Study driven by consumer insights provides true picture of the role brands play in people’s lives

Global brand and marketing consultancy Prophet announced the results of the fourth Prophet Brand Relevance Index® (BRI), a ranking of the most relevant brands in consumers’ lives today.

PayPal #25, Nationwide #38 and Visa #43 represented financial services in this year’s top 50 list. This was the first time that three financial services companies appeared in the top 50 since 2016. It was also Nationwide’s first appearance in the top 50 while PayPal fell one place from #24 in 2017 while Visa rose a place from #44 last year.

There were many other additional brands to this year’s UK top 50 including: Benefit, Uber, ASOS, BMW, Sensodyne and Nivea.

The top ten most relevant brands were:

1. Apple
2. Lego
3. PlayStation
4. Google
5. Netflix
6. Fitbit
7. Spotify
8. Amazon
9. NHS
10. Android

“Besides being technology-led disruptive companies, what many of the top 10 have in common is that they’re fast earning consumer trust by leveraging data to enhance the brand experience and connect with consumers on a deeper and more personal level,” said Rune Gustafson, President EMEA at Prophet.

In order to find out which brands are the most relevant to people’s lives, Prophet conducted a survey of 11,500 UK consumers about more than 240 brands across 27 industries measuring across four brand principles: customer obsession, ruthless pragmatism, pervasive innovation, and distinctive inspiration. By speaking directly with consumers, the BRI determines which brands are truly indispensable to people’s lives and how forces like technology are changing consumer behaviours.

“The Prophet Brand Relevance Index continually demonstrates that relevance pays for companies and consumers,” said Gustafson. “By finding new ways to delight, surprise and exceed expectations, relevant brands are not only winning the hearts, minds and loyalty of consumers, they’re also winning financially too by outperforming the FTSE Index by 73% over the last decade. It’s clear that in order to succeed and grow, brands must be relevant. And, as a predictor of business growth, brand relevance is a far more powerful tool than traditional measures that companies would usually use like Net Promotor Score, for example, and that’s why the BRI is valuable for identifying both areas of strength and opportunity for brands to improve.”

Key Findings 

• Home-grown brands are falling behind. Year on year there’s been a decrease in the number of British brands making it into the top 50 – accounting for only 22% in 2018. British brands have been slow to adapt and adopt and the lack of disruptive innovation is fast putting future growth at risk. For brands that commit to innovation – like Dyson (12) – there’s a real opportunity to stand out from the pack.
• The power of Purpose. Lush (16), Ikea (28), brands with conviction are becoming more powerful, influential and relevant than ever. Having a built-in Purpose is enabling deeper connections to be made with consumers over pertinent issues whilst also enabling brands to tell compelling stories that build genuine warmth, credibility and loyalty.
• Rethinking value exchange.For a long time, brands failed to deliver value beyond the transactional relationship but now – with Netflix (5) and Spotify (7) leading the charge – we’re seeing more swapping rich data in order to deliver more personalised, more welcomed and more relevant experiences to consumers.
• User mindset over matter. Lego (2), Fitbit (6), Whatsapp (22) for these brands it’s no longer about treating customers as buyers but more about developing an ever-growing user base that can be tapped into in innovative, creative and community-led ways.