Over the past 10 years, brands have had to withstand a global economic downturn and once in a lifetime pandemic while trying to remain relevant to increasingly exacting customers. Brands with a clear purpose-driven approach, that have remained true to their values and resisted the pressure to compromise, are the ones that have thrived.
Looking back at a decade of unique data and insight amassed by the FutureBrand Index (FBi), we can see the strategies that brands need to embrace to stay relevant and win out. Whether you’re leading a long-established brand or building an industry disruptor, these insights provide a roadmap for the next decade of brand leadership. Here are my thoughts on how brands can hone their purpose and experience to thrive this year.
Make brand perception a C-Suite obsession
Aim for 2025: Make purpose-driven leadership run through the DNA of every decision, shaping products, services, and experiences from the top down.
Samsung, Apple, and Disney have made up the top three brands in the FBi over the past decade, each of them have rooted their growth strategies firmly in brand. Their alignment with the purpose and customer experience they provide is totally uncompromising.
AI-powered search is an example of a significant change that will require businesses to take a top-down approach to brand in 2025. AI integrated into search provides myriad opportunities for better aligning advertising with in-moment intent.
However, to leverage this opportunity fully, businesses need to be more committed than ever to their core areas of brand strength – not just ephemeral communications ideas – to ensure their brand isn’t diluted across multimedia campaigns and is deeply entrenched in all planning and action.
Stick or switch
Aim for 2025: Define the 1-2 critical dimensions of your brand perception you need to commit to, time and time again, and where you have flexibility to pivot to better meet evolving market needs.
Ten years of FBi data tells us that the most successful brands do one of two things – they constantly evolve to meet market demands, or they go all-in on what makes them great. Either way, total commitment to brand is non-negotiable.
Marketers will benefit from looking back at the past year to carve out the path ahead. Knowing how exactly they best connected with target audiences and stood out from the market shows the areas to double down on for a year of success.
Take Disney, which has a clear mission to entertain through storytelling, and has consistently achieved this at every conceivable touchpoint for decades, as an example of how and when to stick to what your brand is good at. Many of the world’s largest brands leaned into these attributes over the past decade, with large rises in the number of respondents seeing them as committed to mission (+10%) and story (+11%).
Conversely, knowing which attributes a brand is struggling with tells a story about when and how to make a change of direction. Knowing, for instance, that a rival brand is seen as more indispensable by consumers shows where to direct the focus of marketing efforts to stand out among competition. Brand is a direct route to profit in these cases.
Lean into Purpose
Aim for 2025: Learn to embrace ‘Purpose’ so it is not a buzzword – but rather the backbone of profitability.
Customers demand brands to play a meaningful role in their lives and not just produce a popular product, which is why two similar products can have two very different growth trajectories, like Samsung and Nokia.
Samsung consistently leads across purpose attributes like innovation and authenticity, and as a result 82% of FBi respondents see it as a brand making forward progress. Brands with purpose are the ones shaping the future.
Experience is the first touchpoint between brands and consumers, but purpose is the key to driving repeat and long-term loyalty. Marketers need to be specific about deciding which purpose attribute to put that laser focus on in their planning. This could be positioning products as more premium, or emphasising the amount of innovation being pursued – all of these attributes help brands to keep consumers coming back for more.
The loyalty lifeline
Aim for 2025: Figure out your drivers of loyalty and remain laser-focused on them.
Once brand loyalty has been fostered, its strong emotional connection can be an insulating force in tougher times. Some 67% of FBi respondents would continue supporting a brand they admire despite financial hardship, so understanding who your backers are and why they love your brand is a long-term profit protector.
You can see two contrasting examples of this in Nike and Peloton. Despite high-profile challenges at Nike, its commitment to brand has elevated its customers to loyal fans providing it with a buffer of goodwill, allowing the company sufficient runway to reorganise and implement a recovery strategy which avoids substantial long-term damage.
But looking at a brand like Peloton, also facing extended challenges, it’s a wonder that they haven’t done more to expand their brand given their loyal fan base that very much lives the product. Peloton has a 92% retention rate over 12 months, an impressive feat that kept them afloat post-pandemic, but finding new customers has been a challenge. Brands should take note and see fandom as an opportunity to double down on what people truly love about their brand, not just the product.
The world is your competition
Aim for 2025: Wide the aperture of your playing field. You may not always be competing globally, but customer demand is, more than ever, shaped by global brands.
A ten year trend from the FBi has been the rise of global brands, particularly from the APAC region, and a dilution of the US’ dominance. Seven of the top ten brands in 2014 were from the US, but only four a decade on. This opening up of the global playing field necessitates a new approach to brand leadership that considers both how they go to the world and how the world comes to them.
New market entrants from Asia are investing heavily in branding and innovation, at a pace that matches what we’d usually see from the US and Europe. Reliance industries didn’t even feature in 2018’s FBi, but placed second this year.
This year, brands will need to innovate, maintain service and balance costs like never before to ensure they remain relevant globally.
Lauren Maynard is global chief growth officer at FutureBrand
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