Based on 10 years of empirical research involving 50,000 brands, Millward Brown and Jim Stengel developed the list of the world’s 50 fastest growing brands. These companies built the deepest relationships with customers and achieved the greatest financial growth from 2001-2011.
The study, which forms the backbone of the new book, GROW: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies (Crown Business; December 27, 2011), establishes a cause and effect relationship between a brand’s ability to serve a higher purpose and its financial performance. For example, investment in these companies – a list is provided below – over the past decade would have been 400% more profitable than an investment in the S&P 500.
According to Jim Stengal, former global marketing officer of P&G and author of GROW, great brands are build on improving the lives of the people they serve. It was his mission to prove that maximum profit and high ideals aren’t incompatible but, in fact, inseparable.
Selecting the branding firm, Millward Brown Optimor as partner in the study, the collaboration’s mission was to uncover which brands grew the most over the past decade, both in terms of customer bonding and shareholder value.
“Once we identified these brands, our burning question was what, if any, were the common principles that sparked and sustained their growth,” said Millward Brown Optimor VP, Benoit Garbe.
To arrive at the list of 50, Millward Brown Optimor valued thousands of brands across 30+ countries. The list included both B2B and B2C businesses in 28 categories ranging in size from $100 million in revenues to well over $100 billion:
Findings:
The study’s findings uncovered that each brand was built on an ideal of improving lives in some way, irrespective of size and category.
“We define ideal as the higher-order benefit a brand or a business gives to the world,” said Stengel. “Some companies are very explicit about their ideals, like Zappos – their ideal of delivering happiness is on their boxes, all over their offices, even on t-shirts employees wear. Other brands, like Louis Vuitton, are more implicit about it. But all their actions – throughout their products, stores and communications – amplify their ideal to luxuriously accentuate the journey of life.”
Added Garbe, “We found that this ideal is both a source of inspiration externally among customers, as well as a compass for internal decision making. So whether it’s Red Bull which seeks to Uplift Mind and Body or Pampers which is all about Caring for Happy Healthy Development of Babies , an ideal influences all facets of the business from HR and Marketing to R&D and Finance.”
Through case studies, GROW demonstrates how brand ideals aren’t simply about altruism or corporate social responsibility but a fundamental human value that is authentic to the brand and ultimately a driver for extraordinary growth. In fact, Millward Brown Optimor’s analysis discovered that those who centered their businesses on ideals had a growth rate triple that of competitors in their categories.
How Ideals Impact the Consumer Mind
To further explore if and how ideals impact consumer attitudes, Millward Brown’s Neuroscience team devised a method to uncover the implicit associations that people make between brands and ideals. This custom research provided insights into the types of associations activated in people’s minds by the Stengel 50 brands and their competitors. The research uncovered the extent to which these high-growth brands touch on the five fields of fundamental human values identified in GROW:
Eliciting Joy:
To further explore if and how ideals impact consumer attitudes, Millward Brown’s Neuroscience team devised a method to uncover the implicit associations that people make between brands and ideals. This custom research provided insights into the types of associations activated in people’s minds by the Stengel 50 brands and their competitors. The research uncovered the extent to which these high-growth brands touch on the five fields of fundamental human values identified in GROW:
- Eliciting Joy: Activating experiences of happiness, wonder, and limitless possibility
- Enabling Connection: Enhancing the ability of people to connect with each other and the world in meaningful ways
- Inspiring Exploration: Helping people explore new horizons and new experiences
- Evoking Pride: Giving people increased confidence, strength, security, and vitality
- Impacting Society: Affecting society broadly, from challenging the status quo to redefining categories
“GROW will change the way the C-Suite thinks about achieving financial performance and will help usher in a new era of marketing,” said Eileen Campbell, Global CEO of Millward Brown. “We are incredibly proud of our work with Jim – work that embodies Millward Brown’s own brand ideal of creating meaningful impact.”
Listing of the 50 businesses:
Accenture, Airtel, Amazon.com, Apple, Aquarel, BlackBerry, Calvin Klein, Chipotle, Coca-Cola, Diesel, Discovery Communications, Dove, Emirates, FedEx, Google, Heineken, Hennessy, Hermès, HP, Hugo Boss, IBM, Ideals – The Ultimate Growth Driver, Innocent, Jack Daniel’s, Johnnie Walker, Lindt, L’Occitane, Louis Vuitton, MasterCard, Mercedes-Benz, Method, Moët & Chandon, Natura, Pampers, Petrobras, Rakuten Ichiba, Red Bull, Royal Canin, Samsung, Sedmoy Kontinent Sensodyne, Seventh Generation, Snow, Starbucks, Stonyfield Farm, Tsingtao, Vente-Privee.com, Visa, Wegmans, Zappos, Zara.
Photo Credit: iStock
