🎓 Breaking down the key aspects of brand reputation

The Havas Group has presented its 'Meaningful Brands 2019' report at our university. This report is a bi-annual study that has been produced for more than 10 years now, and it analyses the most relevant brands and the attributes that justify their position in the minds of consumers.

Fecha: Monday, 25 de November de 2019 a las 18:30h

Breaking down the key aspects of brand reputation

The Havas Group has presented its 'Meaningful Brands 2019' report at our university. This report is a bi-annual study that has been produced for more than 10 years now, and it analyses the most relevant brands and the attributes that justify their position in the minds of consumers. The report offers an analysis of over 1,800 brands based on interviews with 350,000 consumers from 31 different countries. In Spain, 38,000 consumers gave their opinions.

Dionisia Mata Prado, Insights Director at Havas Media Group, was responsible for breaking down the key elements behind 'Meaningful Brands 2019'. The key conclusion from the study is that the reputation of the brands in question depended less on the functionality of their product or service and more on other values. In the case of Spain, just 42% of a brand's reputation was based on functional attributes. Consumers felt the remaining 58% is built on so-called 'personal benefits' and 'collective benefits'. Personal benefits refer to the brand's capacity to improve a consumer's life, and collective benefits refer to the brand's contribution to society.

As pointed out by Mata Prado, brands no longer stand out for the quality of their product per se. "Nearly all brands offer 'functional benefits'. What sets them apart are more intangible elements. 'Meaningful Brands' gives us confirmation of that: the brands that make it into the Top 50 list score around 20% more for personal benefits than the average, and 13% more for collective benefits.

This score for 'personal benefits' and 'collective benefits' also explains how certain brands have notably improved their standing with regard to the 2017 report. This improvement has mainly been driven by 'personal benefits'. The brands that most improved their standing from the previous study improved their personal benefits rating by 17%, according to Mata Prado.

Reputation by sector

If we look at the results by sector, 'Meaningful Brands 2019' reveals an interesting trait of the Spanish market: Spain stands out as "one of the countries with the most food-related brands in the Top 50 ranking". Conversely, the country rates more poorly with brands from the telecommunications, insurance and finance sectors. That doesn't mean that businesses in the sector can't achieve a positive reputation, though. "If they build up their values, they could improve their brands position", says Mata Prado.

Priorities of consumers

The report also offers a description of consumers in our country. Spanish consumers end to prioritise health, life experiences, personal relationships and leisure time. Secondary to that, they value the ease of accessing a product or service, followed by price. To a lesser extent, they also rate environmental sustainability. There's a slight contradiction here as consumers look for social vocation in their brands when making choices, "but they're not really willing to bear the cost of that commitment", says Mata Prado.

Following the presentation of the 'Meaningful Brands 2019' report, a round table was held that covered aspects relating to brand positioning and ways to build reputation. This round table featured the Head of Communication and Advertising at NUPA Servicios de Marketing (ADAM FOODS/IDILIA FOODS), Javier Corominas, the Head of Strategy and Innovation at Havas Media, Víctor Gutiérrez de Tena, and the Head of Advertising and Corporate Image at "la Caixa" Banking Foundation, Montserrat Blanco Fernández. The discussion was moderated by the director of the Master's in Digital Communication and New Technologies at Abat Oliba CEU University, Juan Francisco Jiménez.  

The event was attended by students from our university's undergraduate and master's degrees in Advertising and Public Relations.

 

Breaking down the key aspects of brand reputation