapore

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