The UK’s biggest brand movers of 2021 so far
Exclusive new analysis reveals the five brands that have seen the biggest positive shifts in media, brand health and purchase metrics since the start of the year, according to YouGov BrandIndex.
Data from YouGov BrandIndex reveals that Star – the recently launched content hub that sits within the Disney+ streaming service – was the UK’s biggest positive brand mover among consumers between January and February 2021. The brand – which offers programming from ABC, a range of 21st Century Fox studios and other Disney subsidiaries – launched on 23 February in the UK.
The data represents the first release in a new monthly series charting YouGov BrandIndex’s biggest brand movers. It will reveal the top five brands that are resonating the most positively among UK consumers across all BrandIndex metrics – the brands people are loving each month throughout 2021.
Star’s success comes down to a mixture of upward movements across several key BrandIndex metrics during its promotional campaign in early 2021.
Among media metrics – imperative for a newly-launched service – it saw a significant boost in word of mouth and ad awareness (see methodology, below). This increased awareness appears to have corresponded with increases in Star’s brand health metrics such as awareness, quality, impression, reputation, satisfaction and recommend scores – and even purchase funnel metrics such as consideration and current customer scores.
All 4, another television brand, took second place – likely thanks to It’s a Sin, which helped drive the platform to record-high streaming numbers in January 2021. All three media metrics (ad awareness, word of mouth and buzz) saw improvements, as did index, value, impression and satisfaction scores. Current customer scores also increased.
Watch Camelot CMO Keith Moor and YouGov’s Amelia Brophy discussing how the National Lottery turned its brand health scores around. In third place was Quorn, which saw higher ad awareness and word of mouth scores. The brand launched a major campaign highlighting its sustainability credentials in 2021 by leveraging its relationship with Liverpool Football Club. Brand health also improved, with boosts to its value, impression, satisfaction, and recommend scores – while purchase funnel metrics such as consideration and current customer scores rose in kind.
And with Brits possibly limited to a UK-based vacation this year, Center Parcs saw meaningful gains across its brand health metrics – with index, awareness, impression and satisfaction climbing upwards – and its media metrics (word of mouth and ad awareness also rose).
Finally, Samsung Home Entertainment took fifth place thanks to its positive brand health metrics. Index scores increased, as did awareness, value, reputation and recommend scores. Word of mouth also improved.
The Marketing Week view
This month’s biggest brand movers have very different stories, but they highlight the importance of brand-building through multichannel campaigns with a significant mass media element.
In the case of this month’s winner – the new Disney+ sub-brand, Star – there could scarcely be a UK consumer who hasn’t noticed its launch. And the reasons for its success appear simple: it made a big splash with ads prominently displaying the brand itself and its main selling point – the well-known TV shows available on its platform, and how they augment the appeal of the movies already on Disney+.
Disney+ has also been simultaneously highlighting the added value to existing and lapsed subscribers through direct communications, and the rise in consideration and current customers shows the enhanced offering is not just succeeding at the top of the funnel – it’s already translating into sales. The results also demonstrate that even big media owners can benefit from high-profile paid media outside their own channels.
Star’s impressive launch is another indication of the great marketing minds at work within the Disney empire. It has amassed a huge portfolio of diverse content companies and a rich back catalogue of films, and now TV shows, which have helped Disney+ get nearly halfway to market leader Netflix’s 200 million global subscribers, just 18 months since it started up.
Disney’s success has been driven by a mastery of the four Ps. It wasn’t too tough to match Netflix on price and place, but only a company that excels in the fundamentals of marketing could have got the product and promotion so right as well.
While all the top five biggest brand movers have clearly had a period to remember, an honourable mention must also go to Quorn. It has been on a long-term journey to reposition itself from a niche brand for vegetarians to a mass-market brand for everyone who wants to eat less meat. Clearly its latest purpose-driven brand activity is continuing to lend salience to a product range that is not just riding a wave of consumer behaviour change, but which has done a huge amount to make that wave in the first place and grow the category.
Methodology
Data for the Biggest Brand Movers in March compared statistically significant score increases across all BrandIndex metrics between January and February 2021. Brands are ranked based on the number of metrics that saw a statistically significant increase from month to month. Metrics considered are:
Media metrics
Ad awareness: Whether a consumer has seen or heard an advertisement for a brand in the past two weeks
Word of mouth: Whether a consumer has talked about a brand with family or friends in the past two weeks
Buzz: Whether a consumer has heard anything positive or negative about a brand in the past two weeks
Brand health metrics
Index: A measure of overall brand health – an average of impression, quality, value, satisfaction, recommend, and reputation
Awareness: Whether or not a consumer has ever heard of a brand
Quality: Whether a consumer considers a brand to represent good or poor quality
Value: Whether a consumer considers a brand to represent good or poor value for money
Impression: Whether a consumer has a positive or negative impression of a brand
Reputation: Whether a consumer would be proud or embarrassed to work for a particular brand
Satisfaction: Whether a consumer is currently a satisfied or dissatisfied customer of a particular brand
Recommend: Whether a consumer would recommend a brand to a friend or colleague or not
Purchase funnel metrics
Consideration: Whether a consumer would consider a brand or not the next time they are in the market for a particular product
Purchase intent: Whether a consumer would be most likely or unlikely to purchase a specific product
Current customer: Whether a consumer has purchased a given product or not within in a specified period of time