Marketing & Communications Marketing & Communications

Study:
"Meaningful Brands" Outperform Stock Market by 120%

During last week’s SB’13 conference in San Diego, Havas Media unveiled new research that could provide further insight into the minds of consumers. Results released this week from Havas’ latest Meaningful Brands study statistically demonstrate that “meaningful brands” outperform the stock market by 120%. The Meaningful Brands Index (MBI) — Havas’ new metric of brand strength — is considered the first of its kind to connect human well-being with brands at a business level. It demonstrates the relationship correlation between people and brands, and how this can affect the volume of measuring, communicating and delivering increased well-being — on a personal and community level.

By Jessica Rush | Published 11 years ago | About a 2 minute read

Based on the most recent MBI analysis — which Amy du Pon, SVP and Head of Strategic Planning for MPG/Havas Media, discussed during a workshop last week at SB ’13 — the majority of consumers would not miss 92% of top brands. Although discouraging to most CPG companies, this could provide a huge platform to marketers in their field: Since consumers consider only 9% of brands as contributing to improving the quality of life, positive brand messaging with emphasis on solving social and environmental problems resonates the most. To these consumers, family, value and savings, stability, safety and health are increasing priorities while luxury and social status show decreasing significance.

The MBI includes 700 brands and over 134,000 consumers in 23 countries, and measures the impact of certain brands on various levels of well-being — from health, happiness, financial, relationships and community — to show a full spectrum of each brand’s effect on the quality of life of the consumer. The findings show companies with higher MBI scores build stronger brands, gain stronger brand equity, and show greater loyalty preference with emotional attachment.

“Meaningful Brands is both our wake-up call and a practical, but inspirational, guide,” du Pon said. “In order to fix the largely broken relationships and survive in 21st-century terms, we need to evolve from our increasingly commoditized world. The opportunity today is for us to reinvigorate our brands, the role they play and the human value they realize. Learning from the leading brands coming from emerging markets and moving on from prior practices in developed markets will help us achieve tomorrow's success."