Updated: Aug 24, 2022
By Marinette Dalbart, Client Servicing Director
Based on the most popular brands ranking, the BrandTrends April’22 wave reveals 4 main trends and opportunities for companies.
Background: The market is consolidating, as seen by the decrease in the number of brands named by respondents and the decline in brand recognition. The brands that may be found in a number of categories are the most successful ones.
1. Certain categories continue to be active, due to strong brands that appeal to a wide audience. This is the case for sport, typically the most popular category (+4 points overall – April’22 vs. Oct’21 among 0-65 yo). Fashion (+10 pts) and social influencers (+8 pts) have huge reach currently, and this is confirmed for them. A positive trend is created for all three when sport, fashion, and social influencers are combined.
Brands can keep consumers’ attention by increasing the number of touchpoints and buck the prevalent trend of giving platforms precedence over content. By offering suitable opportunities to connect, brands would maximize closeness and prevent interest loss.
2. We saw a drop in the number of mentions for the top 30 favorite among women overall (-0,5pts vs +0,8pts among total). The different age groups do not confirm this decrease. This can be explained by the fact that different age groups name a greater number of brands. This may represent an opportunity for brands if compensating the lack of penetration by increasing the affinity among the target.
Brands may use enhanced affinity to offset the loss of reach. The majority of customers must find the messages and content to be relevant. You can use differentiation as a technique to cut through the clutter.
3. Although there are more social influencers overall, not everyone is making money off of the trend. Some focus on specific target and this limits their growth on top of reducing the strength of their performance. Reaching out to as many individuals as possible helps to establish brand performance.
Maintaining brand DNA is essential and stretching should not be associated with confusion. Any new touchpoint or message should be in line with both current and exploratory targets. Otherwise, the action plan would not be as effective — and could even result in failure.
4. Brand performance is directly influenced by the ability to encourage contact between targets and generations.
Disney is developing new demographics, particularly the youngest (+0,4 pt among 0 to 6 yo). This is most likely a result of Disney+, which supports future growth by offering numerous opportunities for brand connections among all age groups and households.
Lego, on the other hand, is seeing a seasonal fall (-0,4 points compared to April 21 and even -1,1 points compared to April 19). The brand is gradually performing worse and worse as a result of a significant loss of its primary target (-1,3pt among 7-24 yo).
A brand must grow in a balanced manner while keeping its original objectives in mind. Actions can be multiplied by the ability to generate cross-target sharing.
