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Research reveals marketers’ best-loved brands

People who ‘love’ a brand are three times more likely to recommend it to others and will tolerate it making twice as many mistakes as any other before taking their custom elsewhere, according to a new report from Energy PR.

The Brand Love report, which surveyed over 100 top marketers, identifies what it takes to create a great tech brand and what more is needed if it’s to be loved.

According to the marketing experts, contrary to popular opinion, being original isn’t that important when it comes to greatness. Despite the success of brands such as Apple and Tesla, only 17% of marketers think that uniqueness is important, and just 1 in 10 (11%) believe a brand’s greatness is determined by its level of innovation. Instead, the key ingredients for greatness were trust (60%) and how a brand makes a consumer feel (58%). These factors outperform even practical considerations such as customer support (34%) and value for money (33%).

Even if a brand achieves greatness, this is no guarantee that it will be loved according to the research. To be loved involves a greater level of intimacy; over half of the marketers studied suggest a loved brand is aligned to the customer’s values (55%), indeed it must be ‘part of their life’ according to 42%. Over a third (38%) went further, adding that such a brand needs to be closely tied with the customer’s identity. Interestingly, the list of brands that marketers feel 100% committed to is dominated by tech brands, with Apple and Samsung appearing in the top 10.

Commenting on the findings, Louise Findlay-Wilson, MD of Energy PR, said: “It is easy to understand why a brand like Apple tops the list when it comes to commitment, when we consider that according to our marketers, a loved brand becomes part of someone’s identity and life. Apple historically very cleverly aligned its laptops and computers as the tech of choice for people who identify themselves as ‘creatives’, fundamentally linking the brand with their sense of creative identity.”

The report also identifies a ‘recommender gene’ which some people simply do or don’t have, and which will overrule how they feel about a brand; for instance, even among the consumers who love a brand, 10% will still not recommend it (or any other). Contrarily 30% of people who are not that committed to any brand will still happily recommend brands to others.

When it comes to the most common mistakes brands make, neglecting the feelings of customers by focusing solely on new customers came top (58%), followed by forgetting current customers (54%), being inconsistent with messaging (28%), failing to understand customers properly (28%) and not being authentic (27%).

The report reveals that the brands the 100 top marketers love the most are: Apple; Nike; Adidas; Sky; Samsung; L’Oréal; Amazon; E.on; Tesco; and Asda.

You can download a copy of the Brand Love report here.